Lyr/Chords Req: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye

04 Apr 97 - 06:58 PM (#3833)
Subject: She Had A Dark & A Rovin Eye
From: Mountain Dog

Looking for lyrics and chords to an old tune with a nautical flavor my Dad used to sing, accompanied on a tenor ukelele.

I remember these lines from the chorus:

"She had a dark and a roving eye

And her hair hung down in ring-gel-lets

She was a _____ girl, a proper girl,

But one of the roving kind."

Any help would be appreciated.

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04 Apr 97 - 08:43 PM (#3839)
Subject: RE: She Had A Dark & A Rovin Eye
From: Joe Offer

The song is "The Roving Kind," by Jessie Cavanaugh and Arnold Stanton. You'll find it on "The Best of the Decca Years" CD by the Weavers, which I'm too lazy to transcribe this evening. Good song, though. I'm going to wait and see if I can find the lyrics or maybe somebody else will transcribe it.

It's got kind of a "big band" sound to it, which is not what you'd expect from the Weavers. I used to hear it occasionally when one of our local radio stations played the "Music of Your Life" format - it was the ONLY Weavers song they played.

-Joe-

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04 Apr 97 - 10:47 PM (#3843)
Subject: RE: She Had A Dark & A Rovin Eye
From: Les Blank

This song was also recorded by Guy Mitchell (of Pittsburg Pennsylvania and Sparrow in the Treetop fame) in the late fifties or early sixties. As much of a fan as I am of the Weavers I have never heard their rendition. Joe, where can I look for the album you mentioned ?

Les Blank

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04 Apr 97 - 10:55 PM (#3845)
Subject: RE: She Had A Dark & A Rovin Eye
From: Les Blank

Just as I hit the SEND button, a verse popped into my head. Don't know for sure, but it may belong to this song.

As I sailed out one evening upon a night's career,

I saw a lofty clipper ship and to her I did steer.

I hoisted up my sig-ga-nals, which she so quickly knew.

And when she saw my bunting fly, she immediately hove too-oo-oo.

Chorus

Am I mad ??

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04 Apr 97 - 10:58 PM (#3846)
Subject: RE: She Had A Dark & A Rovin Eye
From: Arnowitt

Nope. The Black family also did a lovely, clear record- ing of it. I'll write em out over the next few days. once I dig out my tape. I've been meaning to do it anyway.

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05 Apr 97 - 07:09 AM (#3854)
Subject: RE: She Had A Dark & A Rovin Eye
From: Ralph Butts

Dick.......If you do your editing in Notepad or a word processor first, you can probably view the page with your browser to check the appearance. With Netscape, it's "Open File in Browser".....Tiger

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05 Apr 97 - 07:18 AM (#3855)
Subject: RE: She Had A Dark & A Rovin Eye
From: Ralph Butts

That's interesting. The italics are still set on. The whole thing is one big HTML page. That means your tags will be influenced by what happened before. If someone goofs, it's harder to undo. Adding a to this message should remove the italics.....Tiger

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05 Apr 97 - 11:05 AM (#3861)
Subject: RE: She Had A Dark & A Rovin Eye
From: dick greenhaus

Hi- The requested song is called The Fireship. It's in the database (if you can't remember the title, you could always search for [Dark and roving])

The one quoted is a Weavers re-write (to clean it up and avoid offending Methodists) of a fine old bawdy sea song.

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05 Apr 97 - 03:14 PM (#3875)
Subject: RE: She Had A Dark & A Rovin Eye
From: Bob Schwarer

More's the pity. I love those old sea songs, bawdy or not. Bob S.

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05 Apr 97 - 09:46 PM (#3885)
Subject: RE: She Had A Dark & A Rovin Eye
From: Joe Offer

The words in the database sure have a lot more spice to them. I searched under "roving," so I missed it because the word was "rovin.'" Good song - much better than the censored version, I think.

The Weavers "The Best of the Decca Years" is on MCA, MCAD-11465. I think it's widely available, and I'm sure you can get it on the Web at CDWorld or CD Now. MCA also came out with a nice Burl Ives collection - and both of these CD's are at budget prices.

The Weavers Decca recordings are interesting because they are SO commercial. They really do sound like big band songs. I'm glad they didn't do that for very long, although I have to say I still like the stuff.

