Lyr Add: I Wanna Have a Little Bomb like You

Subject: Lyr Add: I wanna have a little bomb like you
From: Jack Campin
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 08:42 AM

Found pencilled inside the back cover of a copy of the BBC's "Hold Down a Chord" teach-yourself-guitar book, 1977 edition.

Charles de Gaulle he said to me
I wanna have a little bomb like you
Independent I will be
I wanna have a little bomb like you
You can wave the union jack
Stars and stripes are on the back
I wanna have a little bomb like you
Yes I wanna have a little bomb like you

Mao Tse`Tung to Moscow said
I wanna have a little bomb like you
My little bomb will be twice as red
I wanna have a little bomb like you
We're the best of friends you see
But in case we don't agree
I wanna have a little bomb like you
Yes I wanna have a little bomb like you

Everybody says the same
I wanna have a little bomb like you
Everywhere the same refrain
I wanna have a little bomb like you
Who will be the first to say
Throw the bloody thing away
I don't wanna be the first do you
No I don't wanna be the first do you.


Anybody recognize it?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I wanna have a little bomb like you
From: GUEST,John MacKenzie
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 09:35 AM

Yup, it's the inimitable Sydney Carter

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I wanna have a little bomb like you
From: Leadfingers
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 04:56 PM

I have it on Vynil WITH the first verse !

Hit the drum a great big whack   
I want to have a little bomb like you
Fall in line and follow follow
I want to have a little bomb like you
I like you and you like me
But just in case we disagree
I want to have a little bomb like you

Sadly , the late mr Carter's Estate does not seem to like the idea of his songs being readily available , though Mike Sparks of Herga did do a CD with a few of his songs on it .
Mikes Website is www.mikesparks.co.uk

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I wanna have a little bomb like you
From: Leadfingers
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 05:57 PM

And verse Three is

Mao Tse Tung to Kruschev said
My Bomb will be twice as red
If we all go up in flames
Wont it be a bloody shame

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I wanna have a little bomb like you
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 03:33 AM

My copy of "Songs of Sydney Carter, In the Present Tense 2" has slightly different words from those Jack posted.

last lines of each verse:
I wanna have a little bomb like you
Yes I wanna have a little bomb like you
as
I wanna have a little bomb like you do
I wanna have a little bomb like you

2nd verse has:
We're the best of friends you see
as
I like you and you like me

3rd verse has:
Everywhere the same refrain
as
I am not the one to blame


The first verse, that Leadfingers posted, doesn't appear at all. If the singer on Vynil was Sydney Carter himself, then clearly, it would be difficult to claim one or the other as the definitive version


DC

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I wanna have a little bomb like you
From: Leadfingers
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 08:18 AM

My Vynil is an Edinburg Festival Compilation from Mid Sixties and has Nadia Catthouse as singer and simply credits Sidney Carter as writer

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I wanna have a little bomb like you
From: banjoman
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 06:46 AM

Nadia Catouse sang it on TV in a programme which aired on Sunday evenings years ago. Included the writer Sydney Carter and a very young looking Martin Carthy

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Want to Have a Little Bomb like You
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 12 Apr 11 - 02:41 AM

The programme was "Hallelujah" and was broadcast in the 1960s. There was an album produced with a selection of songs from the various shows.

DC

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Want to Have a Little Bomb like You
From: Jack Campin
Date: 12 Apr 11 - 05:07 AM

Why has somebody changed the title from "wanna" to "want to", when both my source and Sydney Carter as quoted by Doug Chadwick both have "wanna"? Why rewrite the title to a form nobody has ever used before?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Want to Have a Little Bomb like You
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 12 Apr 11 - 08:07 AM

I changed the thread title.

Stainer & Bell, the publisher of Sydney Carter's songbook "In the Present Tense, Book 2," has a web site in which they list the contents of the book. There, the title has "want to." John MacKenzie gave the link above.

Doug Chadwick reports that he has the album on "vynil." I assume he's not too particular about spelling.

Frankly, I never dreamed anyone would object to changing "wanna" to "want to." Many other threads have had their titles corrected in similar ways, and no one that I know of has ever objected.

I hadn't noticed this before, but I see there are 3 earlier threads about this song: one, two, three. They all have "want to."

Jack: I'll change this one back to "wanna" if that's what you really want.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Want to Have a Little Bomb like You
From: goatfell
Date: 12 Apr 11 - 08:18 AM

don't people have LP's anymore or is this showing my age

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Want to Have a Little Bomb like You
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 12 Apr 11 - 12:30 PM

.... when both my source and Sydney Carter as quoted by Doug Chadwick both have "wanna"?

