Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)

Subject: Liverpool Lullaby
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Oct 13 - 09:28 AM

Cilla Black had a big hit with this old song.
She now says that it is offensive today to sing, "You'll gera belt from your daddy."
Instead she sings " you'll get told off by your daddy."

Not as powerful though, is it?

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Oct 13 - 09:45 AM

Sounds a bit daft to me. In fact, a lorra lorra lorra daft.

:D tG

Was it not Dad or Da rather than Daddy BTW?

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby
From: kendall
Date: 22 Oct 13 - 12:15 PM

Caryll P. Weiss sang this, and she sang it the original way.

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 22 Oct 13 - 12:24 PM

It's not the first time that Cilla has changed the words. The original Stan Kelly lyrics contain the lines:
          It's quite a struggle every day
          Living on your father's pay
          The bugger drinks it all away
          And leaves me without any


Cilla's version changed it to "the blighter drinks it all away".

I can't imagine anyone on the streets of Liverpool using the term "blighter".

DC

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 22 Oct 13 - 01:07 PM

Ah the living tradition gets in the way again

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby
From: jacqui.c
Date: 22 Oct 13 - 07:18 PM

I'll keep on singing it the original way.

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Oct 13 - 01:54 AM

Is it an old trad somg or newer?

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby
From: Joe Offer
Date: 23 Oct 13 - 02:41 AM

The Digital Tradition says "Liverpool Lullaby" is a song by Stan Kelly, recorded by Judy Collins on the 1966 album, In My Life. It's one of the most powerful songs about child abuse that I know, and Judy Collins recorded it long before child abuse was talked about very much. I don't know anything about Stan Kelly or the song. Can anybody enlighten us?

There's a Wikipedia page about Stan. There's also a YouTube of Stan singing the song, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAPwpnvu1i0. The introduction to the song bothers me, but he sings the song very well. There's a powerfully understated recording of the song at A Liverpool Folk Song a Week. Here's a very good recording on YouTube, http://miserableoldfart.blogspot.com/2012/02/poems-and-politics-liverpool-lullaby-by.html. Is this the Cilla Black recording, or am I confused? It isn't "sanitized" in any way.

Within context, "I'll buy your dad a brewery" is one of the most powerfully ironic phrases I've ever heard.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: GUEST,Banksie
Date: 23 Oct 13 - 02:52 AM

According to a 1980 copy of the Observer's Book of Folk Song in Britain I have here, Stan Kelly was born in 1929 and was one of the leading figures of the revival. He was a singer/songwriter and guitarist but became `lost' to the world of computer consultancy.(I seem to recall hearing he went to the USA but I may well be wrong).

And yes, he wrote Liverpool Lullaby.

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: nutty
Date: 23 Oct 13 - 04:31 AM

Although Stan Kelly wrote Liverpool Lullabye he based it on a Geordie song called (I believe) The Sandgate Dandling Song which is more brutal in places ------

"When daddy's drunk he'll take a knife
And threaten sore to take my life"

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: banjoman
Date: 23 Oct 13 - 05:39 AM

We always included this as part of our repertoire, having known Stan Kelly(Bootle)in Liverpool. Stopped using it when we moved to Hampshire ad someone accused us of singing a "Pop Song". This was about the time of Cilla Black(White) having some success with it as we knew here slightly as well when she was the cloak room attendant at the Locarno. The tune is pretty much the same as the Sandgate song mentioned above

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 23 Oct 13 - 06:37 AM

Discussion on Sandgate dandling Song

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 23 Oct 13 - 11:39 AM

It's one of the most powerful songs about child abuse that I know……

I don't agree at all that it's a song about child abuse. In my Stan Kelly songbook "Liverpool Lullabies", the instruction at the top of the score is "Affectionately". The song is about a mother reflecting on the troubles in her life and imagining how things could be. It ends with the lines:
          But there's no one who can take your place
          Go fast asleep for your Mammy
It's clear to me that the child is loved.

The phrase "you'll get a belt from your dad" is hyperbole typical of Liverpool and means nothing more than "wait till your father gets home". It's the same as saying "I'll kill him" when someone has misbehaved big time. It doesn't mean that you're going to organise a drive-by shooting, at least not in the UK. It's just an expression and I don't think that you should read modern day attitudes to child abuse into a song that was written over 50 years ago.

