Info: Ramble-Away Variation Origin

Subject: Origins: Ramble-Away Variation Origin
From: GUEST,Tom Fitton
Date: 07 Jan 14 - 09:11 AM

Hi,

Does anyone know if the tune variation and added chorus in Rosie Doonan and Ben Murray's version of Ramble-Away is their own or has come from an earlier version? Here's a link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjmAoClTYos

Thanks
Tom

Subject: RE: Origins: Ramble-Away Variation Origin
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Jan 14 - 05:58 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xcq_k96BOR8

Compare Shirley Collins' version there.

Subject: RE: Origins: Ramble-Away Variation Origin
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Jan 14 - 05:39 AM

And remember the YT had a completely different tune. I have asked, over the years, all three of them where they got it, but they couldn't remember: Heather IIRC thought that Royston made it up. If Heather should happen on this thread [she pops up as a guest from time to time], maybe she can help further.

~M~

Subject: RE: Origins: Ramble-Away Variation Origin
From: GUEST,Tom Fitton
Date: 10 Jan 14 - 04:47 AM

Thanks both, tune is definitely a variation of the Shirley Collins tune but I haven't heard anyone else using the extra 'ramble-away, are you the young man they call Ramble-away' refrain

Subject: RE: Origins: Ramble-Away Variation Origin
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Jan 14 - 05:16 AM

That IIRC is the pattern of the YT one I ref above, tho the actual air is different. It seems that the Doonan & Murray version under consideration might well have amalgamated the tune of one version [the Shirley one] with the verse/chorus form of the other [YT's].

~M~

Subject: RE: Origins: Ramble-Away Variation Origin
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Jan 14 - 05:21 AM

From the Mainly Norfolk website --

The Young Tradition sang this song as 'Derry Down Fair' on their eponymous debut album of 1966, The Young Tradition. Their album liner notes commented:

    In the more common variants of Young Rambleaway, the song ends with the girl going home to her parents, sadder, wiser and pregnant. This Dorset version ends instead with a boastful half warning, half invitation from Rambleaway himself: "My hat, cap and feathers, my dear, you shall wear, and a bunch of blue ribbons to tie up your hair." And that is the limit of what any girl can expect of him. The words were collected by Hammond from Robert Barrett, of Puddletown, in 1905. The tune is not Mr. Barrett's, however, it came to us in its present form by mistake, but we liked it and kept it.

NB what they say about their having collated a tune of unsure provenance [see my suspicion above of its being their own invention] with the words in the Hammond collection. Note also their variant title.

~M~