Lyr Req: Owd Joe Biggin

Subject: Lyr Req: Owd Joe Biggin
From: GUEST,Jeff Parton
Date: 21 Feb 15 - 08:13 AM

Can anyone supply the words to Owd Joe Biggin please? I believe it is a Derbyshire song and used to be sung by Muckram Wakes.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Owd Joe Biggin
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Feb 15 - 08:17 AM

Forgot to say I have the chorus:

Owd Joe Biggin, owd Joe Biggin
He were as merry as a fiddler's tune
Owd Joe Biggin, owd Joe Biggin
Owd Joe Biggin took boggart t't moon

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Owd Joe Biggin
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 21 Feb 15 - 09:17 AM

I could go and copy them off the New Victory Band album but somebody else will dig them out shortly.

I think it is a song written by Roger Watson but based on an old text. After he had written the song he realised that the character was actually George Biggin. In the sleeve notes he suggested people would sing Owd Geo Biggin and that would be ok

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Owd Joe Biggin
From: Reinhard
Date: 21 Feb 15 - 09:50 AM

Owd Jow Biggin was written by Frank Sutton and it's on Muckram Wakes' same-named Trailer album of 1976, Muckram Wakes. Sutton wrote in the sleeve notes:

"This song is based on a fragment, from my home village of Coal Aston, which I found in Chantry Land (Armytage, c.1910), an exhaustive volume of the social history of the old north east Derbyshire parish of Norton. As I remembered it when I wrote the song, the line ran as follows:
Owd Joe B---- took boggart at t' moon.

'Biggin', being a common name locally, was an obvious choice to fill the gap (no disrespect intended). The word 'boggart' is usally connected with the supernatural and in the context of the song, a near, though inadequate translation would be 'fright'.

I now mus confess that, subsequent to writing the song, I came across the book again and was surprised to find that out wild-eyed friend's name was George B----. I hope George will forgive my mistake and I ask anyone listening to this track, as they join Muckram Wakes in the chorus, to help make amends by singing, not 'Joe Biggin', but 'Geo. Biggin'!"