The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #130313   Message #2933052
Posted By: Jim Carroll
23-Jun-10 - 02:50 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Muirland Meg / Moorland Meg
Subject: Lyr Add: WAD YE DO THAT?
"but that used for "Roll Your Leg Over..."
MacColl's tune gives it a dignity it doesn't apparently merit at first glance - a robust bawdy piece rather than a 'dirty' song - a celebration of sex as distinct from a nudge-nudge. It's why I always prefered his versions rather than (I.M.O.) Oscar Brand's and Ed McCurdy's 'smuttiness'
I don't know if it's still available anywhere, but MacColl's 'Merry Muses of Caledonia' is well worth searching out (Dick?)
It was issued way back in the sixties by Ken Goldstein with very scholarly notes (and at a very high price, I seem to remember, so that it only fell into the hands of the 'genuine scholars')
Jim Carroll

Another example:
4. WAD YE DO THAT? (Tune: John Anderson, My Jo)

M'Naught (MMC 'll) referred to this piece as "An old song before Burns's time," It is certainly the original of Burns' song "Lass, When Your Mither Is Frae Hame" (Aldine, II, p. 156), which Scott Douglas referred to as "a silly paraphrase" of the present song.
The tune, "John Anderson, My Jo," dates back at least to the middle of the 17th century. It was certainly a favorite with Burns, who also knew it as the tune to a bawdy song of that title (MMC '59, pp. 114-115) on which he based his own song of the same name (SMM, #260), as well as the tune of "Our Gudewife's Sae Modest", another piece of bawdry collected by Burns (see MMC '59, p. 135).
The present text was learned from MMC '59, p. 122, and the tune from MacColl's father.

1.        Gudewife, when your gudeman's frae hame,
        Might I but be sae bauld,
        As come to your bed-chamber
        When winter nichts are cauld;
        As come to your bed-chamber
        When nichts are cauld and wat,
        And lie in your gudeman's stead:
        Wad ye do that?

2.        Young man, an ye should be so kind,
        When oor gudeman's frae hame,
        As come to my bed-chamber
        Where I am laid my lane;
        And lie in oor gudeman's stead,
        I will tell you what,
        He fucks me five times ilka nicht,
        Wad ye do that?