Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 11:38 AM

Here's the answer to the singer whose name I had forgotten, along with another example, from Blandiver, from a thread I OPd on The Wicker Man film a while back

"Willie O' Winsbury tune was originally Fause Foodrage and would have remained so had not the wind turned the pages of Andy Irvine's music book? Less forgiveable, perhaps, is Pentangle's use of Lay the Bent for The Cruel Sister"

~M~

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Lighter
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 11:46 AM

> BGW could be sung to any of those with the 4444 metre.

So ytue.

But it isn't. It's sung primarily to only three, the others being unique occurrences in the record. (The actual distribution of tunes among singers is unknown, but it would be startling to discover that "Old 100th," "St. Bees," and later "Froggie/Crawdad" were not the "usual" tunes.

I wonder if women have no hate-filled folksongs about men because there's no "lady-like code" that prevents them from being as outspoken against men as they like whenever they like. Men, on the other hand, used to have a "gentleman's code" (as well as a stoic one) that inhibited them from blaming women (other than Eve, in certain professional circles) for their and the world's ills.

Thus the men need an outlet in songs and jokes directed against the opposite sex and the women don't.

Just another hypothesis.

BTW, the proportion of clearly misogynist folksongs to all folksongs seems to be minuscule.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 11:55 AM

But in another sort of folklore, the joke, Jon, would you say that was the case? Try counting just all the mother-in-law jokes you can find...

~M~

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,SJL
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 12:00 PM

No wait! I've got it!

I will make a youtube video. I will get the angelic women from my choir to sing this song with that tune and my lyrics. And just like Percy et al. used the superior medium of publishing to eclipse the oral tradition, I will likewise use the superior medium of youtube to eclipse your literary one. I will "improve" and "refine" and ultimately bury your version.

And I will put across the top in bold letters, "FROM THE MOUTH OF THE GREAT BLOODY SPINNING WHEEL!" And people will say, "My, my, weren't women clever back then!" They will never doubt me unless they pick up a book, so you see, my chances of my prevailing in this matter are excellent.

Step aside! I know how this is done! (laughs like a witch) For I have learned from the masters, those wicked sorcerers with a pen! And the good old days are gone. You can no longer torch me up with society's approval :-)

Except in Pakistan...

Some imagination, eh?

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 01:17 PM

Hmmm ~~ Maybe you'd better flex yourself into that chastity belt of yours

Laughs like a wizard

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 04:00 PM

Except in Pakistan...

At it again, eh?

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 04:45 PM

THe tune I learned for it ca 1947 was essentially that of "The Strawberry Roan".

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Lighter
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 05:38 PM

Interesting example, M, But even stereotypical mothers-in-law are a special subset of "all women."

It's been a long time since I heard a "mother-in-law" joke here in America - but maybe I don't get out enough.

The same goes for jokes about "women drivers" and "dumb blondes"(I don't know of any folksongs about them). The objects of the jokes aren't all women, they're a certain kind of "straw woman," so to speak.

Personally, I don't think the psychosocial analysis ("political" in Trendspeak) of folklore can tell us much, if anything, about society. It can tell us mainly about the songs and stories analyzed, and perhaps something about those who especially enjoy (or dislike) them. (It can often tell us a lot about the analyst too....)

To learn about society, one studies society, and not just some of its artistic productions - which will presumably reflect what is found elsewhere rather than vice versa.

And even then one draws large conclusions very cautiously.

Joe: Thanks for your tune. I can't quite place it.

Dick: Yours is the second reported ex. using "The Strawberry Roan" -some 20 years earlier than the other (found by Ed Cray).

And from Australia comes (wait for it) "The Syncopated Clock" (a pop hit in the U.S. in 1951).

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,SJL
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 05:51 PM

Btw, nooo greg stephens. No Froggie, Uh-Uh. If you put those lyrics to Froggie, you effectively remove every last trace of humor from it. Whereas if you sang it to St. Bees would be torn between the desire to laugh out loud or throw a drink in your face, on the other I would not feel any ambivalence whatsoever about going for the drink. If there's one thing in this world I could not abide, it would be a yahoo singing about a lethal sex machine without the slightest sense of irony. No sir. And if you sing this with any sort of a drawl, ye shall not be spared!

