The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #77286   Message #1379549
Posted By: McGrath of Harlow
15-Jan-05 - 03:14 PM
Thread Name: Wild Rover - do folks still sing this song?
Subject: RE: Wild Rover - do folks still sing this song?
Here's an alternative to it the other day I made up in a thread about Minor characters deserving own song" when Don(Wyziwyg)T suggested the landlady might deserve to have her version of what transpired.

So I thought I'd post it here, as more likely to come up, if anyone is ever looking for a song like this. In which case they are more than welcome to sing it. (Say where you got it from though, if anyone is interested.)

The Wild Rover's Landlady
I was stood at the bar when this pillock came in,
And he asked for a drink without showing no tin.
So I told him "Look chummy, this isn't a bank,
If you want something free, just you go have a wash."
And there's no tick, never, these words I repeat,
If you ask me for credit, you'll be out in the street.

Well he dips in his pockets, this ignorant sod,
And he says "Loads-a-money" and he flashes a wad.
So I tells him quite politely, "If you've money to spare,
You are welcome to drink till you falls off your chair
But there's no tick, never, these words I repeat,
If you ask me for credit, you'll be out in the street."

Well he drinks and he drinks, till he can't drink no more,
Then he staggers around and he crawls out the door,
Going home to his Mummy, to beg for a sub -
There's some right bleeding nutters I serve in this pub.
And there's no tick never, these words I repeat,
If you ask me for credit, you'll be out in the street.


With three options for the chorus, according to taste - the one I gave there, or

Oh there's no tick never, in the Rover's Return,
But you can drink like a fish if you've money to burn.
.

(The point being, that gets the Rover into the song - "The Rover's Return" incidentally being the name of a pub in the English soap opera, "Coronation Street".)

Or

No, No Never, Never no more -
I never give nobody credit no more.


Which has the advantage of being closer to the standard version, and therefore it might make it more acceptable as a substitute in response to a request for the Wild Rover.

I intentionally put it in an English pub, in deference to the song's origins...(It'd take about thirty seconds for anyone to emigrate it to any other required nationality).