Tune Req: Harry Pollitt (the limelighters)

Subject: Tune Req: Harry Pollitt (the limelighters)
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 14 Aug 26 - 04:35 AM

Was curious if this song (specifically the limelighters version) is related to/similar to any other tune. Would anyone know?

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Harry Pollitt (the limelighters)
From: saulgoldie
Date: 14 Aug 26 - 08:20 AM

Wow, that is a reach back!

For the discussion, here is the song:

https://youtu.be/DSFPkVk7YSI?si=fbpJTQZNgd1hk8a2

Are you asking for the tune? Or if we "hear" another song with that tune?

Saul

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Harry Pollitt (the limelighters)
From: Lighter
Date: 14 Aug 26 - 08:42 AM

Incredibly, I actually heard this song (well, the first verse) "sung traditionally" in the U.S. in 1975.

That tune was the perennial "Lulu Had a Baby" - which isn't the Limeliters' tune.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Harry Pollitt (the limelighters)
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 14 Aug 26 - 11:09 AM

To: Saul

I am asking for the tune. I recently found out that Super Skier by the Chad Mitchell Trio was similar to the Wreck of 97, and that MTA by the Kingston Trio was similar to The Train that Never Returned. With that in mind I was hoping to find if other folk songs I liked had tunes they were based on, but with Harry Pollitt (both the limelighters and Joe Frazier version) I haven't found anything, most of the material online is more historical and the songbook doesn't reference a tune.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Harry Pollitt (the limelighters)
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Aug 26 - 11:10 AM

Clickable link:

Limeliters

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Harry Pollitt (the limelighters)
From: Paul Burke
Date: 15 Aug 26 - 06:55 PM

Which Harry Pollit are they talking about here? I only know of Harry Pollit the British communist, well known to me from my father's description of him opposing Hitler until 24th August 1939, when (according to Dad) he received a telephone call telling him of the accord... the following morning he was telling the party faithful why Adolf wasn't such a bad chap. At which point my father withdrew his hitherto somewhat lukewarmly faithful support. Oh, there was another Harry Pollit who designed railway engines for the Great Central Railway, but apart from train buffs, no one could get too excited about that.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Harry Pollitt (the limelighters)
From: Lighter
Date: 16 Aug 26 - 07:39 AM

It starts, "Harry Pollitt was a Bolshie,/ And one of Lenin's lads."