Lyr Req: old fiddle tunes

Subject: Need lyrics to old fiddle tunes
From:
Date: 05 Dec 99 - 11:41 AM

Im looking for sources for lyrics to old time fiddle tunes such as Leather Britches, Sally Goodin etc. Please Help. Thanks, Shell

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Need lyrics to old fiddle tunes
From: Midchuck
Date: 05 Dec 99 - 01:29 PM

You mean clean ones? That's tricky.

Subject: Lyr Add: SALLY GOODIN'^^^
From: Stewie
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 07:39 PM

Unfortunately, I don't know of any sources for lyrics of old fiddle tunes, but here is a set of words for 'Sally Goodin'' - the version Steve Young sings:

SALLY GOODIN'

Yeah, I had a piece of pie
And I had a piece of puddin'
Lord, I gave it all away
Just to see Sally Goodin'

Well, I looked down the road
And I seen Sally comin'
Lord, I thought to my soul
I'll kill myself a-runnin'

Yes, Sally she's my doosey
And Sally is my daisy
And when she throws her arms around me
She nearly drives me crazy

Well I love potato pie
And I love potato puddin'
And I love the little girl
That's a-called Sally Goodin'

The rain is pouring down
And the creeks are runnin' muddy
And I'm so damn drunk
I can't stand steady

Well I'm going on the mountain
Gonna marry little Sally
There's calm on the hillside
And hell in the valley

Subject: Lyr Add: FORTUNE^^
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 11:22 PM

I've had the same wish. Sometimes when I used to go to old-time music sessions I'd hear one of the fiddlers sing a loud and incomprehensible chorus to some tune or other, and I was never able to find out what they were singing. Here's one I squeezed out of Bruce Molsky at the 1991 Fiddle Tunes Festival in Port Townsend, Washington:

Fortune

Once I had a fortune
Locked it in a trunk
Lost it all a gamblin'
One night when I got drunk

Fortune and I had it
Fortune and I lost it
Fortune and I lost it
One night when I got drunk

Hmmm...maybe they're better off incomprehensible.

Aloha,
Mark Cohen

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Need lyrics to old fiddle tunes
From: Terry Allan Hall
Date: 07 Dec 99 - 06:49 PM

Anyone know the words to "Soldier's Joy/The Kings Head"?

Heard it sung once about 15 years ago.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Need lyrics to old fiddle tunes
From: Bruce O.
Date: 07 Dec 99 - 07:56 PM

"The Soldier's Joy", c 1760, with tune, is on my website in Scarce Songs 1 (It's a dreadful song). "The King's Head" so far as I know is an American title for the tune. [See S. Bayard's 'Hill Country Tunes', #21, 1945, a book I just got this morning] The English had a different tune called "The King's Head". www.erols.com/olsonw

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Need lyrics to old fiddle tunes
From: Jeremiah McCaw
Date: 07 Dec 99 - 08:00 PM

Now if you really want to turn heads, look up "The Scottish Song" by Adam McNaughtan (it's in the DT). 'Tis the MacBeth, and is done to the tune "Soldier's Joy". If you can get you tongue and you mind around that one, you'd blow them away!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Need lyrics to old fiddle tunes
From: Bruce O.
Date: 07 Dec 99 - 08:36 PM

Robert Burns wrote a song to "Soldier's Joy" also (I am a son of Mars). The tune is in several Scots Music collections starting about 1778- McGlashan's 'Scots Measures', Aird's 'Airs', etc.).

I see "The King's Head" is also an English title for "Soldier's Joy" in Michael Raven's '1000 English Country Dance Tunes'. The old one called "The King's Head", from a book of c 1775, I've now put as an ABC, KINGSHD, in file T1 on my website.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE RED-HAIRED BOY
From: Lotusland
Date: 07 Dec 99 - 10:06 PM

THE RED-HAIRED BOY

I am a little beggerman, a-beggin' I have been
For three score years on this little isle of green
I'm known from the Liffey down to Sligo
And I'm known by the name of old Donahue.

Of all the trades a-goin' the beggin' is the best
For when a man is tired he can lay down and rest
He can beg for his dinner and have nothing else to do
Only jog around the corner with his old rig-a-do.

I slept in a barn way down in Clarabourn
With holes in the roof and it rained until the morn
With holes in me shoes and me toes a-peeking through
And the cats and the rats they were playin' peek-a-boo.

Who should awaken but the woman of the house
With her white spotted apron and her calico blouse
She got frightened and I said, "Boo,
And don't be afraid, ma'am. It's only Donahue."

I met a little flaxy haired girl one day
"Good mornin' little flaxy-haired girl," I did say
"Good mornin', little beggerman, and how do you do,
With your rags and your tags and your old rig-a-do?

