Billy Broke Locks

There were nine to hold the British ranks,
And five to guard the town about,
And two to stand at either hand,
And one to let the Old Tenor out.

CHORUS:
Billy broke locks and Billy broke bolts,
And Billy broke all that he came nigh,
Until he came to the dungeon door,
And that he broke right manfully.


There was eighty weight of good Spanish iron
Between his neck-bone and his knee,
But Billy took Johnny up under his arm
And lugged him away right manfully.
CHORUS

They mounted their horses and away did ride.
And who but they rode manfully,
Until they came to the river bank
And there they alighted right manfully.
CHORUS

And then they called for a room to dance,
And who but they danced merrily,
And the best dancer amongst them all
Was old John Webb who was just set free.
CHORUS


Source: The Folk Songs of North America (Alan Lomax, 1960), #4, page 14

taken from page 393 of British Ballads from Maine (Phillips Barry, 1929). As sung by Mrs. S.S. Thornton and Mrs. F.P. Barker of Maine


Note: the Digital Tradition version doesn't sing the chorus until after Billy has been introduced in the second verse. Don't know if the DT is right about that, but it makes sense to me.

Here are the notes from Lomax:

PHILLIPS BARRY believes that, about the year 1700, a new wave of colonists from Britain brought a group of ballads into New England which did not reach the southern states. Among these he cites Captain Kidd, and the Scots Archie o’ Cawfield, upon which the present ballad is based, and whose story runs as follows...
Archie Hall of Liddesdale, one of three reiving (cattle rustling) brothers, lies prisoner in Dumfries jail. Dickie and Jockie Hall ride to his rescue. Jockie, a man of Homeric stature and strength, bursts the iron bolts of the dungeon with a blow, and though the prisoner has ‘fifteen weight of good Spanish iron on his fair bodie,’ picks him up in his arms, observing, ‘I count him lighter than a flea.’ The three brothers make good their escape by swimming their horses across a river that daunts their English pursuers. In the Scots ballad they refer to each other affectionately as ‘billie.' In Scots dialect ‘billie' meant comrade or buddy; thus, in our ballad, ‘Billy' takes the place of 'Jockie.'
Very likely Archie o’ Cawfield was one of the ballads Cotton Mather had in mind when in 1713 he lamented ‘the vogue of the foolish Songs and Ballads which hawkers and pedlars carry into all portions of the Country.' There is no doubt that it served as the model for Billy Broke Locks, composed around 1737, when the colonists of Massachusetts became involved in a currency dispute with the crown.
At that time exchange in the colonies was based upon Spanish coinage, which brought a different price in the various colonial capitals. Parliament attempted to resolve this confusion by several issues of paper money called ‘tenors’; but when the ‘new tenor’ replaced the ‘old tenor,' disturbances broke out in Massachusetts, and two satirical broadsides entitled The Death of Old Tenor and The Dying Speech of Old Tenor were published -- and suppressed. John Webb (or Webber) then mint-master of Salem, Massachusetts, apparently stuck to ‘Old Tenor' and for this offence was sent to prison. When his friends broke into jail and rescued Webb, someone celebrated the event by re-making Archie o’ Cawfield to tell the story of the escape of the man who had stood up for ‘Old Tenor,' and so is identified with ‘Old Tenor’ in the chorus.
Thus the rebellious fire of a sixteenth-century Scots border rant passed into a new song of social conflict, producing what is certainly the best of our early colonial ballads. Billy Broke Locks must have been extremely popular in New England for Barry found five good versions of it, two hundred years after the event.

-Joe-