Origin: Bedlam Boys / Tom of Bedlam

Subject: RE: Origin: Bedlam Boys / Tom of Bedlam
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 31 Jul 17 - 04:27 AM

Gratuitous filk cross-reference:
Bedlam Cats

Subject: RE: Origin: Bedlam Boys / Tom of Bedlam
From: Nigel Paterson
Date: 30 Jul 17 - 05:47 AM

A sideways shift from the academic to the modestly commercial, The Halliard's version of 'Boys of Bedlam' can be found in: 'The Halliard, Broadside Songs' (book) & recorded on CD MMCD/04. Both are available from www.nicjones.net where he & Julia would be pleased to hear from you.
       In the spirit of 'serious errors', my surname is misspelt in the goldilox article...one 't' please!
                                                       Greetings to All,
                                                                               Nigel Paterson (Mandolin, The Halliard)

Subject: RE: Origin: Bedlam Boys / Tom of Bedlam
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 29 Jul 17 - 06:24 PM

So, goodbye to all that then!

Subject: RE: Origin: Bedlam Boys / Tom of Bedlam
From: Joe_F
Date: 29 Jul 17 - 06:03 PM

I note a serious error in the above: Graves was not the editor.

Subject: RE: Origin: Bedlam Boys / Tom of Bedlam
From: Joe_F
Date: 29 Jul 17 - 06:00 PM

Here, FWIW, is a review I wrote in 1991 of Robert Graves's edition:

_Loving Mad Tom: Bedlamite Verses of the XVI and XVII Centuries_,
edited with notes by Jack Lindsay, foreword by Robert Graves
(Franfolico, 1927; Seven Dials, 1969). Found in the bibliography of
Gershon Legman's massive collection of dirty limericks, and then in
the Widener at Harvard. A scholarly extravaganza centered on the
well-known song "Tom o' Bedlam", purporting to be sung by one of the
roving madmen deinstitutionalized when Henry VIII shut down the
monasteries:

From the hag and hungry goblin
That into rags would rend ye
And the spirit that stands by the naked man
In the Book of Moons defend ye!
That of your five sound senses
You never be forsaken
Nor travel from yourselves with Tom
Abroad to beg your bacon.
Nor never sing "Any food, any feeding,
    Money, drink or clothing":
    Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
    Poor Tom will injure nothing.

Some of them were taken care of, after a fashion, at the Hospital of
St Mary of Bedlam (= Bethlehem) in London:

Of thirty bare years have I
Twice twenty been enragèd,
And of forty been three times fifteen
In durance soundly cagèd
In the lordly lofts of Bedlam
On stubble soft and dainty,
Brave bracelets strong, sweet whips ding dong,
With wholesome hunger plenty.
    And now I sing...

This book contains original texts of this and related songs,
emendations, literary revisions, burlesques, explanations,
contemporary quotations about life on the road in those days, etc.

Robert Graves, in the preface, thinks that the earthier parts of
this song, such as the ones quoted above, were actual folk poetry, but
that a professional poet later added some of the fancier fantasies,
which contain classical allusions:

I know more than Apollo,
                   [the sun]
For oft when he lies sleeping
I behold the stars at mortal wars
And the wounded welkin weeping;
                 [sky]
The moon embrace her shepherd
                       [who's that?]
And the queen of love her warrior,
         [Venus]          [Mars]
While the first doth horn the star of the morn
                       [cuckold][Venus]
And the next the heavenly farrier.
                            [Jupiter?]
    While I do sing...

I have never stayed awake all night outdoors and seen the stars go by.
It is a remembrance that bums share with soldiers:

The sky slowly changes its huge guard of stars.

And there's the young lieutenant, sword buckled over his heart and
his soul on his smooth face:

    Soon it's to be life or death...either one means someone's harvest
    or old age shall ripen. Live, die, I'm not afraid. Father,
    fatherland...life-giving earth...be safe.

The night marches on, armored in burning stars.

                   -- Ennius, "The Night Watch"

And the solemn firmament marches
    And the hosts of heaven rise
Framed through the iron arches --
    Banded and barred by the ties,

Till we feel the far track humming,
    And we see her headlight plain,
And we gather and wait her coming --
    The wonderful north-bound train.

        -- Kipling, "Bridge-Guard in the Karoo"

I am skeptical of Graves as a scholar, tho. At about the same time
as this book was published, he wrote, with Laura Riding (who I think
was his wife), a preposterous essay arguing that in interpreting
Shakespeare's sonnets one ought to take the spelling & punctuation
seriously. A Yaley named Stephen Booth makes a monkey out of Graves
in a note to his edition of the sonnets (Yale U.P., 1977). Similar
perversity seems likely in Graves's handling of one couplet in "Tom o'
Bedlam":

In an oken Inne I pound my skin
as a suite of guilt apparrell.

Auden, in the _Oxford Book of Light Verse_, following other sources &
common sense, makes this

In an oaken inn do I pawn my skin
As a suit of gilt apparel,

which is both intelligible and funny. Graves makes it

At an oaken in I 'pound my skin
    In a suit of gilt apparel,

changing "as" to "in" & putting an apostrophe on "pound" as if it were
short for something, without saying what. I have tried the _OED_ s.v.
"appound", "depound", "suppound", and "impound", all in vain; only the
last is there, and it has no plausible sense.

However, I did enjoy Graves's moving reminiscence of combat in
W.W. I (_Goodbye to All That_) & his pleasant essay on taboo language
("Lars Porsena"). He also wrote a famous book on the Greek myths that
I hope to get around to someday.

Subject: RE: Origin: Bedlam Boys / Tom of Bedlam
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 29 Jul 17 - 10:28 AM

According to Dave Moran on the goldilox website; http://www.goldilox.co.uk/engfolk/frames/nicjones4.htm

"Nic [Jones] and I and mandolin/guitar player Nigel Patterson made up the Halliard. We were looking to develop some new music and we took the advice of song-writer Leslie Shepard.

We decided to add tunes to Broadsides that we discovered, uncovered or collected – we checked out the Harkness Collection at Preston and the collections in Manchester etc.

We also used Ashton's Street Ballads and Victorian Street Ballads (Henderson) and on a couple of occasions we dipped into Thomas D'Urfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy; that is where we found Mad Maudlin (Tom of Bedlam or the Boys of Bedlam).

Nic and I wrote all the tunes together, usually sitting in the front of the Mini and singing and working out tunes as we drove – as the mandolin was the smallest instrument and Nigel [Patterson] was in the back, he always played the tunes.

'Jones and Moran' wrote a heap of songs like this including Lancashire Lads, Going for a Soldier Jenny, Miles Weatherhill, Calico Printer's Clerk etc.

We wrote the tunes to fit the words and sometimes added or altered words, as in The Workhouse Boy. So Nic and I wrote the tune to D'Urfeys words of Mad Maudlin – audiences were confused and stunned – it was very surreal...

We did a booking in the Midlands and an unaccompanied foursome called the Farriers loved the song and asked if they could sing it unaccompanied. We said, Sure – they were very good, a bit like the Young Tradition. I believe that is how it got into the mainstream.

From Mainly Norfolk; http://mainlynorfolk.info/nic.jones/songs/boysofbedlam.html

Boys of Bedlam; This song is originally from Thomas D'Urfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy, published 1720.

There it had the title Mad Maudlin's Search for Her Tom of Bedlam. Steeleye Span learned Boys of Bedlam from the Halliard via the Farriers and Tom Gilfellon.

They recorded it then for their album Please to See the King. This track was later released on the Martin Carthy anthology, The Carthy Chronicles.

Subject: RE: Origin: Bedlam Boys / Tom of Bedlam
From: Joe Offer
Date: 28 Jul 17 - 10:59 PM

John Roberts and Tony Barrand sing an abridged version of the lyrics from Pills to Purge Melancholy. It's on their album titled Dark Ships in the Forest. Here are the lyrics from their Website: http://www.goldenhindmusic.com/lyrics/TOMBEDLA.html

Tom of Bedlam

More properly titled "Mad Maudlin's Search for her Tom of Bedlam," this song does not seem to have had much currency in the tradition. It has been dug up from print and was popularized by Tom Gilfellon of the High Level Ranters.

