Lyr Add: Sandgate Lass's Lament

Subject: Sandgate Lass's Lament
From:
Date: 02 Mar 00 - 05:09 PM

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SANDGATE LASS'S LAMENT

I was a young maiden truly,
And liv'd in SandgateStreet,
I thought to marry a good man,
To keep me warm at neet;

Some good like body,
Some bonny body
To be with me at noon;
But last I married a keel man,
And my good days are done.

I thought to marry a Parson
To hear me say my prayers--
But I have married a Keelman
And he kicks me down the stairs,

Chorus:
He's an ugly body, a bubbly body,
An ill-faur'd ugly loon,
But I have married a keelman
And my good days are done.

I Thought to marry a Dyer
To dye my apron blue;
But I have married a Keelman,
An' sair he makes me rue.

I thought to marry a Joiner
To make me chair and stool;
But I have married a Keelman,
And he's a perfect fool.

I thought to marry a sailor
To bring be sugar an' tea;
But I have married a Keelman,
And that he lets me see.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Sandgate Lass's Lament
From:
Date: 02 Mar 00 - 05:13 PM

Oh well.... I tried to put it in earlier with netscape...but is not working... here is the url for the notation and midis... http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Vines/5863/priests2.html

lots more songs added daily to the whiskey priests tradition site. have fun!

Conrad

Subject: HTML for posting lyrics
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Mar 00 - 06:02 PM

Hi, Conrad - I deleted the problematic stuff in your first post. If you're not sure what the HTML you're posting is going to do, it's best not to post it (except in our "practice" threads). What's left in the first post is still a bit messy (there's a "font" tag for each and every line), but it's too complicated to edit out the messy stuff and it's not a big problem. Better to type lyrics in a word processor, and use the "replace" function to insert <br> line breaks at the end of each line.
Thanks.
-Joe Offer-

P.S. Please don't use embedded images or sounds in your Mudcat posts. I notice the image on yours didn't appear - maybe Max (our host) has done something to block them.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Sandgate Lass's Lament
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Mar 00 - 06:12 PM

oH, i FORGOT - GOT ANY BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON THE SONG? iS IT TRADITIONAL?
-jOE oFFER-

Out! damned capslock!!!

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Sandgate Lass's Lament
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 02 Mar 00 - 10:11 PM

Karl Dallas (One Hundred Songs of Toil), had this to say:

"The words, with no tune given, were first printed by John Bell in 1812.  In 1888 Joseph Crawhall printed it again, with this tune [The Manchester Angel] , which is the way we used to sing it when I was a kid in Whitley Bay, though I think our source was originally a school songbook that one of our elders had."

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Sandgate Lass's Lament
From: Wolfgang
Date: 03 Mar 00 - 05:48 AM

the notes to this song from TOPICs 'New Voices' LP where I know this song from:

'Till the middle of the nineteenth century the Tyne was too shallow for sizeable ships to come upriver and load the coal direct from the riverside staiths. Instead, the coal was sculled from the staiths downriver by means of flat barges called 'keels'. The keelmen were notoriously a rough independent vivid lot, and songs about them are numerous, in praise or otherwise. This one is otherwise. The genial and somewhat eccentric John Bell first collected the song when he was scouring the northeastern countryside to put together his collection of Rhymes of Northern Bards (1812).'

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Sandgate Lass's Lament
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 03 Mar 00 - 07:39 AM

I do the song, with a few minor word changes from above. I learned it from Betty & Norman McDonald who live in Slimbridge,GLO, England, but are from the north originally. (They've also recorded it on one of their tapes.) There's also a recording from the '60s by the High Level Ranters that's a bit different. I think it has an extra line in the verse and verses are put together in a different way. Great concertina song, though! My husband, Tom Hall, learned it from the High Level Ranter version and I learned it from the McDonald's, so it took a while to get the accompaniment straight (follow the singer, dammit!)

Linn the Bat Goddess

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Sandgate Lass's Lament
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 25 Dec 23 - 09:39 AM

and still the best version is by the late Norman & Betty McDonald, just listening again on Christmas Day- lovely folk and fine singers of North East songs