Lyr Req: Plymouth Mail (Peter Bellamy)

Subject: Lyr Req: Plymouth mail
From: Fidjit
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 07:30 AM

Pete Bellamy's, Plymouth Mail, from "The Transports". I can hear most of the words, but there's a line in verse 5 that's confusing me. Anyone got all the words?

Chas

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Plymouth mail
From: Fidjit
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 07:40 AM

Might even be known as "The Drver of the Plymouth Mail".

Chas

Subject: Lyr Add: THE PLYMOUTH MAIL (Peter Bellamy)
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 09:51 AM

Here's the words as given in the sleeve insert of the LP. I haven't checked it against the actual words sung (which sometimes differ slightly!).

Mick

---

THE PLYMOUTH MAIL
(Peter Bellamy)

  The whip goes crack and the horn does blow
  The turnpike calls and I must go
  And wind nor sleet nor rain nor hail
  Will halt the driver of the Plymouth Mail.

When I was a lad I used to play
By the roadside all the live-long day
Hoping always to espy
The gentry's coaches a-rolling by.
When I was a youth I used to roam
With a waggoner from town to town
But I longed to fly across the land
On a stagecoach high with a four-in-hand.
Now I am grown unto a man
On the driver's box I take my stand
Like the captain bold of a Ship-of-sail
I'm the man who drives the Plymouth Mail.

  The whip...

With six on top and four inside
The post-boy and the guard beside
Their bags and baggage safely stowed
It's time to take the open road.
Then the hooves do fly and the wheels spin round
And we bid adieu to Plymouth town
Plympton, Brent and Ashburton pass
And to Exeter we come at last.
Then the horses blow and their sides do steam
As the ostlers run to change the team
The travellers gulp a glass of ale
Then back they scramble on the Plymouth Mail.

  Then the whip...

We roll across the Dorset Downs
And stage again in Shaftesbury town
Then I crack my whip with might and main
And on we roll to Salisbury Plain.
Soon over Hounslow Heath we fly
Where the gibbets loom against the sky
And the passengers all hide their gold
For fear we meet some robber bold.

  But the whip...

At the sign of the Standard in Cornhill
At last my rumbling wheels are still
And the passengers all stiff and sore
Thank God their journey's safely o'er.
In a cozy parlour now I stand
WIth a goodly bumper to my hand
And the travellers drink a glass of ale
To the health of the driver of the Plymouth Mail!

  And the whip...



Source: Sleeve insert of The Transports LP.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Plymouth mail
From: Fidjit
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 02:44 PM

Many thanks Mick. It was this line that is incomprehencabe when I listen to Vic Legg's singing. The rest seems about right.
Though I think he says Doth instead of does.

Plympton, Brent and Ashburton pass

Catch up with you sometime next year.
Chas