Origins: Tramps and Hawkers

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Leadfingers
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 06:30 AM

Though perhps i should have clamed a 100th before posting that comment! LOL

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Big Tim
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 06:35 AM

Shane MacGowan also used the tune for his 'Song with no Name'.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: kendall
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 06:48 AM

I heard another verse that goes, "I've done me share o' humpin' wi' ye dockers on the Clyde...damn, the rest escapes me...

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Leadfingers
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 09:26 AM

Good point Kendall - Second line is :-

I've the buckey trawlers pull the herring over the side

And without raking through a pile of Vinyl I cant remember the rest

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Leadfingers
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 09:27 AM

Ooopps !! dropped 'helped'

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Effsee
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 10:09 AM

Terry..."Buckie trawlers"!

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: curmudgeon
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 11:20 AM

I've done my share o' humpin' wi' the dockers on the Clyde.
I've helpit Buckie trawlers pu' their herrin' ower the side,
I've helped tae build yon michty brig that spans the busy Forth,
And wi' mony an Angus fairmer trig, I've plooed the bonnie earth.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Leadfingers
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 12:58 PM

Thanks Gents - I dont sing many 'foreign ' songs !! LOL

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: kendall
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 01:55 PM

That's it Tom, thanks.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Susan of DT
Date: 22 Jul 08 - 06:38 AM

A search of the DT for tunefile PADWEST gives this list:
PADDY WEST
CANADIAN TRAVELER
TRAMPS AND HAWKERS
THE YOUNG MAN FROM CANADA
THE LOSS OF THE ALBION
TALL MEN RIDING
SANTA CLAUS IN THE BUSH
JAUNTING CAR
DURHAM LOCKOUT
DRIVING SAW LOGS ON THE PLOVER
DAVY FAA
CAPTAIN WEDDERBURN'S COURTSHIP
BRITAIN'S MOTORWAYS

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Teribus
Date: 22 Jul 08 - 06:52 AM

GUEST,Ewan McVicar, the occupations mentioned in MacColls verse:

"I've done my share o' humpin' wi' the dockers on the Clyde.
I've helpit Buckie trawlers pu' their herrin' ower the side,
I've helped tae build yon michty brig that spans the busy Forth,
And wi' mony an Angus fairmer trig, I've plooed the bonnie earth."

Were all casual labour in the latter part of the 19th Century, nothing necessarily "settled" about it.

Having recorded the "short" MacColl version it takes a thumping 6 minutes, considering the tempo, great song though it undoubtedly is, I can't see anybody finding it entertaining for 14 odd verses unless of course it is somebody singing it to themselves as they wander about the countryside.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Sep 08 - 10:29 PM

Someone earlier in the thread was on the right track. Bla' is Scots for the bits of wool left on fences/trees by sheep rubbing against them. A poor wanderer could gather bits of bla' and then sell it once he has gathered enough.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 04:30 AM

In the notes to the Alan Lomax recording of Davie Stewart's fine rendering (Davie Stewart - Go On, Sing Another Song, The Alan Lomax Collection, Rounder 2002) Blaw is given as oatmeal.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 03:14 AM

The Irish "Rocks of Bawn" has a related melody. And there are dozens of other Irish songs with the T&H melody... Glen Swilly, Sweet Newport Town etc etc

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: BobKnight
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 06:54 AM

First off, I'm surpised nobody has mentioned Bob Dylans "I Pity The Poor Immigrant," from the John Wesley Hardin album. It's a straight lift.

Secondly, the verse about the "Clyde" was written by the late Jim Reid, who is famous for writing "Norland Winds/Wild Geese. The last line about the county of Angus, where Jim lived, is a dead giveaway.

"Bla" as far as I've always understood it was the wool left by sheep on fences, etc which was gathered up and sold. It's not a word used a lot these days, but if I remember, I'll ask some of my older relatives. I've also heard this line sang as, "gie yer airs a bla." Many travellers played the bagpipes, and "airs" are tunes.

Jimmy McBeath may have lived in Ireland for a time, but it's well known in Scottish folk circles that he was given his version of "Tramps and Hawkers" by George Robertson Stewart, a settled traveller and businessman from Huntly in Aberdeenshire. He(Big Geordie)always said HE wrote it.

Finally, for our American and English cousins, the name McKay, is pronounced Mac-Eye, not Mac-kay.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 12:14 PM

This song, Tramps and Hawkers is one of the songs I like to perform. I think that some of the folks that I play for might remember it as a diffrent song but the version I remember was The Corries from 1972. Mum and I are thinking about doing a list of songs that we remember as difrent words all the time and Tramps and hawkers will be in it.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 01:08 PM

As regards what I said in a previous post about the "clyde" verse being written by Jim Reid, I believe now it was written sometime in the early sixties, author unknown. It doesn't really matter because it's crap, and has no place in this song. The song was written by a traveller who knew about the travelling lifestyle, and whoever wrote this verse was not a traveller.

It also has nonsensical lines about hauling herring over the side of a "Buckie Trawler." Fact: trawlers don't fish for herring. Trawlers fish for white fish and herring are pelagic fish - surface feeders. They are caught by "drifters."

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 02:18 PM

Sorry, the "guest"post above was from me - Bob Knight.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 16 Sep 11 - 07:11 PM

"Bla" refers to bits of wool lying around, hanging off fences etc. If you gathered enough, you could sell it for modest sum - it's not worth anything these days though, incase anyone's thinking of it - as i understand, a lot of farmers struggle to dispose of wool now.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: mayomick
Date: 17 Sep 11 - 08:24 AM

Blath -pronounced bla- is Gaelic for flowers . I always thought that a flower (heather)gatherer would be the simple explanation for the word in that line.

The Bob Dylan song Pity the Poor Immigrant mentioned I find interesting because it's only one of two songs that I can think of that uses the word "likewise" in it. The other song ,which is about emigration, is the Glen Swilly mentioned above. The word "likwise" comes at the same point in both songs -at the end of the last line of the first verse .

who passionately hates his life and likewise fears his death

I bid farewell to Donegal , likewise to Glenswilly

Molly's comments disappoint me because I'd often wondered as well whether the composer ever got to write his song of old Erin's Isle . If Molly's right, which seems to be the case , it means my pet theory on the subject is now up the Swannee - or Clyde or whatever . I had thought (hoped) that the composer of at least the original bones of the song might have been Pat O Flanagan ,the Travelling Candyman from the song of that name , which has a similar air -perhaps closer to the tune of the Irish Soldier Boy though.

Travelling Candyman (from memory from Peter Kennedy's book )

Chorus :For I take in old iron , I take in old bones and rags .
And I take in all different kinds of stuff and put them in separate bags
For I have traveled this country o'er and I'm known to everyone
And my name is Pat O Flanagan I'm a travelling Candyman

For I'm sailed over from Belfast , the work it was very slack
And when I landed in Glasgow I was wishing that I was back
I searched for work but no work could I find , so I struck on another plan
I came to the conclusion I would be a candyman

A woman came up the other day and she said she had lost her frock
Said she , "my good man won't you tumble it out for I know that it is in your stock"
Said I ,"my good woman yopur frock is not here and no more of your lip will I stand"
Bedad, she upped with her ugly fists , and she nailed the candyman.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: GUEST,Don Wise
Date: 17 Sep 11 - 09:24 AM

There's an early Dylan song you've all missed- "The Ballad of Donald White". I found the text in one of those handy, pocket-sized(!) books containing Dylans lyrics, but no tunes, over a certain span of years (1962-1985) So I made a tune.......A few years later I found a Broadside LP with a certain 'Blind Boy Grunt' singing "Donald White". The tune? Yep- "Tramps and Hawkers". Personally, I think that "T & H" doesn't fit the song at all, not by a long way, and that's irrespective of having made my own tune for it.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 17 Sep 11 - 11:25 AM

Mayomick- If you do a DigiTRad search for "likewise", you'll find dozens of songs containing the word."Antepenultimate" is different.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: mayomick
Date: 17 Sep 11 - 01:49 PM

I'm sure I could have found plenty if I had searched the mudcat database , Dick , but the word was not to be found in my own personal limited database of songs -the one that I carry around in my head. I was suggesting that Dylan's song lyric owes more to Glenswilly than it does to Tramps and Hawkers .

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jan 12 - 06:27 PM

i have got a live recording of dylan singing LAKE OF THE PONCHARTRAIN to the tune of TRAMPS AND HAWKERS - think it was 1989 .

on tom russell´s cd the rose of the st joaquin is a beautiful version of him singing the jim ringer song TRAMPS AND HAWKERS

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Jim McLean
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 09:23 AM

Just noticed this thread again and thought I'd mention the other lumberjack song sung to this tune: The Jam at Gerry's Rock

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: wayfarer
Date: 08 Jan 12 - 11:13 PM

blah is bullshit. like blah,blah,blah. if you kiss the blarney stone, you might get the gift of gab.. the ability to dazzle folks by talking a lot a nonsense.. if you can't dazzle em with brilliance then baffle them with bullshit, as my old man used to say. "gatherers of blah" is a reference to itinerent storytellers & songsters, that's all.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: mayomick
Date: 09 Jan 12 - 02:41 PM

Not by talking nonsense Wayfarer . The gift you're suppose to get from the Blarney Stone is the ability to flatter people - known in Irish as plamas.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: wayfarer
Date: 13 Jan 12 - 10:21 PM

nonsense, flattery - its all blarney really. As in "he's full of blarney" or "he's full of baloney." In other words, you can't trust what he says.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: mayomick
Date: 14 Jan 12 - 02:32 PM

A very good point, well made Wayfarer. I've read a lot of your posts on the site and I've always thought that you were one of the more perceptive commentators out of a pretty rough bunch.