To find my Tom of Bedlam ten thousand years I'll travel, Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes to save her shoes from gravel.      Still I sing: Bonny boys, bonny mad boys,      Bedlam boys are bonny,      For they all go bare and they live by the air,      And they want no drink nor money. I now repent that ever poor Tom was so disdained, My wits are lost since him I crossed, which makes me thus go chained. I went to Pluto's kitchen to beg some food one morning, And there I got souls piping hot, all on the spit a-turning. There I took up a cauldron, where boiled ten thousand harlots, Though full of flame I drank the same, to the health of all such varlets. My staff has murdered giants, my bag a long knife carries, For to cut mince pies from children's thighs, with which to feed the fairies. A spirit hot as lightning did on that journey guide me, The sun did shake and the pale moon quake, as soon as e'er they spied me. No gypsy, slut, or doxy shall win my Mad Tom from me, I'll weep all night, with stars I'll fight, the fray shall well become me. So drink to Tom of Bedlam, go fill the seas in barrels, I'll drink it all, well brewed with gall, and Maudlin drunk I'll quarrel.

© Golden Hind Music

Roberts/Barrand recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKwnFWs3Pm4

But that doesn't answer my question about the source of the lyrics in the Digital Tradition. If they're not from Pills and they're not from Roberts/Barrand, where are they from?

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 22 Sep 11 - 07:40 AM

I just remember my mother despising anyone who talked of a sufferer from mental illness in such terms. Writing up to the BBC when anyone broadcast using language of that sort. And she's been dead these thirty odd years

I don't think there was much fantasy involved - just take a look at the facts - they beat Grand Guignol into second place as a horror tableau.

perhaps I am doin SS fans a disservice - there never seems too much gravity attached to the performance. Obviously sing what you want, doesn't appeal much to me though. Maybe Sylvia plath was singing it as she turned on the gas, and I'm not sensitive enough to get it.

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 22 Sep 11 - 06:36 AM

I think we can drive a wedge in here between racism and the innate terror of mental illness which underlies many of the attitudes we find large enough today. Those attitudes come with a grim fascination regarding the perils of the human condition, and with those who have plumbed those depths of such malady, like George the Third, whose psychosis inspired a film (The Madness of...) and a chamber oratorio which used some of his recorded utterances by way of libretto (the truly stunning Eight Songs for A Mad King by Peter Maxwell Davies). The old Mad Songs are a vivid expression of that fear - a glimpse into the darkness of the maludjusted mind: there but for the grace of God etc.

Racism, however, is based on a very different fear indeed... enough said, eh?

I think any performance of Mad Maudlin should consider those fears as well as as the context of the Mad Songs (and our dark fascinations with The Asylum) that come down to our own era, though in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest the real horror is The System that can define any one of us as being 'mad' simply by dint of our natural born humanity. As a song it's a fantasy piece that romanticises mental illness into a series of Grand Guignol images whilst granting the status of visionary to the maladjusted. It's not a piece of mockery as such, but as complex as it is trivial. As I say though, it's the new tune that brings it santized into the Horrible Histories realm of Folk. In its original form it's a piece of social history that might tell us a lot about attitudes to Mental Health down the years, even unto our own time...

With respect of the new tune (which I generally dislike) I love the wonky flakeyness of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Og-D0J2a1g

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Sep 11 - 06:10 AM

From the pov I am urging, Al ~~ the learning from historical perspective ~ aren't they all, arguably, "gems"?

Your 'nigger' analogy is significant ~~ we have had many threads, & much argument, as to how one should sing e.g. the first verse of 'Johnny Go Down To Hilo' these days, haven't we? (We despise the amatory bowdlerisations of such as Sharp in his published versions, but would in our turn similarly censor racial, or, in this case you are urging, mental-health, references). I don't think much consensus has emerged, or is likely.

As to your "joyfully unconcernedly", how is one to judge how much empathy or sympathy exist in the singer's mind at the point of performance?

~M~

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 22 Sep 11 - 05:51 AM

It just seems a bit of a discrepancy. In an age when we are rightfully appalled by someone referring to the mentally ill as a 'loony' - every bit as much as we are horrified in someone using the term 'nigger' - here we have nice middle class folks - Steeleye Span fans no less, singing this item - joyfully unconcernedly.

Is it really such a gem of English folksong that we should be clinging to it.

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Sep 11 - 05:05 AM

Well then, Sean ~~ isn't the function of wotever·the·hell·it·all·is to give us that perspective, as I suggested? It's the perspective I was urging, not the genre.

~M~

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: GRex
Date: 21 Sep 11 - 04:59 AM

These are the notes I was given with the lyrics of Bedlam Boys:-

    'Bedlam boys.(Tom of Bedlam) 1618,. Bedlam = St. Mary Bethlehem Hospital in London (now Bethlem Royal Hospital) which housed the insane. During C18th it was a popular diversion to visit the hospital to watch the antics of the poor inmates. Admission was one penny, made £400 a year income.'

    If this is true, then £400 at 240 pennies to the pound was 96,000 visitors per year.

               GRex

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 Sep 11 - 04:52 AM

From an on-line review of Mad Songs:

A delightful collection of songs from 17th century British composers, reflecting that period's fascination with insanity. The mad song became a favoured genre amongst Restoration composers, who delighted in setting their imaginations free to write inventive and impassioned music for the eloquently rambling flights of fancy of men smitten by madness, most usually caused by the bitter darts of love. This disc brings us some of the best of these songs and ranges from Purcell to Blow. Most of these works would have reached audiences as part of plays, although Blow's Lysander, for example, stands free of theatrical ties. The disc opens with Purcell's Mad Bess, the forerunner and model for mad songs of this period, yet, one could argue, a culmination in the genre – a song that was never bettered.

What a hoot, eh? For more:

Mad Songs

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 Sep 11 - 04:38 AM

Surely one of the functions of folk is to give us a historical perspective

I wouldn't call Mad Maudlin 'folk' at all. It is, as Big Al suggests, a chilling piece of exploitative voyuerism which views psychosis as some sort of 'entertainment'. It only becomes folk (a Steamfolk classic indeed) with the new tune, which effectively santises it into something else entirely, whereby it operates at a yet further cultural remove for the benefit of a more genteel sort of 'Horrible Histories' sort-of hindsight. But the original text (and far superior melody) is part of a once-fashionable genre of 'mad songs' that went along with the once-fashionable recreation of popping in at the local asylum for a bit of a laugh.

As a poem it exists as a surreal and romantic fantasy of mental illness; the old tune gives it a quite sort of dignity absent from the 'macrame beat' histrionics of the new one, which, as I suggest, is what brings this song into the Folk Sphere. Otherwise it belongs with the other body of Mad Songs which are very much the reserve of Early Music - see Catharine Bott's wonderful album of same: Mad Songs which includes Tom of Bedlam. As BAW says: chilling indeed. Not the song, but the attitudes to Mental Health issues over the years.

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Sep 11 - 02:29 AM

Come, Al. Are we to abandon all execution ballads? Surely one of the functions of folk is to give us a historical perspective, reminding us that some things used to be nastier ~~ +, for balance, others used perhaps to be nicer?

~M~

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: CapriUni
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 11:26 PM

It always reminds me of those horrid asylum scenes in Amadeus, The Music Lovers and Hogarth prints.

Chilling.

Indeed, Al. But sometimes there is honor in remembering past cruelties and prejudices, so that we can recognize it for what it is in the present...

No?

Maybe it's time to write some new verses, to turn this one around...

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 11:11 PM

Can't see why George Formby is racist and un-PC, and this monstrosity seized upon and performed and celebrated by the great and the good. It always reminds me of those horrid asylum scenes in Amadeus, The Music Lovers and Hogarth prints.

Chilling.

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 06:33 PM

Thanks, all. Authentic: but must say I prefer the Jones/Moran tune.

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 03:04 PM

D'Urfey available at archive.org for free unless they've gone in the last few years.

Mick

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 12:25 PM

Look no further than the Digitrad for the 'proper' tune...

http://mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=570

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 11:44 AM

Mad Maudlin AKA Bedlam Boys

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 11:41 AM

Not track 10 - it's all randomised...

