The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #163628   Message #3906382
Posted By: Jim Dixon
17-Feb-18 - 08:01 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Help transcribing Bellman in English
Subject: Lyr Add: FREDMAN'S SONG NO. 11 (C M Bellman)
I think I did better than trying to transcribe it myself by ear. I found the lyrics in a strange document called Christmas Pudding 1999. Here is the relevant part:
A song writer virtually unknown outside his native Sweden is Carl Michael Bellmann (1740-1795), yet, in Sweden, he is still very much a living tradition. His songs are scurrilous, bawdy, raucous, gluttonous, inebriated, full of joie de vivre and thoroughly good fun. In 1977, Martin Best recorded some of Fredman's Songs and Epistles by Bellmann, in translations by Paul Britten Austin which capture well the atmosphere of the original.
Fredman's Song No. 11
At nightfall, wishing he were a king


Portugal, Spain,
Ah, did I there reign,
Wear both of their crowns, and Great Britain's as well,
Tonight I confess
A royal princess
Should sleep in my arms, like any mamsell.
Nights without slumber
Softly we'd number,
To all my creditors I'd bid farewell.

Rocket and Bomb
And trumpet and drum
Would early awake us, to thunder of gun.
Splendid parade!
Our troops serenade,
From crystalline cups, drink our health everyone!
Standards unfurl,
Cry Vivat, my girl!
Then let them thunder until day is done.

Oysters and wine,
All red from the Rhine,
Forthwith I'd command to my empress' repast;
Pudding with plums in,
Waffles a dozen,
Make up our breakfast, a dram at the last.
A hundred piasters
At least, my good masters,
Each luscious mouthful would certainly cost.

Comrades, a skål,
Estates General.
Holiest Father of Rome in thy hall!
One mass I am less;
Say farewell princess;
The crown that has vanished cost nothing at all.
Ended my psalm is,
Brandy my balm is,
As for a cutlet on credit I call.
For those who prefer the original Swedish versions, a very fine recording was made in the 1960s by Sven-Bertil Taube, son of the famous Swedish folksinger Evert Taube, with a chamber ensemble composed of members of the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra.