Lyr Add: Dame Durden

Subject: Dame Durden
From: pavane
Date: 21 Sep 10 - 04:01 AM

Just came across a version of Dame Durden printed in 1858 - and it looks like the version we know has been cleaned up a little!
(I did check and couldn't find this version here)

Last verse:

'Twas on the morn of Valentine
The birds began to prate
Dame Durden's servants, maids and men
They all began to mate (!)

Dame Durden, The book of popular songs ed J. E. Carpenter, pp 60-61

Subject: RE: Dame Durden
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Sep 10 - 09:54 AM

Yes indeed. The version we mainly know is, of course, the one from the Copper Family. When Bob Copper's first book, A Song For Every Season, appeared, I said in my review for The Times that Copper songs tended to be less outspoken than many versions ~~ I think, from memory, that The Lark In The Morning was the example I cited ~~ suggesting that this might be because they were sung as much in the family as in the pub or at work. I received a letter from Bob, which I have before me now, dated 12 November 1971: he wrote, "... your theory that the songs were 'bowdlerised' in their transition from taproom to cottage parlour is absolutely correct. Dad told me his mother was most strict about such matters and would not allow Grand-dad to sing 'Jack Tar' because of the line, 'Oh, you're dirty love and you're flirty love and you smell so of tar.' ~~ There's puritan for you! (as they say)."

I much later wrote to Bob again and got from him the tune of this version of 'Tarry Trousers', which he confirmed his father only partially knew and omitted from The Book; I published this information in a Note in Folk Music Journal [EFDSS], vol 5 #5 1989,
under title 'An Unpublished Copper Family Song: extracts from a correspondence'.

This seems to me to explain the reason for the version of Dame Durden mentioned by Pavane above having perhaps been superseded by the less outspoken but better known Copper Family one.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Dame Durden
From: GUEST,Gadaffi
Date: 21 Sep 10 - 10:10 AM

I hate to say this but, just because it's the Copper Family, it doesn't mean it's 'traditional' (except to the Copper Family perhaps)!

When I researched Dame Durden as part of the Millen Family repertoire (which was slightly different), I found a printed version from the 1830s. In fact, the Millens' version is more or less the same as that sang by The Mellstock Band on one of their CDs displaying the vocal diversity of the soloists rather than the unison version the Coppers do. Someone out there is bound to insist it's one of Henry Purcell's cleaner glees popular in 17th century coffee houses.

Other Copper songs that springs to mind as having slightly different versions elsewhere include Corduroy and Twankydillo. IO daresay there are others.

Subject: RE: Dame Durden
From: pavane
Date: 21 Sep 10 - 10:27 AM

This one is from 1833 - but here it's the birds begin to mate

Dame Durden - a glee - music by Hanna

Subject: RE: Dame Durden
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Sep 10 - 10:32 AM

Gadaffi ~~ Can't quite make out what point you think you're making in your oddly truculent first sentence. I didn't claim it as 'traditional' or otherwise: simply that the Copper version is the one which most readily comes to most people's minds: it is, e.g., the only one, & thus attributed, in DT. Would you disagree with that? If you have researched another one, & have theories about it, and about which other Copper songs might have less proper variations ~ well, goody for you. But I am still much at a loss as to what, precisely, it is that you so peculiarly 'hate to say'.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Dame Durden
From: pavane
Date: 21 Sep 10 - 10:51 AM

But there are also one from 1827 and one from 1828 which are the same as the one in the first post above, as is one from 1968 (in Folk songs of the Upper Thames).

There is possibly a version in an 1822 book, but I can't see it to check. (The Vocal Library, Sir Richard Phillips and co., 1822). That's the oldest one I have found.

Subject: RE: Dame Durden
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 Sep 10 - 01:52 PM

I don't know anyone who would consider this anything but a glee as sung in the glee clubs by middle class gentlemen in the early nineteenth century. I don't know of any versions that could be construed as even remotely bawdy or risque. In verse 3 'They all began to mate' simply means 'pair off' and references to kissing in some areas might have been seen as off-colour at the height of Victorian prudishness but certainly not in the early nineteenth century among the gentlemen of the glee clubs and supper rooms where they were performed.

I have a sheet music version from the 1830s and broadsides from about 1820 but I doubt it is much older than this although it could be late 18thc. Just about all of the well-known early 19thc printers like Marshall, Pitts, Catnach, Kendrew, Walker printed it but it doesn't turn up in the 18thc garlands.

