Lyr Req: Flash Gals and Airy (Carolyne Hughes)

Subject: Lyr Req: Carolyne Hughes' Falsh Gals and Airy
From: Roberto
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 02:02 PM

Carolyne Hughes, Flash Gals and Airy (Seventeen Come Sunday)
From Folktrax
Please, help: I can't get part of the first chorus and the third stanza...

O will you have a man, my fair purty maid,
Just will you have a man, my honey?
O she answered me quite civilty
Yes, I say I'll have you young man

With your …(???) and all
Fol di diddle die doe
Flash gals and airy-O

O as I was a-walking early one morning
'T was early in the Spring-O
O she come to me with her horse and saddle
She said: Yes my darling, come with me, don't let my daddy know

Fol di diddle die doe
Flash gals and airy-O

(and there's a third stanza, of which I can get few words)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Carolyne Hughes' Falsh Gals and Airy
From: Roberto
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 03:04 PM

Sorry, I've typed wrongly the title, Flash gals and airy

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Carolyne Hughes' Falsh Gals and Airy
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 03:44 PM

In a song about a woman who isn't too sure how old she's going to be next Sunday, goes out roving early on a May morning then tells all to Peter Kennedy, I reckon you can just make it up. Or collate a million variants and choose the bits you like best.

But if you're searching further, the source singer is (Queen) Caroline Hughes.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Carolyne Hughes' Falsh Gals and Airy
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 04:13 PM

She also recorded the song for Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, and it is transcribed in Travellers' Songs from England and Scotland, 168-9. She seems to have sung it rather differently on that occasion, though, so that probably won't help you much.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Carolyne Hughes' Falsh Gals and Airy
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 04:56 PM

We really need to remember how recent is the history of such recordings. I recall as a very small child being on the floor of my parents' bedroom on Sunday mornings listening to Peter Kennedy's broadcasts going out on the only wireless set in the house. (It was actually his recording of Sarah Makem singing As I Roved Out that was used as a signature tune).

Yet the way they are done now (50+ years on) is vastly different to then. So how much are they likely to have changed and been altered again and again over the preceding several hundred years? We'll really never know, but the vast range of variants of this song alone gives some indication. The arrival of the digital age and the setting of recorded music in . . . well . . . bits is actually a point at which tradarts do get set in stone if we're not careful. I think it's very important to be aware of all the different forms in which tunes and songs have been collected, and to select very carefully what we will use, how we will use it, and how we will remain aware of the regional and stylistic variants.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Carolyne Hughes' Falsh Gals and Airy
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Aug 07 - 04:41 AM

Yes, Malcolm. I have Travellers' Songs from England and Scotland, and the song is different from teone in the Folktrax recording. R

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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Carolyne Hughes' Falsh Gals and Airy
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 06 Aug 07 - 05:13 AM

Yes, well.
Writing down/recording represents but one snapshot of a song/tune.
Not one of them is more 'right' than another.
Though if the singer is not truly inhabiting the song and thus conveying he story to the listeners, it can sound downright wrong.
At one of those TV become-a-star contests, a young woman who'd put in a teenage angst performance was asked: 'Well, did she get him back in ther end?".
Said contestant looked astounded.
' . . . er, the words are supposed to MEAN something . . . ?'