-Joe-

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05 Apr 97 - 09:52 PM (#3887)
Subject: RE: She Had A Dark & A Rovin Eye
From: belter

even big band sounds good when the weavers did it.

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06 Apr 97 - 12:05 AM (#3892)
Subject: RE: She Had A Dark & A Rovin Eye
From: Dick Wisan

Have I stopped the italics? I put in the end-italics sign.

It might be good to use some other editor, but how do we then upload what we've written to this editor? No sign of the usual Windows edit facilities. Is there a way to do an ASCII upload?

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06 Apr 97 - 12:20 AM (#3893)
Subject: RE: She Had A Dark & A Rovin Eye
From: Joe Offer

You're still in italics, Dick. I use cut-and-paste from any Windows 95 program into the reply box on the forum here, and it works fine - except that the line feeds don't copy over. -Joe-

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07 Apr 97 - 01:28 AM (#3936)
Subject: RE: She Had A Dark & A Rovin Eye
From: Joe Offer

Say.....I just noticed that everybody is in italics. Dick Wisan said the word "original," and apparently put it in italics. He apparently turned the italics on, and nobody yet has entered the proper code to turn it off.

Elementary, Dr. Watson.....

-Joe-

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08 Apr 97 - 12:34 AM (#3989)
Subject: RE: She Had A Dark & A Rovin Eye
From: Dick Wisan

Exactly right, and I've been making bungling efforts to put it right.

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08 Apr 97 - 12:35 AM (#3990)
Subject: RE: She Had A Dark & A Rovin Eye
From: Dick Wisan (more cheerful, this time)

And, _this_time_ (not put in italics not put in emphasis), it worked. :-)

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08 Apr 97 - 12:26 PM (#3999)
Subject: RE: She Had A Dark & A Rovin Eye
From: Dick Wisan (nervously)

This is a test to see if the <PRE> and </PRE> command can do the trick for us. What I'm hoping for the ability to

    

   Lay Out Text     ------------  (very clumsy underlining with hyphens)    

  This way, without breaks       and preserving        the whitespace    as you would need     in posting poetry.    

The lines above should be indented two spaces from the left margin with three   extra spaces for the lines starting "and" and "the".  There should be one blank   line                 before and after the text, and there's a wide blank between   "line" and "before" in (what should be) the line above this one.  

Now, we're out of the PRE zone, and HTML should be wreaking its usual havoc. What I did to produce this is put <PRE> at the top and </PRE> at the bottom of the text. There are no HTM marks in it.

If that text preserves its layout I wonder if the editor could be taught to automatically enter <PRE> at the beginning and </PRE> at the end of the text. It seems to insert certain other things automatically.

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08 Apr 97 - 12:37 PM (#4000)
Subject: RE: She Had A Dark & A Rovin Eye
From: Dick Wisan (Irritated)

No, it didn't work, and the reason is that this blasted editor not only uses HTML code but REWRITES it. It added paragraph markings at the ends of some but not all of my lines, while preserving the whitespace but not the line breaks. Pulling my text into Netscape, it appears in proper layout. Viewed here, it's a mess.

This is not a bad editor, it's an evil editor.

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09 Apr 97 - 03:57 AM (#4036)
Subject: RE: She Had A Dark & A Rovin Eye
From: Bill

Howdy Dick Wissan,

I admire your efforts to figure out the editor, and I have great confidence that you'll conquer the beast if you anthropomorphize it enough.

Allinkausay, Bill

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12 Jul 04 - 10:27 AM (#1223860)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: GUEST,ARTIE

We have the lyrics to "The Roving Kind" but would love to have the guitar chords to the song. Can anyone help?   Please reply to this site. Thanks!

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15 Jul 04 - 10:58 PM (#1226646)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: Jim Dixon

I found this information at http://www.lyricsdepot.com/guy-mitchell/roving-kind.html
(allmusic confirms authorship.)

THE ROVING KIND
[Recorded by] Guy Mitchell
Written by Jesse Cavanaugh and Arnold Stanton

Peaked at # 4 in 1951
Competing versions by The Weavers hit # 11 and by Rex Allen hit #20.
Adapted from the old 1800s English folk song "The Pirate Ship."