Oh, and by the way, further to my comments above on Cilla Black changing the words: I have listened to a recording on YouTube where she sings "beggar" instead of "bugger" and that is the version most attributed to her on lyric sites …. but she did sing "blighter" at least once on TV . I know; I heard it with my own ears and it is not the type of outrageous change that is easily forgotten.

DC

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: breezy
Date: 23 Oct 13 - 01:03 PM

Cilla B sang with changed lyrics so as to avoid offense.

We know, but the wider public --the f*****s - would not.

I thought 'Daddy' would should have remained 'Da' but then over the last 50 years she has moved a long way away from her roots and may just have lost some of her indigenous ethnic influence of earlier years.

She's now a southern toff ess

Surprise surprise !!



Stan Kelly once praised one of my performances in a club above the Duke of Cambridge , W 1 where I was the main guest 1970 ish

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: Newport Boy
Date: 23 Oct 13 - 03:55 PM

'Lost' to the world of computer consultancy is not quite true. That's where he always was and the folk scene only ever 'borrowed' him. I saw him in London in 1959 accompanied by Leon Rosselson on one of Leon's first gigs. Stan introduced Leon, saying "Leon & I did sums together at Cambridge". I don't know whether this was true.

Phil

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: GUEST,Derek Schofield
Date: 23 Oct 13 - 04:38 PM

Stan Kelly was one of the guests at the concert to celebrate the award of the EFDSS Gold badge to Bill Leader. The concert was in Bury, Lancs, at the end of September, and Stan sang the song under discussion! He was a computing pioneer.
Derek

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 23 Oct 13 - 04:56 PM

'Stan introduced Leon, saying "Leon & I did sums together at Cambridge". I don't know whether this was true.'
.,,.
They indeed both read Maths at Downing College, which is where they first met. I remember Stan [then Stan Bootle] singing at the cabaret at Downing May Ball 1953 (I was at Christ's myself, but had friends at Downing so went to their ball.)

Was always btw mystified as to why Stan used a different name for singing. He told me he wanted to keep his folk persona separate from his computing one, in which of course he used his real name professionally: but Bootle such a marvellous name for a Scouse singer [for Yoosers or others who might not know, Bootle is a district of Liverpool]...

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: GUEST,Ted Crum
Date: 24 Oct 13 - 04:04 AM

Stan was also a great fan of Liverpool FC and wrote a series of songs about football which he recorded with the Heart of England Folk Group at Warwick University where he was working at the time. I believe Bill Leader did the recordings, and the LP Oh Liverpool we Love You was released some time in the late sixties.

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: GUEST,Derek Schofield
Date: 24 Oct 13 - 06:11 AM

Stan has pointed me in the direction of this very recent article in the Daily Mail. Fortunately, you don't have to buy that awful newspaper in order to read the article. There was supposed to be references to Stan in it ... but no doubt the Mail had more important things to write about ........
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2467653/Its-lorra-lorra-political-correctness-Cilla-Black-rewrites-belting-child-song.html

Of course, it's hardly news, as this thread indicates!

Derek

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: GUEST,Musket getting nostalgic
Date: 25 Oct 13 - 05:36 AM

I have the sheet music as published and Stan appeared to have written

The bastard drinks it all away

I was raised on The Spinners version and to a degree the Cilla Black one. I don't sing it in public apart from a couple of times at singarounds where people have asked if anyone knew it, but I sang it to both my lads when a song substituted bedtime stories and I look forward to singing it to my granddaughter when she is old enough to stay over.

Never thought of censoring it on the basis of today's society expectation. It is historical and written at the time of my entry into the world so commands respect for its portrayal of Northern life of the time. As sad as that makes it. ...

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 25 Oct 13 - 08:41 AM

I really hate it when singers start "cleaning up" songs that don't need it. I find that much more offensive than any phrase the overly sensitive might find in questionable taste.

I've been singing "Liverpool Lullaby" for years, learned it from the Judy Collins recording back in the late '60s. Anybody else remember the '60s or the '50s? Our mothers often warned us of the spanking we'd get from our fathers. (Actually, mine would give me a whallop herself, no waiting.) My parents were not abusive or violent, but we kids certainly got a smack on the backside to get our attention occasionally -- or the threat of it.