There you go .It doesn't have to be nonsense or untrue .plamas they call it .

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: GUEST,Margaret
Date: 15 Jan 12 - 03:11 PM

Wayfarer wrote: "'gatherers of blah' is a reference to itinerent storytellers & songsters, that's all."

Since another verse has "Wi' ma bag o' blaw upon ma back", I believe it's "gatherers o' blaw [blow]", not blah, which according to Màiri Robinson's "Concise Scots Dictionary" is tinkers' cant for oatmeal. Which fits to another, slightly Anglicised version of the same song: "Wi a bag o' meal upon my back".

The song at least came through, if not from, tinker Jimmie MacBeath. But of course it's been folk-processed forever, so it's anyone's guess what stanzas are his.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: BobKnight
Date: 15 Jan 12 - 03:36 PM

Jimmy McBeath was NOT a traveller/tinker. He was an ittinerant farm worker. He got the song, and others of his repertoire from George Robertson Stewart of Huntly in Aberdeenshire. "Big Geordie" as he was known, was a brother of Lucy Stewart. Hamish Henderson also mentions this in one of his books.

Just to throw some petrol on the fire, quite a few traveller's sing, "gie yer 'airs' a blaw." Meaning to play some tunes on the bagpipes - also, "gie yer 'rigs' a bla," meaning to give your set of bagpipes a bla. Many, many travellers played the bagpipes, and some busked all over Scotland. Also in the last verse, we have the line, "I canna fin the wind," which means, I haven't got the breath.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Vin2
Date: 16 Jan 12 - 07:56 AM

Always loved Alex Campbell's version of this great song.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: ollaimh
Date: 16 Jan 12 - 05:19 PM

the ottawa song writer james gordon used the tune for a great soong about the building of the rudeau canal and logging in early settlement of by town by colonel by.

in the winter i'm a shanty boy falling lumber in these hills
i work for fridasch billings least it's his store holds my bills
i owe hime for the food i eat for the clothes upon ,my back
for the whiskey that i drink to keep from freezing in my tracks

in the spring i ride the logs and take my share of icy spills
but billings doesn't need an extra man to run his mills
and the only work that a man who owns no land has left to do
is exvacating on the rideau with the colonel and his crew

so it's swing that pick and shovel from dawn to setting sun
roll them barrells up them ramps till you've moved a million tons
swing that twelve hammer hold on tight and turn the screws
pour in the black powder cross yourself and light the fuse

there's many a joke's been sahred over many a friendly glass
and many the friend whose died from carelessness or illtimed blasts
and many the hurried prayers been said over slabs of shattered rock
the grave of many a good man killed to race a british clock

so when the winter comes i'll gladly trade my pick for sharp braod axe
and make my way to the shanties over frozen forest tracks
for if there's danger in those lumber woods it's a risk that's very low
compared with excavating out on colonel by's rideau

from memory==james gordon is a fine song writer

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: wayfarer
Date: 18 Jan 12 - 10:41 AM

I'm intrigued by a lot of the other references in this song as well. For example, who is "John DeGroot" and what does the "reckless stain of Cairn" refer to? Possibly someone who killed or betrayed his brother, hence a biblical reference to Cain & Able?

And is there really such a place as "Urquart's fairy glen, where the little people are known to dance? Hah, it certainly all sounds like traveler lore to me.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Jan 12 - 11:10 AM

John O' Groats is the northermost point in the Scottish mainland. As for the "reckless stain of cairn," I'm afraid that's a mis-translation so ignore it in future. The first word is "rickles" which means a heap, or a pile of stones, known as a cairn. Now, this is where it gets difficult and where even most Scots can't figure out what Jimmy McBeath is singing, but to understand it you must be aware of semi-archaic North East Scots. The line would be written as, "And aye the rickles of cairnies mark the hoose o' John O' Groats," but cairnies is pronounced, "c'yarnies." k-yarn-ies

The most common version mentions "Urquharts bonny glen," no mention of faires. Glen Urquhart is beside Loch Ness, in the highlands of Scotland.I hope that clears a few things up for you. :)

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: BobKnight
Date: 18 Jan 12 - 11:24 AM

That was me appearing as "guest" above - sorry, I didn't realise I'd been signed out.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: wayfarer
Date: 18 Jan 12 - 11:43 AM

thanks GUEST, for a most illuminating explication! part of the magic of song i guess, how things get distorted over time, lending to the mystery of the original meaning...and thanks also, mayomick!

