Swarb and Martin Carthy - The Great ?

Subject: Swarb and Martin Carthy - The Great ?
From: GUEST,Alice
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 12:17 PM

Am I the only person in the world who thinks they are singing "They call me the Great Lasagne"?
Come on, what is it really?

Subject: RE: Swarb and Martin Carthy - The Great ?
From: Peace
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 12:22 PM

Found this, Alice:

"From John Hollington 10/5/08
Hi - Not a comment on this excellent site but a request for help. I have a copy of "Tanz & Folkfest Rudolstatd 1992" which lists Martin and Swarb playing "A Question of Sport".
This, however, is not what it plays. The song starts "I am humanity cast in the flood" and the verse ends "they call me the great (M)azania" ? Any idea what the correct title of this track is? Regards


Reply: it is A Question of Sport. Written by Martin, recorded on Life and Limb"

Subject: RE: Swarb and Martin Carthy - The Great ?
From: Peace
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 12:25 PM

Also this:

A Question of Sport
[Martin Carthy]

There are several live recordings of this song by Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick: The first, recorded live on February 23, 1990 at Focal Point, St. Louis, MO, USA, is on their album Life and Limb; it was re-released on Rigs of the Time: The Best of Martin Carthy. The second was recorded in Pittsburgh on October 17, 1991 and released on The Carthy Chronicles. And the third was performed on July 5, 1992 at the Tanz & Folkfest Rudolstadt '02. They also played this on their 1992 video 100 Not Out.

Martin Carthy said in the Life and Limb sleeve notes:

A Question of Sport grew over the space of about three years as the response of someone who is very fond of sport (me), the the apparently never ending stream of sportsmen detaching themselves from the real world with the cry "Just doing my job."

Subject: RE: Swarb and Martin Carthy - The Great ?
From: Mr Fox
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 12:31 PM

It's Azania, an alternative name for South africa - explanation here.

Subject: RE: Swarb and Martin Carthy - The Great ?
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 04:13 PM

and here, Swarb & Carthy in lighter vein

just in case there is anybody who hasn't seen this gem yet ...

Subject: RE: Swarb and Martin Carthy - The Great ?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 04:17 AM

I saw Martin Carthy on Tuesday, playing with Reg Meuross, at Sidmouth. Heck, they played well together. They were playing 'The Poacher' which is a song that Reg wrote especially for Martin, I believe.

It's on his 'Still' CD. Great song! A New Tradition song, if ever there was one! :0)

Subject: RE: Swarb and Martin Carthy - The Great ?
From: Dennis the Elder
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 04:48 PM

The word Mazania means something in Polish I believe, but I have no idea what it is

Subject: RE: Swarb and Martin Carthy - The Great ?
From: michaelr
Date: 09 Aug 08 - 01:36 AM

Murray, have the words to the Peter Sellers song been posted? I'd like to know what the first verse is - Swarb mumbles so...

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: Lyr Add:I HAVEN'T TOLD HER
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 09 Aug 08 - 08:19 PM

I've got a clock that wakes me every morning for my train
I've got a corn that gives me warning when it's going to rain.
I've got a dream that's coming true, I've got a sweetie in view.
I'm as happy as I can be and as bad in love with the girl, you see
I haven't told her, and she hasn't told me, but we know it just the same.

Saturday night on her settee, oh! what a time there's going to be
I haven't told her, and she hasn't told me, but we know it just the same.
She still calls me Mister, but she won't, I know she won't, after I've kissed her
I've got a feeling soon there'll be one little, two little, possibly three
I haven't told her, and she hasn't told me, but we know it just the same.

Subject: RE: Swarb and Martin Carthy - The Great ?
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 10 Aug 08 - 07:24 PM

"I'm as happy as I can be and as bad in love with the girl, you see"

on watching the video again, it is apparent that those words are not what is being sung, it sounds more like

"I'm as happy as I can be 'cos I've fallen in love with the girl, you see"

it's a bit difficult to make out the words exactly ...