More recently (well, the '70s) I remember a well-educated, financially well off, politically correct suburban mom (wife of a friend of my ex-husband) constantly threatening her kids with, "Stop it or I'll break both your arms!" I DID find that offensive even though I knew she'd never do it. I never said anything, but it just seemed excessive and unnecessary.

Seems to me a rather loving song -- the kid's a chip off the old block, looks like his da' and, even though dad's work-shy and an alcoholic and is causing financial difficulties, if they come into money, she'll buy him a brewery. In other words, she loves them both despite their failings.

I joke that this song (along with "The Shearin's Not For You" and "Do You Love An Apple?") are part of my mythical "Mother's Day Set"...

Linn

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: GUEST,Stan Kelly
Date: 25 Oct 13 - 10:17 AM

TA for the support over Cilla Black's Politically Correct version of my Lullaby. This was her concluding song on ITV's 50-year Cilla anniversary documentary a few weeks ago. This was the first time I'ld heard the "gerra belt" bowdlerised to "get told off!" Likewise "Littlewoods" became the "Lottery." Her previous renditions, inc. the EMI recording, were splendid, and quite close to my werds, like ("bugger" was watered down to "begger" ... no real harm). I must admit that I can understand why an iTV national prime-time producer might shy away from the "gerra belt" phrase. What annoyed me was the Mail-on-Sunday report that implied that the Lullaby was sortof Trad-arranged-Cilla, who was therefore free to rewrite. I've since learnt that Chris Hastings, the Mail arts columnist, did submit details of our earlier chats & emails, but the Editorial scissors went snipperty-snip. If asked, I cudda come up with something less RIDICULOUS than "yer'll get TOLD OFF by yer Da'" Reminds of my LERN YERSELF SCOUSE (with Shaw & Spiegl) and ECHOES of MERSEYSIDE mock "Berlitz-Scouse" course. "I'll purra fluke's gob on yer" => "I'll chastise you severely.'
PS: nom-de-folk KELLY came from my opening song Kelly the boy from Killanne, whence the alliterative Cambridge Univ. Stan Kelly SKIFFLE Club. For my computer-related beuks, google KELLY-BOOTLE.

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Oct 13 - 11:24 AM

When was the CU Stan Kelly Skiffle Club, Stan? Where did it meet? Who was in the group? Who played there? Have no recollection of it happening in my time, 1952-55 [year after yours, yes?]. How did I miss it? I first became aware of 'skiffle' as such the year after I went down, at Russ Quaye & Hylda Syms' club, with the Hyam Morris Skiffle group, at the Princess Louise in High Holborn. Nancy Whiskey took it over & renamed it after herself a year or so later, where I once or twice played rhythm guitar & washboard in a guest group called Easy Riders. I first met you after going down IIRC at that club that a piss-artist called Dunnett(?) used to run at a pub in Gt Newport Street, with a mixed national line-up ~~ you were England, Dominic was Ireland, Isabel Sutherland was Scotland, Sandy Paton was USA... Remember that?

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Oct 13 - 09:20 AM

Great to have Stan Kelly call in here (nine years since the last time) and disprove all the posts in here using the past tense about him.

I'd think having anybody assume a song is traditional is the highest honour a songmaker in the folk tradition could have. But I agree "get told off" is lame. The Lottery instead of Littlewoods makes sense though, since the Football Pools are a distant memory and not even that for most people.

Googling Kelly-Bootle brings up some great stuff. I recommend it, especially in Stan doesn't hang around here.

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: CupOfTea
Date: 26 Oct 13 - 12:50 PM

I've loved this song since I first fell in love with every song on Judy Collins "In My Life" album & Liverpool Lullaby and Crow on the Cradle have both been in my repertoire since the early 1970s, when I had a copy of the Judy Collins Song Book that contained both. It's one of the first two songs I was solidly able to perform with autoharp.