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 11:39 AM

The original (& best!) tune (possibly by Henry Purcell) can be heard here:

Jesus at the Zoo (track #10)

There was a nice one on YouTube sung by Catharine Bott, but I can't find it...

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: Reinhard
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 10:36 AM

Amazon offers several reprints (print on demand versions?) of this book.

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 10:14 AM

···From Songs Compleat, Pleasant and Divertive; Set to Musick—also known as Wit and Mirth, Or Pills to Purge Melancholy—which includes a tune:-
Jim Dixon 30 Mar 09···

Anyone know where that D'Urfey tune may be easily located? Would make an interesting comparison with the Halliard/Steeleye one we all know.

~M~

Subject: RE: Origin: Bedlam Boys
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 09:43 AM

Mental Asylum to war museum.....two kinds of madness.


The building which accommodates the Imperial War Museum London was formerly the central portion of Bethlem Royal Hospital, or Bedlam, as it was commonly known. Designed by James Lewis, it was completed in 1815. Sidney Smith's dome was added in 1846 and contained the chapel. The east and west wings were demolished in the early 1930s to make room for the park which now surrounds the Museum.

Bethlem Royal Hospital dates back to 1247, when Simon Fitz-Mary, a wealthy alderman and sheriff of London, founded the Priory of St Mary of Bethlehem on the site which is now part of Liverpool Street Station. In the fourteenth century the priory began to specialise in the care of the insane. In 1547 Henry VIII granted the hospital to the City of London.

Corridor of Bethlem Royal Hospital (neg. BED10)
Corridor of Bethlem Royal Hospital
Bethlem was moved to a new building in Moorfields in 1676. Until 1770 there were no restrictions on visitors, and the patients, who were often manacled or chained to the walls, were a public attraction.

The hospital was housed in the present building from 1815 to 1930, when it was transferred to Eden Park near Beckenham, Kent.

Patients included Mary Nicholson who tried to assassinate George III in 1786; Jonathan Martin, committed in 1829 after setting fire to York Minster; the painters Richard Dadd and Louis Wain, famous for his cartoons of cats; Antonia White, author of Frost in May and Beyond the Glass; and the architect A W N Pugin who designed the Houses of Parliament and St George's Roman Catholic Cathedral opposite the Museum.

Subject: RE: Origin: Bedlam Boys
From: Joe_F
Date: 25 Jun 11 - 09:10 PM

Oddly, the tune of Tom O Bedlam has gotten tacked onto "The Bedmaking" at that address.

Subject: RE: Origin: Bedlam Boys
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 25 Jun 11 - 05:42 AM

Why are the two above links to the DT 'Tom O Bedlam ' both for
' The Bedmaking ' ? just curious or is it just bedlam here.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Origin: Bedlam Boys
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 25 Jun 11 - 04:55 AM

Looks like pure Bedlam to me, Clive! Meanwhile, here's Catharine Bott singing the original from Pills To Purge Melacholy with a tune, quite possibly, by Henry Purcell...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5saIajZ-jg

Subject: RE: Origin: Bedlam Boys
From: GUEST,Clive Pownceby
Date: 25 Jun 11 - 03:40 AM

Erm, I may be missing something but how did that last post get in here?! I guess Internet gambling can be likened to some sort of madness, still.....................

---

Not to worry. It's just Spam, and has been deleted.
-Joe Offer, Moderator-

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: M.Ted
Date: 31 Mar 09 - 08:17 PM

Titticut Follies is available through Amazon--it's only been available for a couple years--if you meant Marat/Sade, it's also available at Amazon, but a couple of other online DVD places offer for $6-$9--this is all in the US--TF isn't available in the UK, and Marat/Sade is ungodly expensive--

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: The Vulgar Boatman
Date: 31 Mar 09 - 06:37 PM

And there's me thinking that bedlam was english for karaoke...oh, bugger.

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: michaelr
Date: 31 Mar 09 - 01:09 AM

Where can one find this film?

