Lyr Req: I Travel the Road, Who Cares?

Subject: A wonderer am I details of song required
From: GUEST,tops'l shantyman
Date: 25 Aug 06 - 03:32 PM

Can any mudcatter help me to track down the title and a recording of a song with the following bits (or something like it) in it.

A wanderer am I, I travel the road who cares

My pillow the moon, I slumber the long night through

And the lark at the dawn will greet me each morn

A vagabond I, I travel the road, who cars

Subject: RE: A wonderer am I details of song required
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Aug 06 - 05:34 PM

I vaguely remember it as-
A rover I am.
I think the original singer was Cavan O'Connor.

I heard it on 'The Goon Show' very many years ago sung by Peter Sellers.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: A wonderer am I details of song required
From: erinmaidin
Date: 25 Aug 06 - 05:36 PM

I believe this song was one collected by Tom Munnely. I wish I could find an archive of the lyrics of songs of the "travelers" in Ireland. Jim Carroll..you'd know more about that would you not? I think I've seen your name pop up a couple times while trying to search this topic.

Subject: RE: A wonderer am I details of song required
From: Big Mick
Date: 25 Aug 06 - 05:40 PM

Yeah, I know I have heard this, it is nagging at me. Traveler song, eh? Might be. I will send some emails.

Mick

Subject: RE: A wonderer am I details of song required
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Aug 06 - 04:18 AM

Erinmaiden
There's a double CD we issued called 'From Puck To Appleby' (40 odd songs) available from Musical Traditions website.
Tom Munnelly put together an excellent cassette of his recordings 'Songs of the Irish Travellers', which is now unobtainable unfortunately, as is his John Reilly LP 'Bonny Green Tree'.
'Wisht' - a folklore Dept/ Pavee Point co-operation is mainly stories from the Cassidy family, with a few tracks of songs - beautiful.
Topic issued some English Traveller recordings from Mike Yates' collection, but I don't know if they have been reissued on CD.
There are some Scots ones available, Elizabeth Stewart, Sheila Stewart, etc. - well worth searching for.
The English/Welsh Gypsy one on Voice of the People is available, but it's a mystery to me why they didn't do an Irish and Scots one while they were at it - there's plenty of excellent material lying around unpublished.
We have earmarked a couple of hundred songs for publication, but they are a long way down the list.
Jim Carroll
PS Tops'l Shantyman
If you draw a blank on Cavan O'Connor, try Arthur Tracey.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A wanderer am I, I travel the road w
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 01:46 PM

I'm not sure this is the right song, but I found this listing in the US Catalog of Copyright Entries:

I TRAVEL THE ROAD, WHO CARES?
Words, Donovan Parsons. Music, Pat Thayer.
Arranged for brass band by Beechfield Carver.
Published by Keith Prowse & Co., Ltd., © 1932.

Allmusic.com says I TRAVEL THE ROAD, WHO CARES? is on the album "A Song for You and Me," by Peter Dawson (ASV/Living Era, 2002) and "The Floral Dance and Other Peter Dawson Favorites" by Gregory Yurisich (Melba Recordings, 2000).

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: I Travel the Road, Who Cares?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 12 Sep 12 - 09:18 AM

A lark in the sky to call me at dawn
The scent of the breeze to wish me good morn
A gypsy am I, a wandering by
I travel the road, who cares [?]


Found the above in Google books. That's all I could access. It looks like the song being requested. When I'm finished with the "I"s, I try to come back to this.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: I Travel the Road, Who Cares?
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 12 Sep 12 - 11:57 AM

From Imperialism and Music: Britain 1876-1953 by Jeffrey Richards (Manchester University Press, 2002), page 508:

One significant sub-genre that Dawson also mastered and which was immensely popular in the interwar period was the song of the open road: songs celebrating freedom from restriction and responsibilities, lauding the fresh air and beauty of the countryside and highlighting the carefree life of a tramp, a key figure of interwar mythology who could be a figure of menace—deracinated, light-fingered, potentially violent—but could also be a romanticized free soul in touch with the true heart of England. It was a significant element of the rural myth which was part of the powerful cultural reaction to industrialization and urbanization.

These songs, usually set to a tramping rhythm, were invariably tuneful, cheerful and evocative. Emblematic of them is Pat Thayer's I Travel the Road (recorded in 1931):

My garden the gorse, my carpet the flowers,
I travel the road, who cares.
My candle the moon, my pillow the flowers,
My slumber the night owl shares,
A lark in the sky to call me at dawn,
The scent of the breeze to wish me good morn,
A gypsy am I, a-wandering by, I travel the road, who cares.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: I Travel the Road, Who Cares?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Sep 12 - 10:05 AM

If you've got Spotify you can hear Peter Dawson singing it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: I Travel the Road, Who Cares?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Sep 12 - 02:42 AM

Wonderful rendition of this by Spike Milligan on one of the Goon Show re-issues (I think, 'Tales of old Dartmoor')
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: I Travel the Road, Who Cares?
From: GUEST,#
Date: 08 Apr 21 - 11:19 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLgt5Q8k_eg

Dawson singing it at the above link.