The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #11896   Message #90970
Posted By:
30-Jun-99 - 07:03 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Davy the Drover
Subject: Lyr Add: DAVY THE DROVER
Thanks to George for the help with the place name. Here's the words as I now understand them. I hope someone can clarify the last verse. (What I've transcribed as Alana and Astor I think are actually some other words, likely Gaelic.) Other areas in question are the line "You idle old gossip you have me disgraced", I think the last word should rhyme with paint. Also the line "Not a bob do we earn when nip on the dole" may need some correction or clarification.

DAVY THE DROVER

I'm Davy the Drover from Ballyporeen
And I met Mary Ellen when she was eighteen
We're forty years married through trouble and stife
Oh bad luck to the day that I made you me wife

Sweet Davy the Drover from Ballyporeen
He popped me the question when I was eighteen
He promised me heaven the truth I will tell
But I'm chained all my life to a devil from hell

Oh your tongue is like lightning you ugly old sack
From morning to night it goes clickety clack
You idle old gossip you have me disgraced
With your hair spray and lipstick your powder and paint

You drunken old boozer no more of your chat
With your tongue like a razor you silly old rat
Not a bob do we earn when nip on the dole
And the children, poor critters, are hungry and cold

Oh, the children are critters you care not a jig
While you lie in your bunk and you snore like a pig
Poor Timmy, poor Pat, poor Tom and Eileen
Poor Jimmy and Jack and the other eighteen

See here me bald hero this stick I have got
And it's I that can use it believe it or not
Long years have I suffered and carried the cross
But remember me boyo from now I'm the boss

Ah Nellie Alana, Ah Davy Astor
Let's love one another and quarrel no more
We'll be kind to the children as we were before
And when God sends another, Oh lovely Astor