Lyr Req: Abiezer Coppe (Leon Rosselson)

Subject: Words for Abenezer Cobb
From: Rumncoke
Date: 18 Feb 13 - 07:51 PM

I am going through all my notes and diaries trying to dredge up all the songs I have sung over the years.

I have found Abenezer Cobb - he seems to have been quite a character and I would love to get all the words in the right order - does anyone recognise it? It starts:

Abenezer Cobb did away with sin
My body is my church he said,
God's dwelling is within
All I do is holy, Abenezer cried
Gave his loving freely
A ranter till he died


Drink a loving cup to Abenezer, Abenezer
He's a drinking dancing roaring ranter
Abenezer Cobb, Abenezer Cobb

Subject: RE: Words for Abenezer Cobb
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 18 Feb 13 - 08:12 PM

Leon Rosselson's Abiezer Coppe. You can find a set of lyrics here (amongst others) Abiezer Coppe. (1/3 down page)


Mick

Subject: RE: Words for Abenezer Cobb
From: Rumncoke
Date: 18 Feb 13 - 09:17 PM

Wow!!

Thank you very much - even with the wrong name - found in eleven minutes.

The strange thing is that I knew about Coppe and The Ranters, from my days with John Lilburne's regiment of musket and pike but did not make the connection.

Well - that's another one crossed off - back to the diary.

I wish I could play the tapes I have, but they were made on a 4 track three speed reel to reel tape recorder and mine stopped working decades ago. There are hours of singing on them, a much better resource than the little grey cells I'm sure.

Subject: RE: Words for Abenezer Cobb
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Feb 13 - 09:28 PM

Roy Bailey does a great job with it. I'm not sure if he's recorded it.

Subject: ADD: Abiezer Coppe (Leon Rosselson)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Feb 13 - 09:47 PM

Here are the complete lyrics, from the link Mick Pearce provided, http://rabble.ca/babble/culture/songs-about-historical-events:

If you like that, you should also listen to the song Rosselson wrote about Gerard Winstanley's(the leader of the Diggers) archrival, Abiezer Coppe, who led a more urban, free-love based 17th century radical group, The Ranters(and whose personal manifesto was called "A Flying Fiery Rolle")

ABIEZER COPPE
(Leon Rosselson)

1)Abiezer Coppe, did away with sin
"my body is my church" he said, "God's dwelling is within."
"All I do is holy" Abiezer cried,
Gave his loving freely, a Ranter 'til he died

Chorus:
So drink a loving cup, to Abiezer, Abiezer,
He's a drinking dancing roaring Ranter,
Abiezer Coppe, Abiezer Coppe.

2)"A pox upon the pious, and on what the Scriptures teach,
I'd rather hear a Tinker curse than hear a vicar preach
Shameless in his pleasures, drank and smoke and swore,
Embracing as his fellow creatures beggar, thief and whore

CHORUS
3)The righteous said "The Devil will take Coppe and his kind".
"The Devil is God's backside", said Coppe "and Hell is a state of mind"
"Women are the only heaven, marriage is the only Hell"
Abiezer Coppe knew it very well.

CHORUS
4)Through the streets of London, Abiezer came,
heard the hungry cries for bread, he was a soul in pain.
When the nobles in their coaches passed, he charged with wild eyes
And gnashed his teeth in anger and then roared up to the skies

5)"Hark, ye rich, ye nobles, ye shall reap soon what ye sow
For the day of doom is coming that will lay the mighty low.
And your property will canker, and your houses will decay
And the rust upon your silver will burn your flesh away
CHORUS

6)"Community in all things, Abiezer said,
The naked shall have clothing, the hungry must have bread
The great man jails the cutpurse, the rich man starves the poor"
"Without property", said Abiezer "theft would be no more"

7)Condemned by Church and Parliament, attacked on every side
They banned his books and burned them, and he was seized and tried
The magistrates condemned him, for vile Blasphemy
He pelted them with nutshells, cried "will you my judges be?"

8)To Newgate jail they took him, the Ranters' dream was dead.
He had no taste for martyrdom "I will recant", he said
"I banished sin, but I have erred, it cannot be denied
that THESE are sins...greed, tyranny, hypocrisy and PRIDE!"
CHORUS
*
9)Abiezer Coppe did away with sin
"My body is my church," he said, "God's dwelling is within"
History disowned him, but his ghost it cannot kill
Haunts the rich and the righteous, drunk and dancing still.
CHORUS

Subject: RE: Words for Abenezer Cobb
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 19 Feb 13 - 07:36 AM

Rum - 11 mins is nowhere near a record! Of course it depends a lot who's on site and reads the message near the time you post it. It could have been faster if I'd got to your post earlier! I haven't heard the song for a long time - Roy Bailey then, and I think in one of his shows with Tony Benn, but I might be remembering the wrong occasion.

Joe - you might want to add the correct song title to the thread for people filtering.

Mick

Subject: RE: Words for Abenezer Cobb
From: Rumncoke
Date: 20 Feb 13 - 05:14 PM

How I miss my lovely old tape recorder - I used to record loads of things on old computer tapes split to the right width, on 7 inch reels at the slowest speed they could hold loads of stuff. It was the only recorder I have come across which reproduced sounds so exactly.

I could hear a song and then go home and record it. I would listen to it a few times and sing along, then I'd be able to remember it all the time - which makes forgetting such a shock.

Ah well - growing old is a bugger, but rather that than the only alternative option.

Subject: RE: Words for Abenezer Cobb
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 21 Feb 13 - 03:46 AM

I've heard Roy Bailey perform this at a Haddenham concert - he's performing at Haddenham again on Saturday 2 March!

Kitty