Liar's Songs (Paddy's Night Out et al.)

Subject: Folklore: Liar's Songs (Paddy's Night Out et al.)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Nov 11 - 03:07 PM

There are a lot of liar's songs but I wanted to ask specifically about Paddy's Night Out, which does not appear to be in the Trad but which is discussed
Also, all the latter seem to be about men's participation in mythological or historical exploits, specifically. In this I would include The Universal Soldier. Does anybody know of one about a long-lived woman who did something at every breakpoint in history? Even a female personification, like the UnivSoldier? I mean, even the Darby Ram was male...

Subject: RE: Liar's Songs (Paddy's Night Out et al.)
From: Susan of DT
Date: 03 Nov 11 - 07:29 AM

Possibly sung by a woman: Autumn to May
Other historical liars: Historical Bum

Subject: RE: Liar's Songs (Paddy's Night Out et al.)
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 03 Nov 11 - 01:55 PM

[Mrzzy had a quotation mark missing in the link, and the link was to a search results page instead of a thread. Here's the way the original post should look, I think. ~ Becky in Long Beach]

There are a lot of liar's songs but I wanted to ask specifically about Paddy's Night Out, which does not appear to be in the Trad but which is discussed here.

In this song a guy talks about meeting a lovely lady after a bad day at labor, going home with her, but getting caught by her husband...

...(you really need to hear it, it's by the Wolfe Tones)

But it's the only one in which the singer first tells a (barely) plausible yarn, then admits in so many words to fibbing once he's involved the audience, which is part of the song.

Lots of liars songs are about unbelievable male sexual exploits but they don't usually end in an admission - or are there versions of If you'll buy that, I'll throw the Golden Gate in free, which is a lyric of a lovelorn man, not a liar's song as usually meant (otherwise known I guess as bragging songs? Should I include the Darby Ram)?

All the others I can think of are unbelievable from the start, like the various versions of "I was born about 10,000 years ago" or "Maloney wants a drink" and so on.

Also, all the latter seem to be about men's participation in mythological or historical exploits, specifically. In this I would include The Universal Soldier. Does anybody know of one about a long-lived woman who did something at every breakpoint in history? Even a female personification, like the UnivSoldier? I mean, even the Darby Ram was male...

Subject: RE: Liar's Songs (Paddy's Night Out et al.)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 Nov 11 - 04:50 PM

Thanks - you can't do a blicky to a search result paage? Sorry! I wanted to show that I had looked for prior threads on this.

I thought it would be interesting...