Help: does anyone know this tune?

Subject: does anyone know this tune?
From: GUEST,gillian
Date: 07 Oct 02 - 02:58 PM

i posted a msg on this site on 5th oct,and now i cant find if anyone replied or not.does anyone know this song? my grandma used to sing it to me.

old mother magee peed in the sea
and poisoned all the fishes in the water
and what she didnt kill came rolling down the hill
in the middle of the boyne waters?

can u help me? gill

Subject: RE: Help: does anyone know this tune?
From: Sorcha
Date: 07 Oct 02 - 04:09 PM

Your other thread is here (CLICK) and no, we haven't found it yet. I was finally able to do a SuperSearch and it didn't turn up. I'll go refresh the other one for you.

Subject: RE: Help: does anyone know this tune?
From: MMario
Date: 07 Oct 02 - 04:11 PM

I tried spelling "Magee" every way I could thing of, and still didn't find it.

Subject: RE: Help: does anyone know this tune?
From: Sorcha
Date: 07 Oct 02 - 04:21 PM

Me too, Mario, and I tried without the Magee. There is a peed in the sea rhyme here, but not that one.

Subject: RE: Help: does anyone know this tune?
From: Jim McLean
Date: 07 Oct 02 - 04:45 PM

I remember a chant I knew as a kid;

Desperate Dan, peed in the pan,
The pan was too wee,
So he peed in the sea,
The sea was too wide so he peed in the Clyde,
And all the wee fishes.
Ran up his backside.

This was chanted and not sung.
Jim Mclean

Subject: RE: Help: does anyone know this tune?
From: Nerd
Date: 07 Oct 02 - 05:04 PM

I think Jim is on to something; this sounds like a kids' parody song, which can exist in many versions and not get noted by scholars, so it may not be retrievable.

Subject: RE: Help: does anyone know this tune?
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Oct 02 - 06:14 PM

What about trying the names MacKee, McKeeor even Mackey??

Subject: RE: Help: does anyone know this tune?
From: Sorcha
Date: 07 Oct 02 - 06:22 PM

Regardless of that, I would think "peed in the sea" would find it if it were out there.

Subject: RE: Help: does anyone know this tune?
From: weerover
Date: 08 Oct 02 - 01:31 AM

A couple of phrases in the song put me in mind of different ditties to the same tune, i.e. "The Girl I Left Behind Me", if this is of any help

Subject: RE: Help: does anyone know this tune?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 08 Oct 02 - 03:39 AM

The name is similar, as is the scansion, that this could alsmost be a verse of the bawdy version of Maggie May.

"They were tattered they were torn,
Round the crotch piece they were worn,
Those old red flannel drawers that Maggie wore,
They were hemmed in they were tucked in
They're the ones that she'd been ....
Those old red flannel drawers that Maggie wore"

Nigel