Lyr Add: Bung Yer Eye

Subject: Bung Yer Eye
From: raredance
Date: 19 Oct 00 - 09:45 PM

This song came up in the "Once More A-lumbering Go" thread. Go there for related discussion. It is a song out of the lumbercamps and is found in Franz Rickaby's "Ballads and Songs of the Shanty-boy" (1926, Harvard Press) and in two books by E. C. Beck, "Lore of the Lumber Camps" (1948, Univ of Michigan) and "They Knew Paul Bunyan" (1956 Univ of Michigan). It is also in Edith Fowke's "Lumbering Songs from the North Woods" as part of a composite song that also contains portions of "A-lumbering". Beck has two versions, one of which is identical to Rickaby and the verses in Fowke.

BUNG YER EYE (Beck A version)

I love a girl in Manistee;
She lives with her mother.
I defy all Michigan
To find such another.
She's tall and slim, her hair is red
Her face is plump and pretty.
She's my daisy Sunday best-day girl,
And her front name stands for Kitty.
Bung yer eye! Bung yer eye!

I took her to a dance one night;
A sailor did the bidding.
Long Tom he bossed the whole shebang,
And Big Dan played the fiddle.
We danced and sang the livelong night,
With fights between the dancing,
Till Long Tom cleaned our the whole damned place
And sent the sailors prancing.
Bung yer eye! Bung yer eye!

BUNG YER EYE (Beck version B and Rickaby and Fowke)

I am a jolly shanty boy
As you will soon discover.
To all the dodges I am fly,
A hustling pinewoods rover.
A peavey hook it is my pride;
An ax I well can handle;
To fell a tree or punch a bull
Get rattling Johnny Randall.
Bung yer eye! Bung yer eye!

I love a girl in Saginaw;
She lives with her mother.
I defy all Michigan
To find such another.
She's tall and slim, her hair is red
Her face is plump and pretty.
She's my daisy Sunday best-day girl,
And her front name stands for Kitty.
Bung yer eye! Bung yer eye!

I took her to a dance one night;
A mossback gave the bidding.
Silver Jack bossed the shebang,
And Big Dan played the fiddle.
We danced and sang the livelong night,
With fights between the dancing,
Till Silver Jack cleaned out the ranch
And sent the mossbacks prancing.
Bung yer eye! Bung yer eye!

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bung Yer Eye
From: raredance
Date: 19 Oct 00 - 10:06 PM

A version of "Bung yer Eye" purportedly the same as the "B" version above was first printed in a 1902 publication by Stewart Edward White called "The Blazed Trail". This reference is cited by both Rickaby and Beck. The B version is also in "American Ballads and Folk Songs" by John and Alan Lomax.

rich r

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bung Yer Eye
From: radriano
Date: 20 Oct 00 - 02:46 PM

Good man, rich r!

What's the meaning of the phrase "bung yer eye"?


Richard

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bung Yer Eye
From: MMario
Date: 20 Oct 00 - 03:35 PM

would the tune be the same as the fiddle tune "bung your eye" I played a midi and it seemed to me as if it could well be sung to it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bung Yer Eye
From: raredance
Date: 20 Oct 00 - 07:02 PM

None of the versions I have come across have a tune included. If the fiddle tune fits then it would be at least a semantic match. Do you know anything of the origin of the fiddle tune that would make it plausible. The notes by Rickaby especially, indicate that the song was not all that common. As to the meaning, I can envision it relating in some way to keg stoppers or perhaps it has some bawdy implications, but I am only guessing.

rich r

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bung Yer Eye
From: MartinRyan
Date: 21 Oct 00 - 04:54 PM

The expression "bung-your-eye" turns up in some versions of the song about the sailor buying eggs/gin/whatever in a basket from a girl who absconds with his money, leaving him with the basket - and the child therein. I think I've seen it argued as being slang for gin - though is seems a long way even from the dutch "genever"

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bung Yer Eye
From: MartinRyan
Date: 22 Oct 00 - 04:44 PM

Here's one expanation: Click Here

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bung Yer Eye
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 22 Oct 00 - 05:57 PM

"Bung your Eye" is also title of a Scots tune that goes back to about 1740 (book 3 of Walsh's 'Caledonian Conntry Dances'). It' also the tune in 'The Scots Musical Museum' for the song that's in the DT as "The Brisk young lad" (file BRISKLAD), but with chorus printed first. The tune isn't in DT yet, but I gave Dick Greenhaus an ABC of the SMM tune yesterday at the FSGW Getaway, so it should appear in the DT soon.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bung Yer Eye
From: Jimmy C
Date: 23 Oct 00 - 03:13 PM

In this song " Quare Bungle Rye",

Now Jack was a sailor who roamed round the town
He met with a damsel who skipped up and down
Said the damsel to Jack,as he passed her by
Would you care for to purchase some Quare Bungle Rye, Raddy Rye
Fal - de- diddle -lie, raddie, rye - raddie rye.

I read somewhere that it referred to BUNGO RYE, an strong illicit whiskey from Germany ?, although the practice of driving a large cork bung into a keg or barrel appears plausible also.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bung Yer Eye
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jul 18 - 08:14 AM

Hello from Dublin. I haven't researched this but I'd like to throw in my tuppence worth.
"Quare" is a Dublin version of "queer", not in the modern sense but meaning "odd".
"Rye" is a very old slang for whiskey in both Ireland and the US.
To me "Quare Bungle Rye" can only means "Oddly wrapped up whiskey" or smuggled whiskey or contraband whiskey which seems to fit in with the story of the song.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bung Yer Eye
From: Jack Campin
Date: 27 Jul 18 - 12:09 PM

"Quare" doesn't feature in any old Scottish title for the tune. I think Quare Bungle Rye is unrelated.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bung Yer Eye
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 29 Jul 18 - 06:19 PM

More straightforwardly, "Bung your eye" is surely "Hit you in the eye," isn't it?

I agree that bringing in "Bungle Rye," wonderfully ingenious though the song is, is a red herring.

Bob

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bung Yer Eye
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 29 Jul 18 - 06:52 PM

No, Bob
The blue clicky above doesn't work for me, but it simply means 'go and have several strong drinks until your eyes close'. It became a cliché in the 18th century as a toast of sorts.