Lighter, that is not a valid theory. It's absurd. Women have always had their songs. There is this one, "I Wish I Was A Single Girl Again" (Oh Lord). That is pretty much "When I Was A Maid" - except that Granny decided it needed to be injected with a little humor to take some if the sting out. And I'll bet she had a whole slew of fiddling, banjo strumming, catpaw clacking relatives to help her add the finishing touches.

"The Maid Freed From The Gallows"? Let's see...who hopes to be rescued by their own true love when deserted by their family? Well, anybody I guess, but in this case, it's a maid. And I would infer also that he had something to do with her predicament. All you have to do is research the history of hanging women in Britain, particularly young women, girls, to figure out what she was likely guilty of. It is probably the reason her crime was not explicated, and why the crime was reduced to a non-capital offense by 1922 due to a sea change in the way the judiciary and the people looked upon such an unfortunate event. Most of these young women were servants by occupation and under the age of 16. The sad thing is, we know that babies are sometimes stillborn and sometimes they die shortly after birth. Since many a young girl gave birth alone (with her back against a thorn as it were), there were no witnesses to clear her of that particular wrongdoing. According to the Infanticide Act of 1624, for an unmarried woman, the mere act of concealing the baby's death was proof of guilt. I'm sure most of these infants died at the hands of their Cruel Mother, but the odds are, at least a few of them were unjustly accused.

So maybe when the true love comes to save her, he is really coming to inform the judge of her innocence. And why would he do that? Damned if I know. I've never been able to figure men out. Could be he knows of her innocence and feels he must step up to avert a miscarriage of justice. Could be he doesn't want her to hang and feels he must step up and lie to save her life. Men are funny creatures. You never know what they're going to do when they're not inventing strange sex machines :-)

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,SJL
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 06:51 PM

Sorry about the typos. I was trying to type and get dinner on the table at the same time. Wouldn't want anyone to have to skin a wether on my account.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Joe_F
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 08:44 PM

MtheGM & GUEST: Truly, Old Hundred doesn't fit well; one has to put a lot of extra syllables on single notes, and split up words:
A sai lor toldme be fore he died.
I don't know whether the bas tard lied. etc.
However, the touch of blasphemy more than made up for that among male St Andrews undergraduates in 1958. They could even sing it marching down the street to piss off the end of the pier, and respectable persons observing them from windows might imagine they were being pious.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 20 Jun 13 - 11:48 AM

I've always been intrigued by the fact that women, traditionally, were the carriers of bawdy songs, at least in Scotland and Appalachia.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Uke
Date: 20 Jun 13 - 03:45 PM

Contrary to the general opinion here, I think TGBW goes fine to "The Old 100th" tune. But I think the text must be slightly different.

Perhaps the text has been altered a little so the syllables will fall evenly across whatever tune is being used, and without melisma.

As I recall, Ed Cray sets the words to "The Old 100th" in his book "The Erotic Muse" and it also works perfectly well there.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Lighter
Date: 20 Jun 13 - 08:49 PM

Dick, "the" carriers? What makes you think so?

My impression is that some women singers in Scotland and Appalachia (and the Ozarks) may have been more forthright than elsewhere, but surely the bawdiest songs even in those areas were chiefly transmitted by men.

Recall too that 100 years ago even "Oh No John" was considered nearly unprintable. Yet most men may have thought that sort of song was too mild even to bother with, and they didn't often sing truly bawdy songs for the collectors - who wouldn't usually take them down anyway.

Thus the women's repertoires may have seemed "bawdier" to genteel ears mainly by default.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,SJL
Date: 21 Jun 13 - 09:42 AM

Lighter, you are right. It is most definitely by default. These kinds of songs fall into a man's domain. Until fairly recently, men and women have not been herded by Marxist intellectuals and the powers that be (according to their own agenda of divide and conquer)to accept false egalitarianism. And now, fueled by the mass media to share all the same social space. For ages beforehand, women and men each had their own society within their own gender and that was a good thing! Now you have a situation where, except for the proverbial night out with the women or the men, each is compelled to share all social space. This has greatly fomented the "war between the sexes," if not created it. Now women want to change men to suit themselves and vice-versa, and like I said, this has not been for the better. I am not talking about extreme situations such as wife-beating, it is the evolution society in general that has come to revile such behavior and men to their credit have actually been the ones to take the lead on elevating standards for male behavior towards women. Recall how the husband in "The Wife Wrapt in Wether's Skin" feared the consequences of offending the male kin of her family if he were to actually beat her. In a microcosm that is how it came about.

