Happy Bonny Black Hare Day - 14th of May

Subject: Happy Bonny Black Hare Day
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 14 May 13 - 08:58 AM

...to one and all!

Subject: RE: Happy Bonny Black Hare Day
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 14 May 13 - 09:06 AM

You invetin special days now Sean?

Subject: RE: Happy Bonny Black Hare Day
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 14 May 13 - 09:09 AM

Not me - they're all on about it over at Facebook & I was surprised that no one had mentioned it over here. These days I think we need all the reasons to celebrate we can get.

Subject: RE: Happy Bonny Black Hare Day
From: maeve
Date: 14 May 13 - 11:12 AM

https://soundcloud.com/jimmoray/the-bonny-black-hare

Subject: RE: Happy Bonny Black Hare Day
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 14 May 13 - 11:38 AM

Thanks for the link, maeve. I understood the words, 'On the fourteenth of May when the...' and then all was lost. Was something said about a shark?

Anyhow, it explains why today is Bonny Black Hare Day. I had been willing to bet it was actually about black hair, not hare.

Subject: RE: Happy Bonny Black Hare Day
From: greg stephens
Date: 14 May 13 - 11:48 AM

On the 14th of May at the dawn of the day
With me gun on me shoulder to the woods I did stray
Leenia: as you correctly surmise, it is not about a hare, but about hair, and not on the head either.

Subject: RE: Happy Bonny Black Hare Day
From: maeve
Date: 14 May 13 - 11:53 AM

It's an allegory of sorts, Leeneia. Tune and lyrics here:
http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/bawdy-songs/001202.HTM

Subject: RE: Happy Bonny Black Hare Day
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 14 May 13 - 02:55 PM

More correctly it's a pun - otherwise it's a typical enough sort of circumlocution to get such scenario past the censors.

Reminds me of a floor singer who'd stumbled on the words & took them along to his local folk club entirely innocent of their import. Not sure how much preparation he'd done, or if he was just winging it, as was both his wont & the general easy going atmos of said FC. It was only during his performamce that the dreaful truth of what he was actually singing about dawned on him. I believe much laughter ensued - not at the song, rather this very Morally Upstanding fellow standing there singing a song about gleefully casual sex whilst thinking he'd found a counterpart to the Cregan White Hare.

Subject: RE: Happy Bonny Black Hare Day
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 14 May 13 - 03:40 PM

Is this thread anything to do with the 'Tar Rubbed into the Scalp' thread?

Subject: RE: Happy Bonny Black Hare Day
From: Gurney
Date: 14 May 13 - 04:36 PM

He must have been remarkably naive not to instantly work out that it was a sexual-encounter song, Blandiver.

'Under my apron, they say some do grow...'
'Lock your legs 'round me and dig in with your heels,
the closer we get, love, the better it feels..'

Perhaps just the version. The Stormcloud one above is a little bowdlerised from the roughcast one that I know.

Subject: RE: Happy Bonny Black Hare Day
From: May Queen
Date: 14 May 13 - 06:07 PM

Jim Moray rocks! Not heard this one before...its rude!!!

Ah well, better get away to celebrate

Subject: RE: Happy Bonny Black Hare Day
From: GUEST,george henderson
Date: 15 May 13 - 02:32 AM

It is a Sporting song !!!

Subject: RE: Happy Bonny Black Hare Day
From: gnu
Date: 15 May 13 - 02:44 AM

Tis at that.

Subject: RE: Happy Bonny Black Hare Day
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 15 May 13 - 04:42 AM

He must have been remarkably naive not to instantly work out that it was a sexual-encounter song, Blandiver.

Just one of life's innocents I guess - that such people can find a home in the Folk Scene I've always found rather heart warming. That said I don't suppose it took him too long to realise what he was actually singing about, but to give his due he persevered to (what was for him) the bitter end.

What was odd for me was how in a lifetime of folkin' he hadn't heard the song before as I've always thought of it as a bit of a standard, as in my day such songs were a common feature of your average FC with young bloods getting a real sweat on whilst belting out The Cuckoos Nest and Ball o' Yarn to the indifference of the women in the room who were more than content to get on with their macramé. Ball o' Jute??

Subject: RE: Happy Bonny Black Hare Day
From: GUEST,JHW
Date: 15 May 13 - 03:55 PM

Maximum Points last night in the Britannia went to
'Wasn't I pretty when I entered Cork City
And met with my downfall on the fourteenth of May?'

Subject: RE: Happy Bonny Black Hare Day
From: Gurney
Date: 15 May 13 - 06:45 PM

Blandiver, he must not have bought 'Traditional Erotic Songs' with Bert Lloyd, Anne Briggs, and.... who was the other lady?

I just looked for my copy. Missing. Believed stolen.
Didn't realise that I had so many Stephane Grapelli LPs though.

Subject: RE: Happy Bonny Black Hare Day
From: Gurney
Date: 15 May 13 - 06:46 PM

Oh yes, Frankie Armstrong!

Subject: RE: Happy Bonny Black Hare Day - 14th of May
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 May 20 - 03:39 PM

Oh, darn - we missed it!

Subject: RE: Happy Bonny Black Hare Day - 14th of May
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 17 May 20 - 03:22 AM

It was always celebrated in my office, though rather quietly, as only two of us had ever heard the song.

Drifting slightly, one of our duties was to check the bona fides of ships' companies arriving at our port, by the use of printed lists of the sea-farers' names. Every spring, this led to cries of 'April is the crew-list month!'