Here's one of my favorites. When Brain and I played this last summer at a festival I introduced the song saying that "What moves a young man to action, may move a more "experienced" man to reflection." Brian winced and laughed, "I still have feeling, ya know!"

Belles O' Ontario
(c) Brian McNeill, 2004

As I lay a sleeping and the dawn light came creeping
And the Lake Huron wind came a whispering by
Sayin' the Belles O' Ontario were women to be wary -oh
With their honey gold locks and their fine rovin' eye

For their divas and dancers, connoisseurs of chancers
as brazen as they're bragh and as bonny as they're bold
and they'll turn a man's flirtation to debate and disputation
keep a fiddler laddie handy to look deep into their souls

CHO:
and I'd walk 100 miles
and I walk 100 more
to see the belles of Ontario
a walking by the shore

They marshall their enjoyment with a general's deployment
With the charms nature gave them to entice and ensnare
And they calculate by fractions every power of attraction
Drive the lads to full distraction by the tossing of their hair

They're cool and they're collected and they like themselves reflected
In keekin' glass or passing laddie's eye for all to see
And they take their due with pleasure at their cool collected leisure
And to make yon butter melt would take a braver man then me
CHO

So come all you rabble rousers, ya buxom bawdy housers
Give yourself a ray of conceit to be a lady's man
If you're inclined to ramble, put your manhood to the gamble
Take the road up to Godrich with your heart in your hand

Just be ready for the ructions when you're tested to destruction
By a creature you know that's worth twice her weight in sin
For she might consent to kiss ya, or to smile and then dismiss ya
And leave you to the mercy of the Lake Huron wind
CHO