I had to laugh when I read Abby Sale's post up above as she was talking about mismatch between sex drives in an egalitarian way. I can tell you honestly that I have never met a woman (myself included) who wanted to have sex as much, or in as varied a way, as a man. Believe me, that is a great source of humor amongst women. Just this morning, on a news program, some woman was plugging her book about the importance of sleep with a woman commentator and a joke was made about how sleep is like sex to a man. That's how it really is ;-)This song is basically pornographic and the reference is the same as to pornography today. It caters to a male FANTASY of this voracious oversexed woman that doesn't exist (and btw, lesbians seldom look like the women in pornography ;-). I'm not even sure that most men would want it to go much beyond fantasy. Like you said, this is an outlet. This has always been the case. Nowadays we are all becoming confused about things that we all used to take for granted.

In reality, women's complaints about sex fall into a different department altogether. They have all to do with a lack of tenderness. I wrote those lyrics because I can never resist an opportunity to show how clever I am. Many times I pretend to be offended just to stir up some controversy. It's very devilish of me. But it is not because women tend to make up jokes and songs like that. Women might be offended by a song like this, but only mildly if she has a lick of wisdom.

Sooo, can't we just cuddle? ;-)))

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 21 Jun 13 - 10:32 AM

Jon-
I've been so informed by the late Margo Mayo, and had this reinforced by comments from Sheila Kay Adams, Jeannie Robertson and others.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 22 Jun 13 - 10:07 AM

> Lighter, you are right.

Words rarely heard.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 22 Jun 13 - 10:11 AM

What's more, media representations of men and women now encourage both sexes to act according to the horniest and most aggressive masculine stereotypes of the past.

In other words, like narcissistic borderline personalities who haven't yet broken any laws.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 22 Jun 13 - 10:30 AM

Spot on. I believe also that in the interests of keeping folk music alive, women have been carriers of men's songs and vice-versa.

To illustrate my point, listen to these two versions of "The Cruel Mother":

Tom Spiers

Emily Smith

I am hard pressed to criticize this gentleman because he is both very knowledgeable and a fine musician, but Emily Smith brings something to this ballad that takes it to your heart. That is because this is a woman's ballad.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Abby Sale
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 02:35 PM

Dick, I have the same info on women as significant or primary carriers of songs on sex. Especially in those locals you cite. Also from Sheila Douglas, who knows Scotland; and even Legman. I suggest that it is only from Victorian times that women were assumed not to control or enjoy sex, masturbate, be aggressive, have orgasm, etc. Even Kinsey was destroyed for suggesting these things exist. FWIW, in traditional Jewish society and religious law, it is clearly the women who "own" and control. It is women (in law) who are _entitled_ to have sex, not men.

SJL, You say much of interest but re: "There is no equivalent of this sort of "humorous" folk song for women." Beg to differ. See Jean Ritchie's family institutionalization of the war between men and women. (Not her phrase - I think it's Thurber's.) On a Saturday night they had challenge singing (among other stuff). Men would sing anti-female songs and women reposte with anti-male ones. These were taken as jesting and humorous. Of specific songs I only remember women singing Equinoxal and Phoebe. Either might sing Farmer's Curst Wife but would alter the last verse appropriate to gender.

There are many, many songs where the woman wins out and I'm not thinking of the whore stealing sailor's clothes; I'm thinking of winning in battle, wits, justified trickery, piracy,
etc.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 02:48 PM

Susan,
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by 'This is a woman's ballad'. I hope you're not suggesting that I shouldn't sing it, because I do and it's one of my favourite ballads. As you know, I'm pretty certain it was written as a warning to well-heeled young girls to avoid liaisons with servants.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Lighter
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 04:50 PM

> I have the same info on women as significant or primary carriers of songs on sex.

