Mainly Norfolk: English Folk and Other Good Music
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> John Kirkpatrick > Songs > The Game of All Fours
> Tony Rose > Songs > The Game of All Fours
> Norma Waterson > Songs > Game of All Fours
The Game of Cards / The Game of All Fours
[ Roud 232 ; Master title: The Game of Cards ; Ballad Index K175 ; GlosTrad Roud 232 ; DT GAMECARD ; Mudcat 66884 ; trad.]
Wally Fuller sang The Game of Cards in a recording made by Peter Kennedy at Laughton near Lewes, Sussex, on 11 November 1952. He also recorded Queen Caroline Hughes singing this song in her caravan near Blandford, Dorset, on 19 April 1968. Both recordings were included in 2012 on the Topic anthology I’m a Romany Rai (The Voice of the People Series Volume 22).
Sam Larner sang All Fours in a Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger recording made in 1958-60 on his 1961 Folkways album Now Is the Time for Fishing.
Tom Willett sang The Game of Cards at home on a caravan site near Ashford, Middlesex in 1962. This recording by Bill Leader and Paul Carter was released on the Willett Family album The Roving Journeyman.
Sarah Porter sang The Game of All Fours at The Three Cups in Punnets Town in 1965. This recording by Brian Matthews was published in 2001 on the Musical Traditions anthology of 1960 recordings from Sussex country pubs, Just Another Saturday Night.
Charlie Wills sang Game of Cards on his eponymous 1972 Leader album, Charlie Wills.
Phoebe Smith sang Game of All Fours on 8 January 1969 at the King’s Head. This recording was included in 2012 on the Musical Traditions anthology of 1968-70 traditional performers at the King’s Head Folk Club.
Levi Smith sang The Game of Cards in a recording made by Mike Yates in 1972-75 on the 1975 Topic album gypsies, travellers and country singers, Songs of the Open Road. This was also included in 1998 on the Topic anthology My Father’s the King of the Gypsies (The Voice of the People Series Volume 11).
George Dunn sang All Fours on his eponymous 1975 Leader album, George Dunn Another recording by Roy Palmer from 14 July 1971 was included in 2000 on his Musical Traditions anthology Chainmaker. The accompanying booklet noted:
On the surface we are dealing with card play, and Hoyle’s Rules of Games (1955) indeed lists All Fours. In her edition of Cecil Sharp’s Collection of English Folk Songs (1974), Maud Karpeles places in the section devoted to sports and pastimes The Game of Cards, a version of the song he noted in 1908. Yet this is a transparently erotic piece which had to wait until 1960 to appear in respectable print, in James Reeves’s anthology of English traditional verse, The Everlasting Circle. That it was well known a century earlier is attested by the broadside issued by Henry Disley of London, a political adaptation or parody dealing with Garibaldi’s struggle for Italian unity under the title of The Game of All Fours (British Library, 11621 h 11, Crampton Ballads, vol. 7, fol. 263). At much the same time, the catalogue of the Manchester ballad printer, T Pearson, included the original Game of All Fours, twinned with The Steam Loom Weaver.
George Dunn’s mention of Leominster is merely a localisation: other versions have Leicester, Glasgow, Croydon and Windsor. His two-verse coda is not found elsewhere; he has to vary his languorous tune to accommodate it, and the moralising is at odds with the erotic tone of the rest of the song, in which the apparently naive woman proves the sexual superior of the man.
Maddy Prior and June Tabor sang The Game of Cards in 1976 on their album Silly Sisters. They were accompanied by Nic Jones, guitar; Andy Irvine, mandolin; Johnny Moynihan, whistle; and Danny Thompson, bass.
John Kirkpatrick and Sue Harris sang The Game of All Fours in 1977 on their Topic album Shreds and Patches. Her returned to The Game of All Fours in 2004 on Brass Monkey’s fifth album, Flame of Fire, where he noted:
The Game of All Fours is the name of an old card game, also called Seven Up, whose very title cries out for a saucy song. Enormously popular, you find versions of it everywhere. This tune is the one recorded by Mike Yates from the Surrey gypsy Levi Smith, first published on the Topic LP Songs of the Open Road in 1975.
Pete and Chris Coe sang The Game of All Fours as the title track of their 1979 album Game of All Fours. Pete also recorded Betsy Renals in 1978 singing Game of All Fours; this was published in 2003 on the Veteran/Backshift anthology of songs from their Cornish Travellers family, Catch Me If You Can.
Tony Rose recorded The Game of All Fours in 1999 for his CD Bare Bones.
Norma Waterson sang Game of All Fours in 2000 on her third solo album Bright Shiny Morning. She noted:
From Queen Caroline Hughes. My very favourite first line in a song.
Patterson Jordan Dipper sang The Game of All Fours in 2002 on their WildGoose album Flat Earth.
Kate Rusby sang The Game of All Fours in 2005 on her CD The Girl Who Couldn’t Fly.
Jim Causley sang The Game of Cards in 2011 on his WildGoose album of Devon songs, Dumnonia. He noted:
The Game of Cards is a well known song throughout the British Isles and is definitely one of the instantly recognisable titles on this album. I have exercised my 21st century liberty here and combined the text from Charlie Wills of Somerset with the tune from Queen Caroline Hughes of Dorset. But before you call me a dissenter I would just like to present that the lyrics do feature Devon place names and the Marshwood Vale area which covers the three counties is well known for having its own sense of identity regardless of the county borders.
Andy Turner learned The Game of All Fours from the singing of Tom Willett and sang it as the 1 November 2013 entry of his project A Folk Song a Week.
The Hungarian group Simply English sang The Game of Cards on their 2017 CD Long Grey Beard and a Head That’s Bald.
Emily Portman and Rob Harbron sang The Game of Cards on their 2022 album Time Was Away. They noted:
Refreshingly, there are none of the typical tragic folk song endings for this heroine, who walks along the highway without a care and also happens to be an ace card player. Emily’s source for this version is Romany singer Levi Smith who came from a musical family and lived near Epsom, Surrey when Mike Yates recorded him for the 1975 Topic album Songs of the Open Road. Emily decided to add to the ambiguity of the song by taking out any reference to gender of the narrator, who was male in Levi’s version. Additional lines are magpied and (mis)remembered from other versions of this popular song, printed in broadsides widely around England as early as 1780.
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