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: M.Ted
Date: 30 Mar 09 - 03:03 PM

...and that it helped to obscure, confuse, and generally screw up the idea of what folk music was forever after.

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: Reinhard
Date: 30 Mar 09 - 02:04 PM

.. and that Elmer P. Bleaty and the Wood non-siblings lent backing vocals to Judy Collins' Marat / Sade recording.

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: M.Ted
Date: 30 Mar 09 - 12:45 PM

You can see "Titticut Follies" now, Kendall--and it is worth seeing, not because of the show, but because it exposes the way that mental patients were treated.

The film Marat/Sade, though fictional, recreates a performance in a mental institution from about the time that such performances were common at Bedlam(and, though it is set in France, the actors are all British)--also, given the fact that Judy Collins recorded a medley of tunes from the show, it is of interest to "folk" folk--

Subject: "Titticut Follies"
From: Abby Sale
Date: 30 Mar 09 - 11:38 AM

This interested me.

From IMBd:
Titicut Follies (1967)

    * The only American film banned from release for reasons other than obscenity or national security, Titicut Follies was filmed inside the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Bridgewater, a prison hospital for the criminally insane. After the Commonwealth of Massachusetts sued the filmmakers, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the film constituted was an invasion of inmate privacy and ordered the withdrawal of the film from circulation.


AllMovie Guide:

Plot Synopsis         by Bhob Stewart

Frederick Wiseman made his documentary debut with this controversial 84-minute survey of conditions that existed during the mid-'60s at the State Prison for the Criminally Insane in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Made in 1967, the film was subjected to a worldwide ban until 1992 because the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that it was an invasion of inmate privacy. The film goes behind the walls to show stark and graphic images exposing the treatment of inmates by guards, social workers, and psychiatrists. The title refers to a musical revue staged by inmates and guards. Richard Schickel, writing in Life, stated, "The repulsive reality revealed in Titicut Follies forces us to contemplate our capacity for callousness." The documentary was cited as the "Best Film Dealing with the Human Condition" at the 1967 Festival Dei Popoli (Florence) and also honored as the "Best Film" at the 1967 Mannheim International Filmweek. Robert Coles (The New Republic) wrote, "After a showing of Titicut Follies the mind does not dwell on the hospital's ancient and even laughable physical plant, or its pitiable social atmosphere. What sticks, what really hurts is the sight of human life made cheap and betrayed." The story behind the complicated legal issues raised by this film and the attempts to suppress it are detailed by Carolyn Anderson and Thomas W. Benson in their book, Documentary Dilemmas: Frederick Wiseman's \"Titicut Follies\" (Southern Illinois University Press, 1991).
Similar Works
        Bedlam (1945, Mark Robson)
        Chattahoochee (1989, Mick Jackson)
        One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975, Milos Forman)
        Shock Corridor (1963, Samuel Fuller)
        The Snake Pit (1948, Anatole Litvak)
        High School (1968, Frederick Wiseman)
        Hospital (1970, Frederick Wiseman)
        Canal Zone (1977, Frederick Wiseman)
        Meat (1976, Frederick Wiseman)
        Poselyeniye (2001, Sergei Loznitsa)

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 30 Mar 09 - 11:35 AM

Far be it for me to seek to limit the cash-starved Mr Jones' royalties by 50% on this particular song, but the credits for Boys Of Bedlam clearly state Words: Trad / Music: Jones/Moran.

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: nutty
Date: 30 Mar 09 - 11:24 AM

The tune most used was created by Nic Jones as explained on his website

HERE

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 30 Mar 09 - 11:22 AM

Though the text of Boys Of Bedlam is culled from d'Urfey's Pills (as noted), the tune almost universally used today was written as a joint effort by Nic Jones and Dave Moran for their 1968 recording as The Halliard.

This was re-released on an augmented and re-mastered CD a few years ago with an accompanying songbook. Broadside Songs is available from Nic Jones' own company Mollie Music

Subject: Lyr Add: MAD MAUDLIN / BEDLAM BOYS (from Pills...)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 30 Mar 09 - 10:38 AM

From Songs Compleat, Pleasant and Divertive; Set to Musick—also known as Wit and Mirth, Or Pills to Purge Melancholy—which includes a tune:

[I have modernized the spelling and punctuation.]