In the US, the lyrics sometimes get warped by saying "when little ones provide the cash"- making it sound like child labor was going to fund having a bash! (Because this is how it appears in "Rise up Singing" where they made sure they had the copyright permission, while failing to get the correct chords on songs outside public domain /end rant) The simple explanation in Collins' book saying "Littlewoods is a lottery..." isn't much to have to explain, as I do when I sing it in public. Judy Collins' smoothing out the dialect is something I wasn't even aware of, though I always though it should be "get a belt from yer da" Even as a young teen, I was able to catch the nuance of the kind of parental threat that this was- I didn't expect that Child Protective Services would have to be called.

I've always wondered about Stan Kelly and if there were other songs with this much impact that he'd written, so I'm much pleased to see this thread.

Joanne in Cleveland (aka Siberia on the Heights)

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: GUEST,Gealt
Date: 26 Oct 13 - 01:34 PM

Homage from one Kelly to another er Bootle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBoyhRvMWOc

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: GUEST,Gealt
Date: 26 Oct 13 - 02:20 PM

'I wish I was back in Liverpol'

Credited to Leon Rosselson also.

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: Noreen
Date: 26 Oct 13 - 07:14 PM

(Leon Rosselson wrote the tune for IWIWBIL, Stan wrote the words.)

Subject: Lyr Add: LIVERPOOL LULLABY (Stan Kelly)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 26 Oct 13 - 08:35 PM

Here are the Digital Tradition lyrics for this song - any corrections needed?

LIVERPOOL LULLABY (from the Digital Tradition)
(Stan Kelly)

Oh you are a mucky kid,
Dirty as a dustbin lid
When he finds out the things you did
You'll get a belt from your da
Oh you have your father's nose
So crimson in the dark, it glows
If you're not asleep when the boozers close
You'll get a belt from your da

You look so scruffy lying there
Strawberry jam tats in your hair
Though in the world you haven't a care
And I have got so many
It's quite a struggle everyday
Living on your father's pay
The bugger drinks it all away
And leaves me without any

Although we have no silver spoon
Better days are coming soon
Now Nellie's working at the Lune
And she gets paid on Friday
Perhaps one day we'll have a splash
When Littlewoods provides the cash
We'll get a house in Knotty Ash
And buy your dad a brewery

Oh you are a mucky kid,
Dirty as a dustbin lid
When he finds out the things you did
You'll get a belt from your da
Oh you have your father's face
You're growing up a real hard case
But there's no one can take your place
Go fast asleep for Mammy

@kids @lullaby
recorded by Judy Collins on In My Life
filename[ LIVPLULL
TUNE FILE: LIVPLULL
CLICK TO PLAY
SOF

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Oct 13 - 08:49 PM

Actually of course Littlewoods wasn't a Lottery, it was a Football Pools. But maybe they never had those in America. Not unlike a legal version of their Numbers in a way. But trying to explain that would be confusing, so Lottery is Good enough for Folk.

And there's one significant mistake in Joe's words. Nellie is working at the "loom" - which means a fabric mill.

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Oct 13 - 08:53 PM

Cleaning up songs for politically-correct ends is one thing. "Dramatising" perfectly good lyrics, thus stripping them of the irony therein, is far more risible. When Christy Moore sang Woody Guthrie's Ludlow Massacre, in the verse in which the "red-neck miners" put the state troopers to flight, Christy sang "you should have seen them bastards run" instead of Woody's "you should have seen them poor boys run". I know which version I prefer!

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: GUEST,Derek Schofield
Date: 27 Oct 13 - 07:54 AM

Lune is correct. The name of a laundry in Liverpool. No fabric mills in Liverpool....
Derek

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 27 Oct 13 - 11:55 AM

Yes, Lune is correct.

DC

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Oct 13 - 01:22 PM

Well, you learn stuff at the Mudcat. I'm pretty sure that it gets sung ( and recorded ) as loom more often than not. Evidently mistakenly.

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: Noreen
Date: 27 Oct 13 - 06:20 PM

THE LUNE LAUNDRY

(I didn't know it was the Lune, either, despite coming from Liverpool.)