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: susanc
Date: 23 Jan 12 - 09:02 PM

I think I heard "Peter Amberly" before I ever heard "Tramps and Hawkers" and fell in love with the beautiful melody. Any song sung to it gets extra stars from me.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: GUEST,GrowlinGraham
Date: 27 Aug 12 - 06:19 PM

Nice one Bob. I used to work with the late Great Jim Reid's partner Julia who told me that Jim would frequently write new lyics/verses for T & H so as to give it a local twist for whatever area of Scotland he was performing in at the time.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Aug 12 - 10:42 PM

Oh Bob, how wrong can you be?..." John O' Groats is the northermost(sic) point in the Scottish mainland"...ever heard of Dunnet Head?

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: BobKnight
Date: 28 Aug 12 - 06:24 AM

Well, there you go - we can't all be right all the time. My only excuse is they don't say "From Lands End to Dunnet Head," which I have heard of by the way. :)

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Feb 13 - 01:59 PM

Come all ye tramps and hawkers, ye gatherers of wool
That tramp the country round and round, come listen one and all

YES!!!!!!

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 06:23 PM

Well blow me down. I had thought the phrase was "gaither as I bla", meaning gather round as I hold forth.

Richard

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: BobKnight
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 08:20 PM

It would be gaitherer's o' bla.

I've also heard, 'gie yer rigs a bla,' meaning bagpipes, and 'Gie yer airs a bla,' meaning tunes played on the bagpipes.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 07:08 PM

Having disgested the various meaning suggested for bla, I have a couple of other lines which I'd love to have translated:

"For It's my daily fare an' as much'll pay my doss."

The only translation I can get form the web is that "Doss" is a pouch of tobacco, suggesting the line means that the speaker's roving is how he makes his living and keeps himself in tobacco. I can go with that, but would welcome other suggestions.

and

"For Scotland's greatly altered noo, I canna raise the wind."

It was suggested by someone that "I canna raise the wind" means "I can't get the breath." But that makes no sense to me, since we are looking for a reason to leave the "altered" Scotland for "Paddy's Lan'." The only meaning for "Raise the wind" I can find have to do either with witches actually raising up a storm or with braggarts raising a different kind of wind.

Greg

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Dec 13 - 05:10 PM

'My only excuse is they don't say "From Lands End to Dunnet Head,"'
.,,.
The point is that, tho Dunnett Head is more northerly, John 'o'Groats is the most North-Easterly place on the mainland, while Land's End is the most South-Westerly; so that a line from one to the other will bisect the country as a virtual diagonal.

Only in that list above, 22 jul 08 from Susan of DT, is briefly mentioned the surely important point that this is the tune that the great Tommy Armstrong, the 'pitman poet', used for The Durham Lock-Out [aka Durham Strike].


~M~

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 10 Dec 13 - 05:47 PM

Unidentified Guest said
> The only translation I can get form the web is that "Doss" is a pouch of tobacco, suggesting the line means that the speaker's roving is how he makes his living and keeps himself in tobacco. I can go with that, but would welcome other suggestions.<

"Doss" as a verb means sleep in an improvised or crude place, such as a "doss house", so it would be a small stretch to use it as a noun meaning the cost of the sleeping place. But I don't know.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: GUEST,gutcher
Date: 10 Dec 13 - 05:56 PM

"I canna raise the wind" I cannot earn, beg, borrow or steal sufficient money to meet my needs.
"Doss"   A doss house would be the same as a "model" lodging house ie. a cheap and probably communal hostel. Probably in the context of the song used as a generic term for a cheap lodging.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: BobKnight
Date: 10 Dec 13 - 06:34 PM

"I canna raise the win'" or as I sing it, "I canna fin' the win'" means the same thing, but put a different way. Or it could tie in with the line I mention about alternative lines I have heard, "Gie yer rigs (pipes) a bla'" which is substantially the same as, "Gie yer airs (tunes) a bla'" It's got nothing to do with witches, etc. Let's not get too fancifu. Another alternative meaning is that times are hard in Scotland and he is finding it hard to make a living.

"And a' I need's my daily fare and whit'll pey my doss. Means all he needs is enough to eat and somewhere to sleep. (doss - modern equivelant-crash)
Land end?? It's never mentioned in the song. John O' Groat's is only mentioned in the song as a place he has been, but he never gets out of Scotland. The farthest South he gets is Galloway/Stranraer in south west Scotland.

Gutcher has the right of it. :)

The tune has been ussed in a number of songs including Hatton Woods (Sheila Stewart) I pity The Poor Immigrant (Bob Dylan) amongst others.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 10 Dec 13 - 06:57 PM

Apart from it being a verb meaning 'to sleep' the Collins English Dictionary gives in its third definition for 'doss' as being a noun meaning 'bed'. I'd have thought of all the words in this song this one was pretty straightforward and easily understood. The problem with looking up Scots dictionaries online is they often mainly give the definitions for words which differ from standard english and leave out the huge number of words which is shared with English.