MAD MAUDLIN,
To find out Tom of Bedlam.

1. To find my Tom of Bedlam, ten thousand years I'll travel.
Mad Maudlin goes with dirty toes to save her shoes from gravel.

CHORUS: Yet will I sing: bonny boys, bonny mad boys, Bedlam boys are bonny.
They still go bare and live by the air, and want no drink nor money.

2. I now repent that ever poor Tom was so disdained.
My wits are lost since him I crossed, which makes me go thus chained.

3. My staff hath murdered giants. My bag a long knife carries,
To cut mince-pies from children's thighs, with which I feast the fairies.

4. My horn is made of thunder. I stole it out of Heaven.
The rainbow there is this I wear, for which I thence was driven.

5. I went to Pluto's kitchen, to beg some food one morning,
And there I got souls piping hot, with which the spits were turning.

6. Then took I up a cauldron where boiled ten thousand harlots.
'Twas full of flame, yet I drank the same to the health of all such varlets.

7. A spirit as hot as lightning did in that journey guide me.
The sun did shake, and the pale moon quake, as soon as e'er they spied me.

8. And now that I have gotten a lease, than Doomsday longer,
To live on earth with some in mirth, ten whales shall feed my hunger.

9. No Gypsy, slut, or doxy, shall win my mad Tom from me.
We'll weep all night, and with stars fight. The fray will well become me.

10. And when that I have beaten the Man i' th' Moon to powder,
His dog I'll take, and him I'll make as could no demon louder.

11. A health to Tom of Bedlam! Go fill the seas in barrels.
I'll drink it all, well brewed with gall, and maudlin-drunk, I'll quarrel.

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 04 Jul 08 - 12:16 PM

Hi, Dani. You asked about this verse:

But I will find Bonny Maud, merry mad Maud
   And seek whate'er betides her
   Yet I will love beneath or above
   The dirty earth that hides her. "

It seems to me that this is a reference to a poem called "Maude" by Alfred Tennyson. I vaguely recall that Maude's grave wound up under a crossroads, and her spirit was troubled by the clattering traffic above her.

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: kendall
Date: 04 Jul 08 - 07:50 AM

Many years ago someone made a film of the inmates in an asylum in Massachusetts called "Titticut Follies". It was banned so I never saw it.

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: MMario
Date: 03 Jul 08 - 02:57 PM

As I understand it; the song is a long social commentary:
an a number of sujects revolving around the madhouses.

on the custom of pimping out the inhabitants of the asylum;
Of the custom of charging to view the inhabitants as an entertainment

that many of those there were suffering from (or because of) STD's

that those with genuine madness are usually harmless, but those who fake it for gain far from harmless;

And then the verses at the end are a prayer to not fall into madness.

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: jacqui.c
Date: 03 Jul 08 - 02:45 PM

Most likely my love - I still can't work out how you COULDN'T understand it.

jacqui.c, ducking and running for the cellar.

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: kendall
Date: 03 Jul 08 - 02:38 PM

Thanks everyone. Now I know. So, I have to be mad to understand it?

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: Llanfair
Date: 03 Jul 08 - 12:15 PM

Still is, but we call them MP's nowadays!!





Sorry, could't resist.

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: Barry Finn
Date: 03 Jul 08 - 11:09 AM

"It was also the sport of the day to watch the loonies at play". Barry

Subject: RE: Origin of Bedlam Boys
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 03 Jul 08 - 11:08 AM

Mudcat's Bruce Olson had "little doubt that the song is from a lost comic show, 'Tom of Bedlam', presented at court, Jan. 9, 1618."

However, there were several seventeenth century songs of the same kind, all titled "Tom of Bedlam," all with entirely different lyrics.

The earliest reference of all appears to be in Ben Jonson's play, "The Devil is an Ass" (1616) V, ii, 35: "Your best song's 'Tom o'Bethlem.'"

What song Jonson had in mind is unknown. Olson's version, from a manuscript of 1615-26 is the earliest known example of the "hag and hungry goblin" song. Unfortunately the original tune was not preserved.