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: GUEST,Stan Kelly
Date: 27 Oct 13 - 08:21 PM

Glad to echo Churchill's complaint: "Reports of my death seem rather exaggerated" (or that was the gist). Yes, after some 25+ years in Americay (mainly 'Frisco & Silicon Valley), I'm back in UK. Living in the pleasant Welsh-Salopian border town of Oswestry (Wilfrid Owen's birthplace) Aged 84 in the shade (Wavertree, L'pool motto = SUB UMBRA FLORESCO)*, having outlived most of my clean-living pals & rivals. Fighting the usual Entropy Laws with the help of carer-daughter Michele Coxon (q.g. = quod googlet [my Latin update for q.v]) She's written/illustrated some 20 children's books, inc. a Benjamin Franklin Prize winner (Termite on a Stick). Beats my 12 volumes, but, as I'm wont to remind her, some of my footnotes are longer than her entire books. * The Lune Laundry was still going strong in Wavertree, not far from de Mizzy (Mystery Playground), when I last checked. My first wife (nee Margaret/Peggy Rose Jones - which reveals her birth year as 1932!) had sisters who worked there (though none was a Nelly). Peggy herself worked at Littlewoods (in de BIG WINS Department, though our plans to exploit this never materialised), whence the preferred name for the LL cash-source. The LL word-changes are fascinating; the folk-processes associated with LADY MONDEGREEN and IT RAINS AMERICAN CORN. My LL 'UR-WERDS' at www.feniks.com/skb/ Note Judy Collins has NOTTING ASH (for KNOTTY ASH) and, I think, STRAWBERRY JAM TARTS (shoulf be TATS = backformed Scouse noun from adj.TATTY!) I prefer "WHEN HE 'EARS DE T'INGS YA DID ..." to "WE HE FINDS OUT..."
PS: The CU Skiffle Club played at a pub corner of GARLIC ROW and NEWMARKET ROAD. Pub Name escapes me. Our family address was unforgettable: THE OYSTER HOUSE, GARLIC ROW. Dripping with HISTORY. Rent 15 shillings/week. 7/6d each: the REAS downstairs (as in son of Lord Rea; the BOOTLES up.

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Oct 13 - 08:33 PM

I can't begin to tell you what pleasure that post brought, Stan. Good man! :-)

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: GUEST,Stan Kelly
Date: 27 Oct 13 - 09:15 PM

Quick PS: today's Mail-on-Sunday (27 Oct 13) has a piece on the Cilla Black LL RE-WRITE by PETER HITCHENS. I was quite excited when he phoned me mid-week since he promised to 'mend' the omissons is the prev. Sunday's article by Chris Hastings. Also, I had followed closely the fraternal 'altercations' 'twixt PETER (born-again CHRISTIAN) and CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS, devout ATHEIST. Christopher's slow, brave, BIG-C death attracted much media coverage. My long immersion in Quantum Mechanics leaves my own location on the Peter-Christopher 'line' something of a 'tolerant superposition' uneasy with Dawkins's stridency, and attracted by Polkinghorne (ordained anglican student of Dirac!). More anon.
I have noticed a GLITCH in Peter's column and I hope Doug Chadwick is not UPSET. In an email to Peter I quoted from Doug's Mudcat's posting, saying I approved, and it seemed to represent the majority of feedback I was seeing, viz that the change from 'gerra belt' to 'get told off' was rather ridiculous. Peter, in haste I presume, has included some of Doug's posting as though he was quoting ME. Doug: send me yr email address to [e-mail]; I'll email you the relevant texts & seek yr reaction.

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Oct 13 - 01:51 AM

I think that pub, Newmarket Road @ Garlic Row, would have been The Corner House. Was it called that back then?

~M~

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 28 Oct 13 - 09:14 PM

"Glad to echo Churchill's complaint: "Reports of my death seem rather exaggerated"" Mark Twain, not Churchill, is how I've always heard it.

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: Noreen
Date: 29 Oct 13 - 06:59 PM

Great to hear from you Stan!

This song has been constantly going round in my head for days now, because of this thread :)

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 31 Oct 13 - 08:03 PM

I was at an acoustic night in a pub tonight and I sang "Liverpool Lullaby", as a matter of principle, in its original form. It went down well.

DC

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: GUEST,Litto
Date: 08 Nov 13 - 06:35 AM

So Cilla thought the original 'Liverpool Lullaby' was advocating child cruelty! That's truly bizarre. I suppose there's show-biz and then there's the real world, and never the twain shall meet.

