The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #1153   Message #4073589
Posted By: Nigel Parsons
29-Sep-20 - 08:12 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Johnny Todd
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Johnny Todd
Guest Ann Hinchliffe asks for the Singing Together version.
That's my cue I think. This is the version (with time change) from Singing Together which appeared in Autumn 1968 & Spring 1980
The words differ slightly from those already in the DT

JOHNNY TODD
Trad (English)

Johnny Todd, he took a notion
For to sail the ocean wide
And he left his true love behind him
Weeping by the Liverpool tide

For a week, she wept full sorely
Tore her hair and wrung her hands
Then she met with another sailor
Walking on the Liverpool sands

‘O fair young maid are you a weeping
For your Johnny gone to sea?
If you wed with me tomorrow
I will kind and constant be.’

‘I will buy you sheets and blankets
I'll buy you a wedding ring
You shall have a gilded cradle
For to rock your baby in.’

Johnny Todd came back from sailing
Sailing o’er the ocean wide,
But he found that his fair and false one
Was another sailor's bride

All young men who go a-sailing
Or to fight the foreign foe,
Don’t you leave your love like Johnny
Marry her before you go.

X: 1
T: Johnny Todd
M: 2/4
L: 1/8
C: Trad (England)
Z: NP 29/09/2020
K: G
d2B2| d2B2| GB dd\ ee dB| GA d3/d/| cB A2| GB d2|[M:3/4] G3/B/ AG FD| [M:2/4] GB d3/A/| c/c/B G2||
w: | | John-ny Todd, he took a no-tion For to sail the o-cean wide And he left his true love be-hind him Weep-ing by the Li-ver-pool tide


Sourced from Singing Together. The words & music in both issues containing this song are the same (not always the case with Singing Together).
The music, with first verse, can be viewed by copy/pasting from "X:1" to "Li-ver-pool tide" into an ABC converter such as the one here: Mandolintab.net
NP