Subject: RE: Dame Durden
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Sep 10 - 03:43 PM

In Dickens' Bleak House [1853] Dame Durden is the nickname given to Esther Summerson when she takes over the keys to the house; the song presumably being so widely familiar then among the glee-singing classes that the name became a sort of antonomasia for a housewife?

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Dame Durden
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Sep 10 - 03:48 PM

"slightly different versions" is surely what folk music is all about. Not the only thing, but a significant part of the fabric.

Subject: RE: Dame Durden
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 Sep 10 - 05:38 PM

By sheer coincidence I've just finished reading Jackson-Houlston's 'Ballads, Songs and Snatches'. The chapter on Dickens and Thackeray asserts, (p111)'The standard musical fare was glees, i.e., simple unaccompanied English songs arranged for male rather than female voices, and to suit the capacities of amateurs. Dickens, Thackeray, Jerrold, Mayhew and Sala all visited the strictly male Evans's, and Thackeray frequented others such as the Cider Cellars as well. Increasingly in the 1840s and 50s the entertainment became more sedate......Sala and Thackeray both describe the raunchier past with affection.....'
Dame Durden is mentioned as being put into the mouth of one of Jefferies' characters on p135.

Another standard at these places was 'Little Pigs' which eventually morphed into Albert Richardson's 'Old Sow'.

McGrath, generally speaking I'd want more evidence of oral tradition than one or two encounters and the odd word being altered for propietry's sake. Having said that it features in my oral tradition index. Although had it not been a staple part of the Copper Family repertoire I doubt if it would have been.

Subject: RE: Dame Durden
From: JohnH
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 05:40 PM

There's a version in Vol 2 of "The Universal Songster or Museum of Mirth" pub. 1825 ish. You can get Vols. 1 and 3 from Google Books but Vol. 2 seems to be hiding!

Subject: RE: Dame Durden
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 06:43 PM

John,
You haven't got the actual page number by any chance have you? My copy I have indexed but pages 209 to 224 are missing. I can't find it under 'Twas' in the first line indexes. It should surely be with the glees.

Subject: RE: Dame Durden
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 06:49 PM

John,
Okay I've got it. Look under 'Dame' in the glees....Durr!!!
It's page 252 Dame Durden, a glee. Nothing different to the usual broadsides but it pushes the date back a bit.

Cheers

Subject: Lyr Add: DAME DURDEN
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 09:03 PM

Here's the oldest version I can find, from The Vocal Library (London: Sir Richard Phillips and Co., 1822), page 435:


DAME DURDEN

1. Dame Durden kept five serving girls,
To carry the milking pail;
She also kept five labouring men,
To use the spade and flail.

CHORUS: 'Twas Moll and Bet, and Doll and Kate, and Dorothy Draggletail;
And John and Dick, and Joe and Jack, and Humphrey, with his flail.
'Twas John kiss'd Molly!
And Dick kiss'd Betty!
And Joe kiss'd Dolly!
And Jack kiss'd Katty!
And Dorothy Draggletail,
And Humphrey with his flail;
And Kitty was a charming girl to carry the milking pail.

2. Dame Durden in the morn so soon,
She did begin to call;
To rouse her servants, maids and men,
She then began to bawl.

3. 'Twas on the morn of Valentine,
When birds began to prate;
Dame Durden's servants, maids and men,
They all began to mate.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Dame Durden
From: Chris Partington
Date: 25 Oct 11 - 08:15 AM

Regarding the earliest date so far, this version is the first tune in the Lincolnshire MS of Thomas Sands, dated by himself to 1810. The MS will be going on the Village Music Project website shortly

X:001
T:Dame Durden TS.001
M:6/8
L:1/8
Q:3/8=110
S:Thomas Sands' MS,1810,Lincolnshire
R:glee
N:Repeat indications in MS often erratic
O:Lincolnshire
Z:vmp.Ruairidh Greig, 2011
K:C
e|e2ee2g|c2cc2c|eee e2c|d3z2d|!
e2ee2e|c2BA2^G|A2A^G2B|A3z2:|!
|:"_repeats are marked as in MS"c|e2ee2g|c2cc2c|\
eee"crotchet added"e2 c|d3z2d|!
e2ee2e|c2BA2^G|A2A^G2B|A3z2|!
|:z|z2z(e>g)z|z2ze>gz|z2ze>gz|z2ze>g g|!
eeee2e|d3z2d|e2ee2e|c2BA2^G|!
AAA^G2B|A3z2d|e2ee2g|g2ec2e|fffd2d|e3z2:|]

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Dame Durden
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 25 Oct 11 - 08:54 AM

The earliest book in the Roud index is a Vocal Library, 1820 edition, p.435, probably the same as Jim's above.

Mick