Sorry, I can't do chords, but there are sound samples at allmusic—see link above. Maybe someone can listen to them and work out the chords for you.

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16 Jul 04 - 12:24 PM (#1227003)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: TS

same concept to an extent as "As I Roved Out"..: " she had a dark and rovin' eye and her hair it touched her shoulders.."

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16 Jul 04 - 02:14 PM (#1227078)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: GUEST,leeneia

Hey, where's my favorite part?

"Oh, pardon me," she says to me, "for being out so late.
But if my parents heard of this, oh, sad would be my fate.
My father is in politics, a good and righteous man.
My mother is an acrobat, and I do the best I c-a-n."

Chorus

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16 Jul 04 - 03:22 PM (#1227120)
Subject: Lyr/Chords Add: THE FIRESHIP
From: JWB

Guest Artie,

Here's a full version, with all the naughty bits, and the chords I use.

The Fireship           
   G                            D        
As I walked out one evening upon a night's career,
    G                                D
I spied a lofty clipper ship and to her I did steer.
D                                    G                D7
She hoisted up her sig-a-nals which I so quickly knew,
                                                                                             G            D7            G       C            A7               D/A7/D7
And when she saw me bunting up she immediately hove to.
          G                              A7                               
She had a dark and a roving eye, and her hair hung downs in
D
ring-a-lets.
           G                            D                G
She was a nice girl, a decent girl, but one of the rakish kind.

"Oh sir, won't you excuse me for staying out so late,
And if my parents heard of this, then sad would be my fate.
My father, he's a minister, a good and righteous man,
My mother she's a Methodist; I do the best I can."

I eyed that girl both up and down for I'd heard such talk before,
And when she moored herself to me I knew she was a whore.
But still she was a pretty girl; she shyly hung her head.
"I'll go along with you, my lad," was what to me she said.

I took her to a tav-er-in and treated her with wine.
Little did I think that she was one of the rakish kind.
I handled her, I dandled her, and much to my surprise,
Turns out she was a fireship rigged up in a disguise.

So up the stairs and into bed I took that maiden fair.
I fired off my carronade into her thatch of hair.
I fired off a broadside until my shot was spent,
Then rammed that fireship's waterline until my ram was bent.

Then in the morning she was gone, my money was gone too.
My clothes she'd hocked, my watch she stole, my seabag bid adieu.
But she'd left behind a souvenir, I'd have you all to know.
And in nine days, to my surprise, there was fire down below.

So come all you good whaler boys that sail the wintry seas,
And come all you good sailor boys, a warning take by me:
Beware of lofty clipper ships, they'll be the ruin of you,
For she not only made me walk the plank, she set fire to me mainmast, too.

Enjoy,

Jerry

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17 Aug 04 - 11:30 AM (#1249413)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: GUEST,ARTIE

Jerry, Thank you for sending me the words and chords for the Roving Kind. I really appreciated it. I do a lot of sing-a-long songs and will include the Roving Kind in my selections. Once again, thank you so much for your help.
                            Artie

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16 Dec 08 - 10:17 AM (#2516803)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: Mr Happy

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6qlKZeQxtRY

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16 Dec 08 - 04:18 PM (#2517157)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego

This thread brought to mind the late Guy Mitchell, who departed earth in 1999, I believe. His story is at least as interesting as the song legacy he has. A Croatian-American named Albert George Cernik, he was allegedly given his stage name by record producer, Mitch Miller, who introduced himself by saying, "My name's Mitchell. You seem like a nice guy; we'll call you Guy Mitchell."

He had been a child actor, saddlemaker, band and radio singer and adult movie actor. He had his own TV show in 1957. He eventually became as known and popular in the former Yugoslavia and in the U.K. and Australia as in America.

I remember "The Rovin' Kind," "Heartaches By The Number" and "Singin' The Blues" from my high school days in the 1950's. It was a short leap from material like his and Terry Gilkyson songs like "Marianne" to The Kingston Trio's "Tom Dooley" and the folk revival (as some call it).

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21 Jan 09 - 11:29 PM (#2545711)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: JWB

Wow, it isn't often a 200-year old song gets the Nelson Riddle treatment like that. Maybe I should start wearing a tux to gigs -- spruce up the act a bit -- and hire a band to back me up.