But doesn't it depend on what we mean by "songs on sex"?

IIRC, the rustic or mildly double-entendre songs collected by Sharp but not published till Reeves were indeed mainly from women.

OTOH, the "BGW" stuff (not to mention the "Hog-Eye Man"/ "A-Rovin'" type of shanty) with descriptions of absurd giant organs and so on come overwhelmingly from men. Also grotesque fantasies like "Columbo," "Kafoozalem," and "Eskimo Nell," which often mix sex with scatology.

I would suggest that such songs are not so much "about sex" as they employ aggressive and exaggerated sexual images to blow off steam (so to speak) humorously, angrily, swaggeringly, etc., mainly for same-sex consumption. Cf. the "gross-out" contests of middle school.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 05:24 PM

Well, you are the experts so I must stand corrected.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,SJL
Date: 03 Jul 13 - 09:34 AM

Now here's a man who does this ballad justice IMO.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00mJyNWo_8I&sns=em

No fiddle on this one. Please.

I based my former opinion on my knowledge of anthropology and history (which is considerable). There were only a few early song collectors who were women. Generally speaking, the "mouths of the spinning wheel" did not receive much credit as song carriers- even when they began to have real names it was not a game changer. Credit has gone to the male collectors until very recently. You cannot alter or erase early history as it has everything to do with the shape of things in the present.

One interesting difference between these few early woman collectors and their male counterparts is that that women weren't much for taxonomy. They just wrote them down and put them in a book- ballad, bawdy, what have you. Women do have a different approach to just about anything. They have received little credit for their approach. Consequently, when they have sought recognition for their efforts in any field, they have striven to emulate men. So are you very sure your consensus doesn't rely on more recent history and modern sensibilities? Are you the SCA?

As I stated before, I have never known women to embrace dirty songs. Naturally, we have heard them from brothers and playground boys. To us, they were just another cultural reminder that our bodies are meant to be a source of shame and ridicule whereas men are permitted to celebrate theirs, very often, perhaps most often, at our expense. Women have also been under tremendous social pressure to accept the situation and be good sports about it. I can do that now but it took me several years to get there.

With all due respect Steve, you are entirely wrong. The purpose of using nobility in the Cruel Mother is to make the point that all women - from the highest to the lowest- are vulnerable to an insincere lover, and more importantly, that this a situation in which the cost to a woman always was and remains far higher than to a man. It always was and remains a joke to men to trick a woman into sex. And they never did or do empathize with the pain they inflict on women in this regard. The use of nobility makes the message universal. It is a warning to all girls that none are immune to male treachery in matters of the heart.

You may recall the well-heeled young lady who turned the tables on False Sir John? He was nobility himself but he was a murderous wretch who got what he deserved. What's the message there? And in Maid Freed from the Gallows, her family clearly had the means to help her so she wasn't a thief. They turned their back on her because she was a "bad girl" who had disgraced her family. Her crime had to do with her true love who fortunately came through in the end and also clearly had the means to do so. What's the message there? Moreover, I would say that using nobility to make a universal point would be a woman's approach when speaking to all women. Male universality is expressed in songs such as the subject of this thread- and of course drinking. There's always that. Otherwise men address matters of class or opposition in terms of who is superior.

There is a rather lengthy article posted in a thread about militant atheism. Very brilliant article. You should read it, and if you do, I would explain how I think it relates to this discussion.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 03 Jul 13 - 09:56 AM

I strongly suspect that the "dirty" songs--the ones featuring "nasty language" and scataology and misogyny--are almost entirely Victorian and post-=Victorian in origin. Burns' "Merry Muses", for example were certainly bawdy and certainly explicitly sexual, but, generally speaking, a good time was had by all.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,SJL
Date: 03 Jul 13 - 12:07 PM

Severe repression leads to perversion of what would otherwise be a natural impulse. I don't think the Victorian influence is behind us either. In the marketplace, they cater to every kind of sexual perversion and promiscuity. It is out there, everywhere, to the point that it cannot be hidden from children. At the same time there is a great obsession with sex crimes to the point where a nineteen year old can be labeled a sex offender for cavorting with a 17 year old girl. There is no more school boy's dream either because society has become ultra-dogmatic about the issue of age and don't seem to realize (as they used to) that an older man and an underage girl is generally exploitation whereas an older woman and an underage male is, well, a school boy's dream. So much (most certainly not all!) sex offender dogma seems like a disingenuous attempt to protect children whilst letting the media run rampant with a hyper-sexualization that is bound to impact children and young people in a negative, innocence destroying way.

