The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #38243   Message #537424
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
29-Aug-01 - 10:00 AM
Thread Name: Single man's warning
Subject: Lyr Add: SINGLE MEN'S WARNING
Since the Young Tradition didn't record the whole song, I hope that Wolfgang won't mind if I give it here.  As I mentioned earlier, their recording varies textually in some small details from this, their source:

SINGLE MEN'S WARNING

(noted by Cecil Sharp from Tom Sprachlan at Hambridge, Somerset, in 1903)

Come all you young men that are going to be wed
Don't be trapped like a bird with a small bit of bread
I'd have you be careful in choosing of a wife
O, for when you are trapped you remember it through life
With fol di diddle di do, fol di diddle day

O when that you are wed and a squaller it is born
A poor man may work his fingers to the bone
He hears a midwife and a nurse, and a gossiping crew
And a poor man can hardly pull himself through
With fol di diddle di do, fol di diddle day

When I go home to breakfast, to breakfast at eight
The devil of a spark of a fire in the grate
And the turk of a sign of a breakfast for me
And my wife she lay a snoring like a pig all in the stye
With fol di diddle di do, fol di diddle day

If I asked her to rise, she'd fly in a pet
And bawl out by God there's time enough yet
Get the breakfast thee self and be off to thee work
Don't bide here for to idle and lurk.
With fol di diddle di do, fol di diddle day

When dinner time come to home I repair
And a hundred to one if I find my wife there
She's gossipin' about with the child upon her knee
And the turk of a sign of a dinner for me.
With fol di diddle di do, fol di diddle day

When I go home at night sadly tired from my work
When I open the door she'll let fly like a Turk
Take the squalling young brat and get him off to sleep
For all the day long no peace I can get.
With fol di diddle di do, fol di diddle day

O but if I should offer the job to refuse
With the tongs and the poker she will me abuse
And if these are the comforts attending of our life
Good luck to the man that has got such a wife
With fol di diddle di do, fol di diddle day

And O if I could be but single again
The finest of ladies should never me trepan
Single I'd remain all the days of my life
Good luck to the man that has got such a wife
With fol di diddle di do, fol di diddle day

Printed without music in The Idiom of the People (James Reeves, 1958).  Punctuation as given.  Heather Wood got the song and tune from the microfilm copy of Sharp's notes at the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library.