Info Req: Roll You to the River (Kieran Halpin)

11 May 02 - 09:47 PM (#709237)
Subject: Kieran Halpin
From: Raggytash

In Kieran's song "Roll you to the River" there is a reference to the G F A. The first verse is There is a bushfire south of Sidney a heatwave in old Queensland theres not much in the G F A but a pile of rusty sand. I've looked in my Atlas but cannot find anything that equates to the GFA ...........Help. What is it

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11 May 02 - 10:42 PM (#709263)
Subject: RE: BS: Keiran Halpin
From: Sorcha

No clue, raggytash.........we'll have to wait for the Ozzies to wake up, I guess.

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11 May 02 - 11:20 PM (#709283)
Subject: RE: BS: Keiran Halpin
From: Hrothgar

I'm awake, but I haven't heard the song. G F A doesn't ring any bells, though.

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12 May 02 - 01:38 AM (#709329)
Subject: RE: BS: Keiran Halpin
From: CapriUni

Could this be a mondegreen, perhaps?

Just a thought

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12 May 02 - 05:50 AM (#709379)
Subject: RE: BS: Keiran Halpin
From: Raggytash

What pray is a Mondegreen, according to the OED Monde is a world of beautiful people, or the set in which one moves but it has no reference to mondegreen. PS Apologies for spelling Kieran incorrectly, mazing what Guinness is responsible for!

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12 May 02 - 06:50 AM (#709404)
Subject: RE: BS: Keiran Halpin
From: Raggytash

OK found out what a mondegreen is, (a mishearing of songwords for the rest of you good people, who like me, didn't know what one was) but I got the lyrics from the sleeve notes

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12 May 02 - 08:42 AM (#709422)
Subject: RE: BS: Keiran Halpin
From: Sandra in Sydney

Well,this Aussie is awake - & I don't know either, we need Bob Bolton - where are you, Bob? Bob is my source of info - he knows almost everything (only once have I known some strange little fact he didn't!!)

by-the-by - if the bushfire really is south of "Sidney", that's not my home town, so the G F A might be a typo, too. Much of Australia does contain red sand.

Let's wait for Bob - I'll send this to him in case he hasn't read it.

sandra

........ In Kieran's song "Roll you to the River" there is a reference to the G F A. The first verse is There is a bushfire south of Sidney a heatwave in old Queensland theres not much in the G F A but a pile of rusty sand.

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12 May 02 - 09:13 AM (#709424)
Subject: RE: BS: Keiran Halpin
From: Bob Bolton

G'day Raggytash, Sandra et al,

I'm afraid GFA doesn't ring any bells for me ... orThe Australian dictionary of acronyms & abbreviations (admittedly a 1980 edition ... but area names don't usually vanish in mere decades). We do like our TLAs in Australia, but I don't know anything relevant for GLA.

Sorry I can't help on that one ... I'll get back if some sudden flash hits ... but ...

Regard(les)s,

Bob Bolton

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12 May 02 - 11:30 AM (#709478)
Subject: RE: BS: Keiran Halpin
From: allanwill

Now, I don't know the song and it may help to know what comes after those lines and this explanation may be a little far fetched, but .........

If you think of the Australian outback as being very big, and another way of saying "very big" is "GREAT" and as the outback vitually contains a whole lot of nothing and another way of saying that is "F*CK ALL" then it could read as:

not much in the Great F*ck All but a pile of rusty sand.

Then again, I haven't got a clue.

Allan

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12 May 02 - 02:15 PM (#709571)
Subject: RE: BS: Keiran Halpin
From: michaelr

Allan, I think you got it in one! :-D

Michael

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12 May 02 - 02:48 PM (#709587)
Subject: RE: BS: Keiran Halpin
From: Clinton Hammond

General F#cking Area?

:-)

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12 May 02 - 06:00 PM (#709694)
Subject: RE: BS: Keiran Halpin
From: Susanne (skw)

I could eMail and ask him - I'm on his mailing list for gigs in Germany.

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12 May 02 - 06:45 PM (#709735)
Subject: RE: BS: Keiran Halpin
From: Paul from Hull

No, PLEASE DON'T, Suzanne....

I WANT it to mean the "Great F*ck All", quite frankly! *G*

Nice one, Alinact!!!

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12 May 02 - 07:26 PM (#709759)
Subject: RE: BS: Keiran Halpin
From: Raggytash

I had considered Great **** All, but gave the benefit of the doubt. If Suzanne is on his mailing list I'd be interested to hear Kieran's version. I'll watch this space!

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12 May 02 - 08:48 PM (#709805)
Subject: RE: BS: Keiran Halpin
From: Bob Bolton

G'day Raggytash,

Without endorsing alinact's inspired guess (it does sum up the Great Sandy Desert, or wherever, but it seems a bit too obscure for a song lyric ... unless there is some earlier reference - and this is the first verse!) I did note that the maps show a lot of regions named "Great" something something.