Subject: Lyr Add: A QUESTION OF SPORT (Martin Carthy)
From: GUEST,KevBoyd
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 09:28 AM

A QUESTION OF SPORT
(Martin Carthy)

I am humanity cast in the flood
Waive your liberty as I come among you
I ride the ark on a sea of blood
They call me the Great Azania

I soared like the dove released to the air
When they tossed me through a window tied to a chair
Landed in the middle of Trafalgar Square
Come to visit all your bad dreams upon you

Now the first that I met when I came in to land
Was the Grantham grocer's daughter
She cried aloud: How sorry I am
There wasn't anybody here could have caught you

She crowed in my ear like I knew she could
A cabinet briefing on the misunderstood
Bathed my wounds in my very own blood
Calling on the world press to support her

Oh, the cameras rattled and the questions flew
Everybody sang Rule Britannia
The cabinet jumped up two-by-two
Joining in with their own memoranda

They went maximum leverage, minimum force
You get your dividend but you've gotta stay the course
Sang as they all trouped off to the house
God save our gracious TINA

Oh they knew by the bruising around my body
I clearly was a threat to the nation
Knew that menace to life and limb
Was a matter of interpretation

They had me down at the dog track running like a hare
I was huge on the replay screens up there
The crown flung their hats in the air
Marvelling at my acceleration

Oh they heard me cry when I fell among thieves
The billy cup beat a tattoo on me
Joined the brokers and crowded the eaves
Jostling to get the best view of me

They sang, Suffer little children and see how they run
As the teargas flew and the sjambok sang
Still as the white-walled necklace burned
They played out aloud for their piece of me

The birdmen of Pollsmoor raged in the dark
Rand man came to saddle up and ride 'em
Birdmen of Pollsmoor built them an ark
No divine telegram to guide 'em

Rand man shouted; rand man cajoled
Did the township jive and the photo-call
Words of the birdmen spangled the wall
A weeping teargas diadem

It said I am humanity cast in the flood
Waive your liberty as I come among you
I ride the ark on a sea of blood
They call me the Great Azania

I soared like the dove released to the air
You left me for dead at the foot of the stair
And when I rise in the middle of Trafalgar Square
Resurrection's all around you

A brief 'glossary' of some of the terms used, as occasionally provided by Martin Carthy when introducing the song:

Azania: Alternative name for South Africa

TINA: Name given to Margaret Thatcher during the Falklands campaign after her habit of using the phrase "There Is No Alternative"

Sjambok: Leather whip associated with torture in apartheid-era South Africa

Pollsmoor: Pollsmoor Maximum Security Prison in Cape Town, South Africa.

Subject: RE: Swarb and Martin Carthy - The Great ?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 06:32 PM

And of course the South African Embassy, which for decades had a continuing demonstration outside it, is in Trafalgar Square,

Subject: RE: Swarb and Martin Carthy - The Great ?
From: Mr Fox
Date: 22 Nov 08 - 05:17 AM

They had me down at the dog track running like a hare
I was huge on the replay screens up there
The crown flung their hats in the air
Marvelling at my acceleration

Is most likely a reference to Zola Budd, a (white) South African runner who was given British citizenship in the hope of winning an Olympic medal. Ah, the sporting ideal.......

Subject: RE: Swarb and Martin Carthy - The Great ?
From: Reinhard
Date: 22 Nov 08 - 05:44 AM

Shouldn't that be

They had me down at the dog track running like a hare
I was huge on the replay screens up there
Crowds flung their hats in the air
Marvelling at my acceleration

Subject: RE: Swarb and Martin Carthy - The Great ?
From: Terry McDonald
Date: 22 Nov 08 - 05:48 AM

Just to be pedantic - surely 'TINA' referred to Mrs Thatcher's economic policies rather than the Falklands War?

Subject: RE: Swarb and Martin Carthy - The Great ?
From: GUEST,KevBoyd
Date: 26 Nov 08 - 08:17 AM

Reinhard:
Yes, of course.

Terry:
I'm quoting half-remembered song intros from the best part of a decade ago so there's every chance you're right. This appears to confirm it.