Lyr Add: Old Cock Crows

Subject: Lyr Add: OLD COCK CROWS
From: Barbara
Date: 09 May 09 - 01:33 AM

I ran across this on a compilation album, "Voices in Harmony" English songs. I think that's what it's called -- I'm in here and it's out in the car, and toward the end it had this variation of "A Country Life" that I decided to transcribe. The tune is different from A Country Life, except for the last two lines of the chorus.
I would love to know more about the origins of this song, and its relationship to the more familiar "I like to rise when the sun she rises..."
The group singing it is called 'Yorkshire Relish'.
^^
OLD COCK CROWS

Behold in me a jolly farmer
That lives in the fields so green
And I likes to rise in the morning
When the pretty little violets are seen
Yes, I likes to rise up early
And merrily follow the plow
I likes to watch the dairy
And go milking the old dun cow.

CHORUS --
I likes to hear the old cock crow
Early in the morning
I likes to stroll through the bright green fields
Just as the day is dawning
I likes to hear them little birds
Sing their merry lay
Hoorah for a life in the country
And to ramble in the new mown hay

Repeat chorus

I likes to live in the country
Yes, I likes to live at me farm
And I shouldn't like the city
For a country life's so charmed
Yes, I like to watch the girls in the dairy
Making butter and cheese
I likes to hear me own girl Mary
Telling tales 'neath the apple trees

Chorus twice


Thaz it.
Blessings,
Barbara

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Click to Play

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Old Cock Crows
From: Artful Codger
Date: 09 May 09 - 03:39 AM

Any possibility of getting dots for this tune variant?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Old Cock Crows
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 May 09 - 04:25 AM

Hi, Codger. I haven't found a source for the dots for this.

Roud lists only one entry, at the Gardiner Manuscripts. Does anybody know how to access the Gardiner Manuscripts?

Performer: RANDALL, William   
Place: Hursley   
County Hampshire   
Country: England   
Date: 1905 (Jun)

Subject: Lyr Add: EGGS FOR YOUR BREAKFAST (MacColl/Seeger)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 May 09 - 04:37 AM

This version comes from a Musical Traditions recording, George Dunn: Chainmaker
^^
3 - Eggs for Your Breakfast (Roud 1752)
(Recorded 1971 by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger)

EGGS FOR YOUR BREAKFAST

I love my home at the little white farm
With the ivy entwined round the door
I love to hear the lark that twines so high
And listen to the old bull's roar
I love to wander through the old barnyard
And down by the old hay stacks
And listen to the chuckles of the chickens and the hens
In the morning when the old cock crows.

Chorus:
"Quack, quack, quack" go the pretty little ducks
The hens go "Chuckle" give you warning
When the old cock crows, then everybody knows
There'll be eggs for your breakfast in the morning.

I love to gaze on the ripe, yellow corn
I love to roll on the grass
I love to take a walk through the new mown hay
With a pretty little country lass
I love to wander by the old mill-stream
And catch every breeze that blows
And listen to the chuckles of the chickens and the hens
In the morning when the old cock crows.

A song written by Harry Linn in the 1870s and, aside from George, only Walter Pardon is known to have sung it in the oral tradition, as A Country Life on (MTCD305-6).

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Old Cock Crows
From: Barbara
Date: 09 May 09 - 12:46 PM

Joe, I can write out the dots for this. I'll send you a MIDI when I get it done. Unless you'd prefer a PDF of the sheet music. Let me know.
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Old Cock Crows
From: Barbara
Date: 09 May 09 - 04:54 PM

Shipped the dots to Joe, they should be here soon.
The second verse should start
"I likes a [the?] life of a farmer
Yes, I likes to live at me farm"

Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Old Cock Crows
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 May 09 - 05:30 PM

MIDI submitted by Barbara. She says the verse is first, followed by the chorus 2x

Click to Play

Thanks, Barbara.
Is there a recording of this available? I couldn't find the McColl/Seeger recording anywhere.


-Joe-

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Old Cock Crows
From: Barbara
Date: 09 May 09 - 06:05 PM

I believe this recording is still available; I bought it only a couple years back. Here's the information:

Voices in Harmony
English Traditional Songs
Fellside Recordings
FECD158
PO Box 40
Workington, Cumbria
CA14 3CG, UK

And it says about the song:
The Old Cock Crows
Yorkshire Relish
Derek, Dorothy & Nadine Elliot
c 1976
Another family group. It's a piece of nonsense, of course, but great fun to sing.
The Elliots got it from a BBC archive recording of Kit Jones of Redmire, Yorkshire.
Original recording made by Traditional Sound Recordings.

Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Old Cock Crows
From: Barbara
Date: 09 May 09 - 07:53 PM

Oh, and they have a website: Fellside Records
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Old Cock Crows
From: gnomad
Date: 10 May 09 - 05:10 AM

Those lucky enough to get to Whitby on a Sunday night will often catch Derek & Dorothy at the Station Inn sessions, which are run by Derek as a rule. They still sometimes perform this song, but no longer perform as Yorkshire Relish.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Old Cock Crows
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 May 16 - 02:41 AM

"the Old Cock Crows" is certainly related to the "Country Life" song recorded by the Watersons, but the verses are quite different. The Traditional Ballad Index lists it as a second song under the title "Country Life":

Country Life (II), The

DESCRIPTION: "Behold in me a farmer's son so jolly." The singer tells what he likes about farming: fields and flowers, birds singing, "milking the old dun cow," hearing the cock crow early, his Mary, ... "I do not like a city life." "A country life's the best"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1911 (Greig)
KEYWORDS: farming nonballad
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber),England(North))
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Greig #169, p. 2, "The Country Life" (1 text)
Palmer-ECS, #20, "The Old Cock Crows" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #6297
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Country Life (I)" (chorus lyrics)
cf. "A Sweet Country Life" (theme)
NOTES: The chorus is close to "The Country Life" (I) but this song has no seasonal verses. Each verse of "The Country Life" (I) is a variation on "rambling in the new-mown hay," which appears here only in the chorus. Greig says it "seems to hail from the south." - BS
Last updated in version 3.7
File: Grg169b

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Subject: ADD Version: Old Cock Crows
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 May 16 - 02:59 AM

Roy Palmer's English Country Songbook has a song almost identical to the one Barbara posted in the first message:

20. THE OLD COCK CROWS

Behold in me a jolly farmer
That lives in the fields so green.
I like to rise in the morning
When the pretty little violets are seen.
Yes, I like to rise up early
And merrily follow the plough;
I like to watch the dairy
And go milking the old dun cow.

CHORUS
I like to hear the old cock crow,
Early in the morning,
I like to stroll through the bright green fields,
Just as the day is dawning.
I like to hear the little birds
Sing their merry lay:
Hurrrah for a life in the country
And a ramble in the new mown hay.

I like the life of a farmer,
Yes, I like to live at my farm,
And I shouldn't like the city,
For a country life so charm;
And, I like to watch the girls in the dairy
Making butter and cheese,
I like to hear my own girl Mary
Tell her tales 'neath the apple trees

Chorus twice


Palmer's notes: If the farm worker has his anthem, in the shape of "The Farmer's Boy," then the farmer has his in this song. Significantly, both were rewritten for town use, one as "The Factory Boy," and the other with this chorus:

I like to hear the engine start, early in the morning,
I like to sit me down at breakfast time, just as the engine's roaring;
And I like to see the pieces as on the floor they lay,
Hurrah for the life in the factory while we're waiting for the judgement day.

Ironic, for both songs may well have originated in the town for country consumption in the first place.