Another Victorian hypocrisy is alive and well in the non-legal status of prostitution. It's society's way of saying even thought we call it the oldest profession in the world for good reason, such women will be judged and condemned by not affording them the benefit of police protection and access to the courts in cases of abuse and hardcore exploitation by their clients and handlers. It's an oversexed, hypocritical society's way of saying, "You are a bad girl and therefore, you deserve every and any bad thing that happens to you." And, if caught, you will be pinned with one of the three violations that will not be sealed (in NY state at least), and the man goes free.

Attitudes toward sex in the Victorian Age are more or less the culmination of attitudes that began with the Protestant Reformation. And in tragic ballads prior to the PR which address themselves to sexual morality (like the Cruel Mother), there would be more pathos and less condemnation prior to the PR, more empathy and compassion for a desperate woman. Look at your laws.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,SJL
Date: 03 Jul 13 - 12:23 PM

Actually, I meant 16. 17 is the age of consent. In fact, I know of a "sex offender." They are married now with 2 kids.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Jul 13 - 03:09 PM

16 is our age of consent. It is not 18, as often confused, eg by Kingsley Amis in his novel Girl 20. Nor is it a law of nature but a piece of mid-C19 legislation ~~ I have read idiotic essays about Will Shax showing people breaking the law in R&J when no such law existed at the time.

Re female collectors ~~ you overlook eg Lucy Broadwood, Iona Opie ... tho the earlier ones like Broadwood did suffer from informants reluctant to sing them songs becoz they were, as they said, "outway rude".

~M~

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Lighter
Date: 03 Jul 13 - 03:18 PM

A handful of truly nasty songs appear in _Bawdy Songbooks of the Romantic Period_, all of which appeared between about 1835 and 1840.

Most, however, involve exuberant, humorously erotic adventures and predicaments - certainly "unprintable" in quantity until recent years but practically quaint by today's publishing standards.

As the price of the songsters was quite high, one assumes that their principal readership (and the principal patrons of the "coal-hole" drinking clubs where the songs were evidently popularized), was made up of well-to-do young rakes rather than the average thrill-seeking youths of the period.

I doubt that more than a half dozen of the hundreds of songs have been collected since their appearance in the 1830s. Their style is more broadside/music-hall than it is "folk."

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 03 Jul 13 - 06:05 PM

Susan,
I see, so the fact that she's a lady and he's her father's clerk is totally irrelevant. I wonder why they bother to mention it then!

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,SJL
Date: 04 Jul 13 - 05:01 PM

Rhymes with "Lurk" :-)

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,dick greenhaus,GUEST
Date: 04 Jul 13 - 09:37 PM

"Attitudes toward sex in the Victorian Age are more or less the culmination of attitudes that began with the Protestant Reformation"
Sounds perfectly reasonable. But what about bawdy songs from, say, Italy or Spain, where the Reformation had much less impact? I'm, sadly, a monoglot, but can anyone more informed than I give us his or her thoughts on the matter?

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,SJL
Date: 05 Jul 13 - 01:29 PM

In order to see the big picture, you must also take the Counter-Reformation into account. The true Catholic culture of "The Dark Ages" can only be uncovered in pre-Reformation history and culture. Certain aspects of it, which one might call socially enlightened, particularly attitudes toward the mad and the poor, are directly linked to primitive society. The fool for example...

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 05 Jul 13 - 02:46 PM

"Lurk"!!!!!!
The earliest and most examples have 'York' and 'clerk' pronounced 'clark' or even 'clerk', not a great rhyme for 'York'

It should actually run
There was a lady lived in York
Was courted by some local dork.

or
Courted by a lad from Cork.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 05 Jul 13 - 10:46 PM

I've always thought that the male parent beiung a clerk was the reason the lady just didn't marry him. Which still has nothing with the Wheel or bawdry in general.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,SJL
Date: 05 Jul 13 - 11:55 PM

Nice, Yorkie, but I have a better one. This here is a "Papist incantation."