Jerry

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22 Jan 09 - 05:52 PM (#2546472)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego

Don't forget the morning coat and spats - a nice touch! It also facilitates riding a horse to your gigs....

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28 Jul 09 - 03:26 AM (#2688577)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: GUEST

I've enjoyed the discussion on "The Roving Kind" tremendously. I know the melody for the chorus, but not for the verses. I'd love to find the sheet music for this. Does anyone have a copy? Can anyone tell me where to find it?

My father was in the Marines in the Pacific during World War II. He learned quite a repetoire of songs during his time there. After the war, he married my mother. I was their first child. I could carry a tune from my earliest years, and my father thought it was cute to teach me some of the songs he'd picked up in his years as a Marine.

At the age of four, I went to my first Sunday School class. Our Sunday School began with a worship service for all the grade levels together, then each grade would have a lesson in a separate room. During our first worship service, the head of the Sunday School asked whether anyone knew a song s/he could sing for the Sunday School. I raised my hand, stood up, and sang, "She Had a dark and a roving eye -i-i and her hair hung down (etc.)"

The church never let my father forget it.

But I didn't know there were verses and now that I DO know, I'd love to know the tune as well.

Thank you.
Lois

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29 Jul 09 - 03:47 AM (#2689404)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: RamblinStu

Just a reminder to you that there is a great version of "Fireship" on ex-Spinner Hughie Jones album Seascape.

Listen to the way he rolls his R's.......


Stuart Pendrill

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29 Jul 09 - 01:34 PM (#2689719)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: dick greenhaus

If memory serves, in Sniclair Lewis' Arrowsmith there was a somewhat tipsy Swedish chemist who bawled out the chorus of this.

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10 Aug 09 - 03:41 PM (#2697140)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: JWB

Guest Lois,

That is a wonderful story. I hope no excommunication was involved.

You can find an admittedly rude version of the song, titled The Fireship, on the CD Salty Dick's Uncensored Sailor Songs. It's available as a single song download for a mere $0.99 on CD Baby, i-Tunes and others. Here's link to CD Baby: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/saltydick

It's a great song.

Jerry

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10 Aug 09 - 08:54 PM (#2697378)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: Joe_F

I have always thought of this song under the name "The Fireship", as with JWB. A slightly different version of the last stanza:

So listen, all you sailormen who sail upon the sea:
Beware of lofty fireships: one was the ruin of me.
Beware of them; stay clear of them: they'll be the ruin of you,
For 'twas there I got my mizzen sprung and strongbox broken too.

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11 Aug 09 - 11:17 AM (#2697738)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: Lighter

"Beware of them; stay clear of them." Internal rhyme often means Oscar Brand.

Just saying.

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11 Aug 09 - 11:40 PM (#2698267)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: KathyW

To Lois, who is looking for sheet music to the song: there is music for it in Stan Hugill's "Shanties from the Seven Seas" under the name "The Fire Ship."

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12 Aug 09 - 01:34 AM (#2698294)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Ey
From: Gibb Sahib

I recently ran across this field recording:
recording

I can't remember how many times I must have sung it during a really long drive, ha ha

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12 Aug 09 - 10:52 AM (#2698562)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: Lighter

Another gem from Steve Gardham's collecting. But I think it came ultimately from the version sung by Brand 25 years earlier. The tune is a little different though.

Am putting the finishing touches on a report (decades in the making) on this song and its relatives.

Would any 'Catters with reactions, different versions, or special recollections, etc., of the song please post 'em?

The same goes for the similar "Ratcliffe Highway/ Cruising 'Round Yarmouth" family.

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12 Aug 09 - 11:49 AM (#2698592)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: dick greenhaus

I guess the Kipper family had the last word(s):

She had a dark and roving eye,
And another one quite similar..."

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12 Aug 09 - 02:14 PM (#2698698)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: Seamus Kennedy

Seamus Kennedy does a great version of it on his Sailing Ships and Sailing Men CD.

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12 Aug 09 - 05:47 PM (#2698904)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: Lighter

Thanks, Dick. I'd forgotten that one.

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16 Nov 10 - 09:06 AM (#3033458)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: shipcmo

refresh

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