Song for a mermaid

Subject: Song for a mermaid
From: GUEST,spb-cooperator
Date: 13 Jul 08 - 03:48 PM

Can anyone help.....

I am looking for a comic song to complete a playlet to be sung by a not-so-glamorous mermaid (equivalent of a pantomime dame) - maybe no-one loves a mermaid when shes forty...... maybe someone has a better idea......

puns on other song titles are equally welcome........

Subject: RE: Song for a mermaid
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Jul 08 - 03:59 PM

The Sailors Dream.

Subject: RE: Song for a mermaid
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Jul 08 - 04:02 PM

I mean the somg written by Dick Miles.

Subject: RE: Song for a mermaid
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 05:52 AM

to this old rincy person

Subject: RE: Song for a mermaid
From: Piers Plowman
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 07:06 AM

"The Eddystone Light", Heine's "Die Lorelai" and Stephen Foster's "Beautiful Dreamer" are the songs involving mermaids that spring to my mind, whereby only the first is a comic song. "Die Lorelai" is witty and ironic, which doesn't quite come across in the melody. I don't think I've ever heard it in English. I suppose a Lorelai isn't really a mermaid, but she's fairly close.

Subject: RE: Song for a mermaid
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 07:52 AM

Most trad mermaid songs are about mermaids rather than as can be sung by said amphibians.
Here's a start on a song with apologies to Rawtenstall Annual fair's author.

Roll up, roll up, come and see the mermaid,
see the lovely lady, half a woman, half a fish,
Last time I came ashore I landed on me tail,
A little lad said, 'Mother, I think it's a beached whale,'
Another said, 'A walrus,' another said, 'A seal,'
Another said, 'An octopus,' and then, 'A conger eel.'
A fisherman came up to me and said, 'Have you got a daughter?'
When I answered no, he threw me back into the water,
                   All on ---------- Beach.

Subject: RE: Song for a mermaid
From: mrmoe
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 08:17 AM

check out Shel Silverstein's "the mermaid".....

Subject: RE: Song for a mermaid
From: masato sakurai
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 09:26 AM

See MERMAID (RULE BRITANNIA) (2).

Subject: RE: Song for a mermaid
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 10:27 AM

See Nasty Nell already mentioned on this forum

Subject: RE: Song for a mermaid
From: PoppaGator
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 01:30 PM

Then there's Mississippi John Hurt's mermaid song:

LET THE MERMAIDS FLIRT WITH ME (Key of C)

C         G       C   
Blues all on the ocean

F                C
Blues all in the air

F                  C   
Can't stay here no longer

G               G7
Have no steamship fare

(CHORUS:)
       C       G         C   
When my earthly trials are over

       F               C   
Cast my body out in the sea

F                C            
Save all the undertaker bills

       G                   C
Let the mermaids flirt with me


Wife controls our unhappy home**
My sweetheart I cannot find
The only thing that I can call my own is a
Troubled and a worried mind

(Repeat Chorus)

I do not work for pleasure
Earthly peace, I'll see no more***
The onliest reason I work at all is
Drive the wolf from my door


(Repeat Chorus)

Blues all in my body,
My darlin' has forsaken me
If I ever want to see her face again
I have to swim across the see

**(In some versions, it sounds as though Hurt sang "My wife controls our happy home")

***( Alternate; "As to peace, I'll see no more")