The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #117039 Message #2517707
Posted By: Jim Carroll
17-Dec-08 - 08:18 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Thirty foot trailer - meaning?
Subject: RE: Thirty foot trailer - meaning?
Yet it is one of those songs that Travellers took to as one of their own, according to Jeremy Sandford at least. In his 'Songs of the Roadside' he claimed that "MacColl adapted it from a gypsy original" - without any corroborating evidence course.
In a Phillip Donellan film, Gypsy Gordon Boswell, while accepting it was a good song, questioned whether '30 foot' was not too long for a gypsy trailer.
Much of the text of the song came from actuality recorded for 'The Travelling People' - a technique used by MacColl for many of his Radio Ballad songs.
Personally, I agree with Paul - it doesn't sound like a folk song, but on the other hand, it wasn't intended to.
Jim Carroll