... Doug Chadwick reports that he has the album on "vynil." I assume he's not too particular about spelling.


Oops!

I just edited the original post because I was too lazy to type it all out, without looking as carefully as I should have done. The book does, indeed, say "want to" not "wanna".

I don't have it on vynil - Leadfingers does.

Sorry to confuse. I'll try better next time.


DC

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Want to Have a Little Bomb like You
From: Jack Campin
Date: 12 Apr 11 - 02:04 PM

Thing is, it would never have occurred to me to search under "want to", so I wouldn't have found the other threads.

Probably the best way to make searching more productive would be to change the title back to the way I had it, but put links to the other threads at the top. That way you'll get to the right song eventually whichever spelling you type into the box.

I was imagining some of the other corrected titles we might get:

It Is A Hard Rain That Shall Fall
Alleluia, I Am A Vagrant
Greatly Impressed Them While Progressing Along The Old Kent Road

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Wanna Have a Little Bomb like You
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 12 Apr 11 - 02:20 PM

I can change thread titles but I can't create the links that sometimes appear at the tops of threads. I think only Joe does that.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Wanna Have a Little Bomb like You
From: SylviaN
Date: 12 Apr 11 - 08:29 PM

Just for some information for those who want to know.

I have all the Sydney Carter song books that Stainer & Bell publish. In them, Sydney Carter often makes comments about the songs. Sometimes he has suggestions about how his songs might be performed, which are certainly interesting.



Here are a couple of quotes from Sydney Carter about the performance of his songs (taken from his books):

"Really, no song should be learned out of a book. What is written down is only an approximation. Songs should be learned the way you learn to make an omelette or drive a car. By demonstration, imitation and experiment.

Folk songs used to be passed on like this, which may account for their uncanny power when performed by a singer in the right tradition: a power which is often lost when they are sung by a singer merely trained in "music". A folk song is really a kind of spell: music is a part of it, and so are words, but there is more to it than that. From a living singer, you can learn the proper tone of voice and timing, what liberties you can or cannot take with the rhythm and the tempo. Even the way he stands or moves about may tell you something. And, of course, you can ask him questions, which you can't do to a book."

Sydney Carter
September, 1969

"These songs are not "folk"; but a singer in the folk or blues tradition might know what to do with them more easily than a singer trained ecclesiastically. Animal vitality, the pulsation of the human voice, the dramatic use of vocal texture - rough, smooth, "ugly" or "beautiful" - are the qualities you find in a blues singer. They are not always welcomed in a church. Partly, perhaps, it is a matter of acoustics. Churches are not built to cope with sounds like this.

The angelic, disembodied voice, floating on its own innumerable echoes, can produce a wonderful effect. But it is rarely (I won't say never) the effect envisaged for the kind of song I write. Most of them come off better in the cellar or the crypt. Or even in the open air.

Can you sing of holy things in a worldly voice? When you go into a place of worship, do you have to leave your body at the door? Mahalia Jackson doesn't. She sings with the power, the grace and the fhythm of an animal. Can you, or can you not, be a holy animal? If not, I'm sunk.

Holy or not, I like a singer who can dance; with the voice, if not the feet. Melody and clarity of diction are desirable; but rhythm, timing and vitality matter more than crystal clear enunciation or the perfect rounded note. My gallery of vocal pin-ups would include Amalia rodrighes and (in another corner) Marlene Dietrich. Whether what she does can really be called singing doesn't worry me. It is alive, it can weave a spell; and I do not think it is a wicked one. Like anything alive, it dances. Even the Dead March should go with a live, albeit solemn, rhythm. It is relevant to life. If it isn't, why are we doing it?

The songs in this book started from words, rhythm and a melody. Harmonies came later. They tend to vary with the instrument and player. Here, they are provided by John Farmer, for piano and guitar. Other harmonies and instruments are possible; some of them can be heard on the records that are listed."

Sydney Carter
September, 1969

For example, Keith and I do an arrangement in unaccompanied harmony of "Crow on the Cradle". The tune we use is the one in the book and the one that most people know.

I bought a CD of a performance by Sydney Carter and Donald Swan when they were working together (I'll have to find it to give details if anyone is interested - it is not a bootleg CD). This CD has a version of "Crow on the Cradle". The words are different (and we've incorporated some of the differences into the version we sing). The tune is very different, i.e. not the one that was put in the book.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Sylvia