Chord Req: Mad Tom of Bedlam

Subject: Chord Req: Mad Tom of Bedlam
From: GUEST,DonMeixner
Date: 18 Jan 10 - 10:31 AM

Hi All,

I'd like to know who uses what chords with this song.

This is not so much a request for chords as a wonder as to how many ways is this song played. I have never been happy with the chords I have found. They always seemed like they were missing in the melody. Probably I have the melody a little off bubble. But this week I found some that work for me and my melody.

However, being the average folk type with a 70% hearing loss and reattached fingers I'm sure others have had the same issue with this and other songs.

Thanks

Don

Subject: RE: Chord Req: Mad Tom of Bedlam
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 18 Jan 10 - 02:50 PM

Well, there's two tunes - the original from Pills to Purge Melancholy quite possibly by Purcell, & the more common tune, quite possibly by Nic Jones. Here's the original sung by Catharine Bott:

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

Subject: RE: Chord Req: Mad Tom of Bedlam
From: growler
Date: 18 Jan 10 - 04:16 PM

Try playing it in Am, C, G E. it works

Subject: RE: Chord Req: Mad Tom of Bedlam
From: DonMeixner
Date: 18 Jan 10 - 04:23 PM

Thanks Growler, that is the direction I took only I have added an "F" and made the "E" an "E7".   Typical square edged Folk Thinking I suppose but it suits my sense of the melody.

Thyank you Suibhne, I have never heard of Catherine Bott and I can hear I am missing a talent.

Don

Subject: RE: Chord Req: Mad Tom of Bedlam
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 03:24 PM

A talent she surely is - and my favourite ever Dido besides:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar9xgnGYhXQ

Subject: RE: Chord Req: Mad Tom of Bedlam
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 05:08 PM

I've just used Em and D and not felt any chords were missing.

Subject: RE: Chord Req: Mad Tom of Bedlam
From: LesB
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 02:52 AM

I've always used Dm C in dropped D tuning.
Cheers
Les

Subject: Lyr Add: MAD MAUDLIN (from D'Urfey)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 03:15 AM

I don't see the lyrics posted - I found them at http://www.shipbrook.com/jeff/ballads/maudlin.html

Mad MAUDLIN,
To find out TOM of BEDLAM.
(Pills to purge Melancholy, iv. 192)

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

      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.

I now repent that ever
Poor Tom was so disdainèd.
My wits are lost since him I crost,
Which makes me go thus chainèd.

My staff hath murder'd giants,
My bag a long knife carries,
To cut mince pyes from children's thighs,
With which I feast the Faries.

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.

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

Then took I up a Cauldron,
Where boyl'd ten thousand harlots.
'Twas full of flame, yet I drank the same
To the health of all such varlets.

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 dæmon louder.

A Health to Tom of Bedlam,
Go fill the seas in barrels.
I'll drink it all, well brew'd with gall,
and Maudling-drunk, I'll quarrel.

---

The original words of this ballad were published in Wit and Drollery (1656), indicated as being "to the tune of Tom of Bedlam". This version, an altered form, appeared in D'Urfey's Pills to purge Melancholy (1701).

Subject: RE: Chord Req: Mad Tom of Bedlam
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 03:57 AM

Top version here:

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

Shame she didn't use the proper tune. I urge you guys to seek it out & use it - as I did HERE (track #10).

Subject: RE: Chord Req: Mad Tom of Bedlam
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 05:58 AM

My favourite version, sung by my friend Siobhan Miller, here

Subject: RE: Chord Req: Mad Tom of Bedlam
From: HipflaskAndy
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 06:06 AM

The 'modern' tune that most folk seem to use
- as listed incorrectly (originally) as 'Trad' on Steeleye Span's 'Please to See The King)
is actually 'mostly the work of the Halliard's Dave Moran with some small input from Nic'
- to quote Julia Jones
(from when I enquired, wanting the correct credit
- my CD version had also been erroneously credited,
having taken the Steeleye LP as gospel - doh!)

Two chords can see you through it all, no bother.
I use Dm and C
But there's all manner you can chuck in if you like!
Cheers - Duncan McF

Subject: RE: Chord Req: Mad Tom of Bedlam
From: GUEST,JohnMc
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 06:29 AM

The first section repeats   Bm    D    A

then Bm    A    Bm   before chorus


Ch   Bm A    G    A    replacing   A with   F"m second time and ending Bm   F"m    Bm

All to be found in THE HALLIARD   broadside songs    MOLLIE MUSIC   CD accom

Subject: RE: Chord Req: Mad Tom of Bedlam
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 10:39 AM

Happily the song exists in The Digital Tradition HERE in its more proper form - words, tune & all. Cracking stuff with a wholesome provenance to boot...

Subject: RE: Chord Req: Mad Tom of Bedlam
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 07:47 PM

That Midi file is not playing right for me but sounds as if it might be a harmony to the usual tune.

Jacqui and Royston used to play that but I never got it quite right. Maybe I should give it a go.

Subject: RE: Chord Req: Mad Tom of Bedlam
From: GUEST,DonMeixner
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 11:07 PM

My thanks to everyone.

Don

Subject: RE: Chord Req: Mad Tom of Bedlam
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 05:13 AM

That Midi file is not playing right for me but sounds as if it might be a harmony to the usual tune.

Do persevere, Richard - if not, you can hear Catharine Bott singing it on YouTube (linked above somewhere). Not a harmony to the usual tune, which it pre-dates by some 300 years at least!

Subject: Lyr Add: BEDLAM CATS (Cynthia McQuillin)
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 04:13 AM

Copied from This Site

Bedlam Cats
Cynthia McQuillin
Parody of traditional "Bedlam Boys"

Saw my tom a groomin' all on a' winters ev'nin'
So much hair had he swallowed there
And soon he was a' heavin'

Refrain:
Still I sing bonny cats. Bonny mad cats
Bedlam cats are Bonny
For they leap in the air and they haven't a care
And they sleep upon your tummy

I went downstairs to my kitchen
For to get them food one morning
But I nearly tripped and I sprained my hip
As around me they were swarmin'

Refrain

With a host of furious tabbies
Where of I am commander
With shots and pills to cure their ills
To the vet's office I wander

Refrain

Now I must lock my closet
Whenever I would travel
For they kneed their toes upon my cloths
All my sweaters they unravel

Refrain

At night like hosts of cattle
All across my room stampeding
With a thund'rous tread that would wake the dead
In their battles all unheeding

Refrain


Cheers
Nigel

Subject: RE: Chord Req: Mad Tom of Bedlam
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 11:15 AM

HipflakAndy said:
Two chords can see you through it all, no bother.
I use Dm and C
But there's all manner you can chuck in if you like!

Should this be:
"Two chords can see you easily,
D minor, C, no bother.
But if your play goes oft astray,
You may use any other...."

Cheers

Subject: RE: Chord Req: Mad Tom of Bedlam
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 08 Jan 17 - 07:33 PM

Six years past, I may not have made it clear that I was aiming for the same rhyme scheme and scansion.

Subject: RE: Chord Req: Mad Tom of Bedlam
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 09 Jan 17 - 05:43 AM

Dave Moran wrote;

"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 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."