Thread #46131   Message #1208130
Posted By: Abby Sale
15-Jun-04 - 06:55 PM
Thread Name: 'Unprintable Songs' (Randolph/Legman)
Subject: Lyr Add: THE FOGGY FOGGY DEW

Well, done, Malcolm. Trust Bruce - he nearly always had something. I missed that one. This is the format that Lloyd suggests (and seems to be in other versions) that the spirit is really a friend of Bachelor pretenting in order to scare Maid.

I guess this song is just at the lighter end of bawdy/erotic and that's it. Here's a text from immortalia.com, the great bawdy website. An unusual sad ending:

THE FOGGY DEW
Sung by Phil Hammond.

Recorded by Peter Kennedy in Morston, Norfolk, England, in 1952.

    O, I am a bachelor and I live atone,
    And I work in the weaver's trade.
    And the only, only thing that I ever done wrong
    Was courtin' a fair young maid.
    I courted her one summertime,
    And all the winter too.
    And the only, only thing that I never should 'ave done
    Was to save her from the foggy, foggy dew.

    I got that tired of living alone,
    I says to her one day,
    "I've a nice little crib in my old shack,
    Where you might safety lay.
    You'll be all right in the summertime,
    And in the winter, too,
    And you'll lay right warm and take no harm
    Away from the foggy, foggy dew."

    "I don't think much of this old shack,
    And I shall lonely be,
    With only that poor old Cyprus cat
    To keep me company.
    There's a cricket singing on the hearth
    And what can that thing do,
    If the night turn raw and the fire won't draw,
    To keep me from the foggy, foggy dew?"

    One night she come to my bedside,
    Time I lay fast asleep.
    She puts her head down on my bed,
    And she starts in to weep.
    She yelled and cried, she well nigh die,
    She say," What shall I do?"
    So I haul her into bed and I cover up her head,
    To save her from the foggy, foggy dew.

    Says I, "My dear, lay close to me,
    And wipe away them tears,"
    And I hauled her shift up over her head,
    And I wrapped it round her ears.
    We was all right in the wintertime,
    And in the summer, too.
    And I held her tight that livelong night
    To save her from the foggy, foggy dew.

    "Now, lay you still, you silly young fool,
    And don't you feel afraid,
    For if you want to work with me,
    You got to learn your trade."
    I learned her all that summertime,
    And all the winter, too.
    And truth to tell, she learned that well,
    She saved us from the foggy, foggy dew.

    One night I laid there, good as gold,
    And then she say to me,
    "I've got a pain without my back,
    Where no pain ought to be.
    We was all right in the summer time,
    And in the winter, too.
    But I've took some ill or a kind of chill,
    From laying in the foggy, foggy dew."

    One night she start to moan and cry.
    Says I, "What's up with you?"
    She say, "I never should 'ave been this way,
    If that hadn't 'ave been for you."
    I got my boots and trousers on,
    And I got my neighbour, too.
    But do what we would, we couldn't do no good,
    And she died in the foggy, foggy dew.

    So now I'm a bachelor, I live with my son,
    And we work at the weaver's trade.
    And every single time I look into his face,
    I see the eyes of that fair young maid.
    It reminds me of the summertime,
    And of the winter, too.
    And the many, many nights she laid in my arms,
    Just to save her from the foggy, foggy dew.