There's the Great Sandy Desert that I mentioned above, a Great Australian Basin (west of the Great Dividing Range)as well as (ranging a bit wider) the Great Artesian Basin, the Great Australian Bight, The Great Barrier Reef, Great Keppel Island, Great Ocean Road, Great Oyster Bay, Great Sandy Island, Great Victoria Desert, Great Western Tiers ... and the continent was once known as the Great South Land ... (but I must admit that we just can't equal Virginia and North Carolina's Great Dismal Swamp!

But the thing I realised about all these "Greats" is that they don't get abbreviated to TLAs: I might have worked for the SMA (Snowy Mts Authority) and the HEC (Hydro Electric Commission) or travelled down to the MIA (Murrimbidgee Irrigation Area), passing through the ACT (Australian Capital Territory ... [is that what al is in?]) but there is something about the first word "Great" that stops you abbreviating the following words.

I don't know if a full text for the song would help explain (... Raggytash?), but then, if it did we would not need this thread.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

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13 May 02 - 10:09 AM (#710198)
Subject: RE: Keiran Halpin
From: allanwill

Bon Bolton

Yes - ACT.

Allan

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13 May 02 - 11:12 AM (#710239)
Subject: RE: Keiran Halpin
From: allanwill

Sorry Bob - I've turned you into the AC/DC of folkies!

Allan

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14 May 02 - 12:16 AM (#710683)
Subject: RE: Keiran Halpin
From: Bob Bolton

G'day again Allan,

Damn! It's all those people telling me to play my squeezeboxes quietly ... the fingers don't always press hard enough on the odd vital key! That should have read:

C'est bon (Er... sorry about that, but we had Auprès de ma blonde in the tune sets for the Heritage Ball, in Parramatta a few weeks ago and I have been puzzling over why the (official?) lyrics are at such odds with the general impression one gets from its enthusiastic singing by service personnel!

Regards,

Bob Bolton (Qu'il fait bon, fait bon, fait bon ...)

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16 May 02 - 03:05 PM (#711780)
Subject: RE: Keiran Halpin
From: Raggytash

refresh

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17 May 02 - 12:36 AM (#712069)
Subject: RE: Keiran Halpin
From: Bob Bolton

G'day Raggytash,

"Refresh" indeed! Can you drop in a few more of the lyrics from Kieran's Roll you to the River? There may be some other clue in the context ... otherwise we only have SFA ... which, surprisingly, does not stand for what we latterly believe!

It really does stand for Sweet Fanny Adams. Frances Adams was murdered around 1870 and her boddy disposed of, cut up into small peices. Her name became wryly eponymous with Navy issue tinned bully beef, then reduced to the acronym SFA ... and later, well after her memory faded, the other supposed derivation was imposed by a process of 'folk etymology'. (I should have mentioned that one in side issue ... spelled "Thread Drift" ... on the Parody Legalities thread!)

Regards,

Bob Bolton

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12 Jun 02 - 08:07 PM (#728792)
Subject: RE: Keiran Halpin
From: Susanne (skw)

OK - relax, all of you! This is what I got from Kieran a couple of days ago:
"The "G. F. A." does in fact mean the great fuck all. It is what the white man (or those I met in Brisbane) calls the Outback in Australia. Basically they have no idea how to live as the Aborigonals do in the Outback so they disregard it in this way. It is more a joke than serious."

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13 Jun 02 - 12:13 AM (#728916)
Subject: RE: Keiran Halpin
From: Bob Bolton

G'day Susanne,

Thank's for pinning Keiran down to an explanation! What I had been trying to get was a larger sample of the song, so that I could judge the 'tone' of it ... indeed, whether the great fuck all was a possible reading. I just couldn't tell from what was given.

I must say that I have never struck that particular usage ... or any similar expression for antipathy to the Outback ... but I probably don't know the sort of blokes Keiran was talking to (and, anyway, they're Queenslanders ...!).

Regards,

Bo Bolton

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13 Jun 02 - 02:31 PM (#729353)
Subject: RE: Keiran Halpin
From: Raggytash

Bob B, Sorry for not coming back to you, we've been on holiday and since then my good lady has bben ill, the mudcat went by the board for a while. Suzanne thanks for the info I'll now learn the song properly and in the correct context

Thanks to all for their imput

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14 Jun 02 - 05:22 AM (#729771)
Subject: RE: Keiran Halpin
From: GUEST,SoundMan

Does anyone know why Kieran uses a P.A. system wound up to distortion level even in a small folk club room?

He and Maartin Allcock visited our club fairly recently, and the performance was seriously marred by his lack of sensitivity to the needs of his audience...

I can understand the use of P.A. for reasons of sound balance, but why so bloody loud?

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14 Jun 02 - 01:54 PM (#730043)
Subject: RE: Keiran Halpin
From: GUEST,Dita (at work)

I don't know why he does it, but it is deliberate. His instructions to the soundman last time I saw him was - "Keep pushing it up 'till you see my ears bleed - then you'll know it right"
love, john.

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