Actually, I was fortunate to share a picnic with Stan Kelly (and Bill and Lynne Leader, and Stan's daughter, Michele Coxon, an artist and children's book author) in the garden of Stan and Michele's place in Oswestry in May, and I had the Zoom recorder going to capture the conversation and crack. Michele demonstrated just what a chip off the old block she is with some scintillating table-talk. Some of it is apropos to the discussion. Let's see (two conversations were taking place simultaneously) …

(extract begins…)

Michele: I didn't know you can tell a bat from its droppings.

Stan: I get emails of people saying they brought their kids up on 'Liverpool Lullaby' and so on, so that's very nice.

Michele: What do bats live in?

Lynne: Belfries?

Stan: But there was also a letter in the Echo a few years back saying, what a terrible stereotype of Liverpool fathers beating up their children. It's like the new health and safety rules, isn't it?

Michele: Do bats have a collective noun? Like badgers have sets?

Stan: How anyone could assume that I was encouraging… I never hit my children…

Michele: A roost. I think it might be that.

Stan: Did I Michele?

Michele: What?

Stan: I never hit my children?

Michele: No.

Stan: Ever?

Michele: No never. Dad, what's the place where bats live? Does anybody know?

(end of extract)

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 08 Nov 13 - 09:58 AM

When I was a lad I would hear 'Ill give you such a belt in a minute' from Mam when I was misbehaving. Or else 'Wait till your Dad comes home' ,which never frightened me because my dear gentle father never laid a finger on me, ever. It was just affectionate chiding, just a hint of warning that I should improve my ways. I did get an occasional smack from Mam, but that's all it was, more noisy than painful. My Dad could control me by the tone of his voice.
Anybody thinking that L L is some kind of Wallopers Charter needs their head reading. I can think of no other where the sense of that 'affectionate chiding' is better expressed. The song is a work of art and needs no alteration, especially on telly where the F-word is now commonplace in drama and (so-called) comedy. I'd also like to say that Stan Kelly is a grand singer, very natural,no fake accent, no sign of prtension in his voice.I don't hear of him singing anywhere these days, which is a great shame.

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Nov 13 - 02:12 PM

I still don't buy the downplaying of "You'll get a belt from your da." I don't think it's advocating child abuse (and I don't think Cilla Black took it as that), but it certainly seems to me to tell the story of the dismal situation a young mother with a husband who spends a lot of time drinking, and is likely to get violent when he gets home.
At least, that certainly seems to be the literal meaning of the words.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Nov 13 - 02:29 PM

I don't think that 'belt' here means, idiomatically, more than just a slap or a cuff. It certainly wouldn't mean an actual severe leathering with a belt.

~M~

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: Jeri
Date: 08 Nov 13 - 03:54 PM

What it means here, at least for me, is exactly what you said, Michael. A good solid hit.

It doesn't mean it was literal, as Roy said. If his mom said "Your dad's going to kill you", we'd probably assume she wasn't being literal. The thing about this song, though, is we're never quite sure.

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: Reinhard
Date: 08 Nov 13 - 04:26 PM

Marian McKenzie sang Liverpool Lullaby unaccompanied in 1965 on the Three City Four's eponymous first album. The sleeve notes commented:

"Stan Kelly is a Liverpudlian who was prominent in the early days of the British folksong revival as a singer and songmaker. He has a close feel for the traditional idiom plus a wry sense of humour that gives edge to his serious songs. This one is a good instance. It is based on a Tyneside song written by Robert Nunn (1808-1853), a blind fiddler, to a traditional tune called Dollia:

       When daddy'd drunk he'll take a knife
       And threaten sair to take my life.
       Who wouldn't be a keelman's wife
       To have a man like Johnny?

Stan Kelly has reshaped the song in modern Liverpool terms without sacrificing any of its character and without parodying it."

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 12:12 PM

Surely the chords shown here (below) are wrong, aren't they?

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 12:13 PM

Ooops - here - http://www.guitaretab.com/c/cilla-black/262230.html

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: Richard from Liverpool
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 08:18 PM

Definitely wrong... the song should be sung unaccompanied! ;)

Subject: RE: Liverpool Lullaby (Stan Kelly)
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 03:02 AM

Refresh in the hope of a constructive answer