Five pair o' brogans and a collar and a tie,
A nice little lady I will fetch by and by
Five pair o' brogans and I'll color them blue
And an old-fashioned lady I will make her too.

Over the fields with me pack on me back,
Over the hills with me great heavy sack
...........................
And it's skin-a-rake a doodle and its old Donahue.

Must be going to bed for it's getting late at night
Fire's all raked and out goes the light
Now you've heard the story of me old rig-a-do
It's good bye and god be with you says old Donahue.

Remembered from an Ian and Sylvia record

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Need lyrics to old fiddle tunes
From:
Date: 07 Dec 99 - 10:25 PM

That's another derived from 'The Beggars Chorus in the Jovial Crew', 1684, like that in 'The Scots Nightingale', 1779, but what does it have to do with fiddle tunes?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Need lyrics to old fiddle tunes
From:
Date: 07 Dec 99 - 10:34 PM

That Donahue should be Johnny Dhu, as in DT (see beggarman)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Need lyrics to old fiddle tunes
From: Bruce O.
Date: 07 Dec 99 - 10:49 PM

The beggarman played on her cittern (took her maidenhead) in a version of 1656, "The Pollitick Beggar-Man" in Scarce song 1 at www.erols.com/olsonw

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Need lyrics to old fiddle tunes
From: Aoife
Date: 08 Dec 99 - 10:23 AM

I just started playing the fiddle, and "Angelina Baker," in the Mudcat index, was one of the first tunes my teacher gave me. "Arkansas Traveller" is also widely available, and I have seen words for "Old Molly Hare" and "Ducks on the Pond" in a lot of children's folk songbooks.

In related topics, "The Jolly Beggarman" is another um ... interesting song about maidenhood and beggars. For women eager to even out the lyrics, I suggest "Maids, when you're young never wed an old man." Both of these are Irish, I thought, but might be from anywhere in the Isles, I suppose.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Need lyrics to old fiddle tunes
From: bunkerhill
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 01:08 PM

"Play Old-time Country Fiddle," Jerry Silverman, Chilton Book Co., Radnor, Pa., copywright 1975, includes lyrics to 50 or more of the 75 tunes therein, as well as dance calls for many and photos of some fiddlin' champs. Found on shelves of public library in small city where I live, so I s'pect it's readily available elsewhere or thru regional library inter-change. With "Soldier's Joy" it uses a song called "Chase the Rabbit." Saw lyrics in a book of Civil War tunes for a song called "Soldier's Joy." Last line was something like "dance all night, dance all day, and that's the soldier's joy." Anyone know offhand if there's much difference between American and British isles versions of tune? Is "soldier's joy" taken as synonym for payday on both sides of pond?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Need lyrics to old fiddle tunes
From: The Archivist
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 02:00 PM

nonsense songs to dance tunes

I didn't jump in to early as I didn't want to spoil your fun!

Subject: Lyr Add: FORTUNE (additional verse)^^
From:
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 05:57 PM

Here's another verse to Fortune:

FORTUNE

Once I had a fortune. I put it in my trunk.
I lost it all a-gambling one night when I got drunk.

Fortune I had it
Fortune I lost it
Fortune I lost it
One night when I got drunk.

I'm packing up my suitcase and now I'll say goodbye
I'm gonna live a gambling man until the day I die.

Fortune I had it, etc.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Need lyrics to old fiddle tunes
From:
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 06:17 PM

Soldiers Joy Fifteen cents for the morphine Twentyfive cents for the beer, fifteen cents for the morphine gonna get me out of here

I am my mother's darling boy 3X Sing a little song called Soldier's Joy Way back in the dark recesses of what used to be my memory, I remember hearing more verses. The lyrics were about maiming and death, it's a civil war song I believe. The original words to When Johnny Comes Marching Home are of a similar nature. Peace

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Need lyrics to old fiddle tunes
From: Terry Allan Hall
Date: 12 Dec 99 - 11:07 AM

Bruce O:

Very extensive site there!...Some week when I can dedicate the entire 7 days, I'll see if I can find the words to "Soldier's Joy" in there somewhere!

BTW, the reason I asked for it under either name is because some/many here are N. European and likely never heard it called "Soldier's Joy"...at least I've never met anyone on the "other side of the pond" who knew the song by that name.
Likewise, few Americans know it as "The King's Head".

Ever hear the story of "The King's Head"?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Need lyrics to old fiddle tunes
From: GUEST,Faebard
Date: 05 Aug 03 - 05:39 PM

I've heard this with the following alteration -- which tidily fills in that missing line:

I slept in a barn way down in Clarabourn
With the weather comin' on, I slept till the dawn

and


Over the fields with me pack on me back,
Over the hills with me great heavy sack
With holes in me shoes and me toes peekin' through