   While shee washte and while shee ronge,
      Lillumwham, lillumwham!
While shee washte and while shee ronge,
      Whatt then? what then?
While shee washte and while shee ronge,
While shee hangd o the hazle wand.
      Grandam boy, grandam boy, heye!
      Leg a derry, leg a merry, mett, mer, whoope, whir!
      Driuance, larumben, grandam boy,

Burlesque, without a doubt.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,SJL
Date: 06 Jul 13 - 12:01 AM

21 isn't even a real ballad. It's not.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Jul 13 - 12:19 AM

What do you mean by that gnomic utterance, Susan? If you are referring to Child #s, the one under consideration is 20.

If not, then ????

And why not, anyhow?

And the Maid Freed whom you ref above is just as often a man, despite the title Child stuck on it.

And how the hell did we drift on to all this anyhow?!

♫♫Round and round goes the Bloody Old 'Cat
We whitter of this, we natter of that...♫♫

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,SJL
Date: 06 Jul 13 - 02:03 AM

No Michael. 21 is "The Maid and the Palmer." Not our ballad Michael, but it's a hoot.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Jul 13 - 02:19 AM

Yes, I know what 21 is, Susan. And I agree it's a hoot. And dubiously a ballad.

But still much exercised why you mentioned it here?!

❤~M~❤

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 06 Jul 13 - 10:08 AM

Susan,
21 is certainly not a burlesque. It's a very ancient and venerable piece with precedents all over Europe. It is at least mid 17thc. I don't sing the last 2 lines and while they do look rather odd to us, they are in keeping with the period. It would certainly make an interesting exercise sorting out which of the words have a meaning of some sort. I would refrain from ascribing 'burlesque' based on chorus alone.

The 'while' is not certain in the manuscript. I prefer 'white' which is what I sing.

Jon,
Apologies for thread drifts.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,SJL
Date: 06 Jul 13 - 10:46 AM

Jon, I apologize for the thread drift as well.

Steve, if you sing it then it is indeed a ballad.

MtheGM, look how I get in over my head. I gotta stop doing that.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Lighter
Date: 06 Jul 13 - 12:08 PM

No prob.

Maybe the original topic has nowhere else to go.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,SJL
Date: 06 Jul 13 - 07:47 PM

Uh-uh. No way. Steve is pulling my leg. If that's a ballad, I want to hear it from him.

Lilliwham, lilliwham, what then, what then?

Indeed.

Jon, don't trust Steve. He will have you second guessing yourself everyday of the week. He's very good at it.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 06 Jul 13 - 08:20 PM

Am I the only one interested in the influence of a paticular culture upon the bawdy (or "dirty") songs that culture has produced?

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Jul 13 - 01:33 AM

Susan ~~ Never take any version of any Child ballad [or any song likely to be mentioned on this forum] as the definitive one. Many of them have nonsense choruses in some versions, or defective variants, which in no way detract from their 'ballad' status or seriousness.

~M~

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 07 Jul 13 - 08:53 AM

No, Dick.
There's at least John M, Jon, Ed and myself who find this branch of folklore fascinating. It's just that Jon has just about cornered the market on this one. I'm still working on my long term project of an anthology of songs containing sexual euphemism.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Lighter
Date: 07 Jul 13 - 08:55 AM

Dick, I'm interested in precisely that.

However, causes and effects in such cases are nearly impossible to draw reliably.

I would suggest, though, that "BGW" is more effectively the product of a certain sort of masculine subculture (i.e., youngish rowdy smart-aleck misogynists in an still-novel industrial age) than it is of, say, Anglo-American culture in general.

Of course, even if I'm right, I'm not sure what it tells us.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,SJL
Date: 07 Jul 13 - 09:10 AM

Oh go away and play and sing your dirty little songs. I am tired of the lot of you.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,Rev Bayes
Date: 07 Jul 13 - 09:19 AM

Some over-conceptualising going on here. One of the functions of music is to create and define social groupings, and one very effective way to do this is to have unacceptable material. If you join in, you're in the in-group, and if you look on, shocked, you're in the out-group.