The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #19412   Message #670443
Posted By: michaelr
16-Mar-02 - 07:46 PM
Thread Name: Penguin: John Barleycorn
Subject: RE: Penguin: John Barleycorn
It's always bothered me that the traditional lyrics make no link between the threshing and milling and the final product, the ale. So I wrote (and have been singing) the following additional lyrics:

They wheeled him around and around the fields
`Til they came unto a barn
*And waiting there were men with clubs
*To thresh poor Barleycorn
*They put Sir John in the malting kiln
*To roast and dry his bones
And the miller he has served him worse than that
For he's ground him between two stones
*They poured him into the mashing tun
*To boil and scald his tailThey called him nut-brown ale

Now it makes sense!

Michael