Lyr Req: The Boers Have Got My Daddy / ...Bears?

Subject: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Dec 00 - 02:22 PM

In a local charity shop, I just picked up a cassette tape of tunes played on an old music box. And one of the tunes has the poignant and evocative title "My daddy's been taken by bears".

I'm dying to see the lyrics that must go with a title like that. Someone point me in the right direction, or go off bear-hunting and bring the results back here for us to share.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Dec 00 - 04:47 PM

I've been trying to work out what kind of a song it could be.

It might be some kind of moralising one, maybe a temperance sonmg. Daday went out drinking, and got lost in the woods, and the bears got him. One of the less well publicised perils of drink.

Or maybe he met some other more disgraceful fate, like being put in jail, and they've been protecting teh poor child by telling her teh bears got him.

Or maybe he's a truck-driver and got pulled in by the Smokeys - though that sounds a bit modern.

Or maybe the bears got him in a game of poker, and skinnned him alive. Metaphorically.Or literally.

But somewhere out there there really is (or at least there was) a song with that actual title.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: mousethief
Date: 13 Dec 00 - 04:57 PM

I've looked in all my usual places and it hasn't been there. Good luck!

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: Ebbie
Date: 13 Dec 00 - 05:47 PM

McGrath, in Alaska we have some REAL bear stories and sometimes that title fits.

In most of the cases I've heard of it's a hunter who was carted off/killed by a bear. Sometimes it's surmised that the hunter was making the call of an abandoned fawn.

I remember in 1990 or so, a 40ish hunter on Chichagof Island was hauled off up a hill and killed by a brown bear. His hunting partner heard him calling for help but he was dead before his buddy could get to them.

They say not many brown bears/grizzlies will eat human beings (it's different with black bears) but there is the occasional odd one.

But I suppose the song title you found doesn't refer to anything that grisly? (Pun intended!)

Ebbie

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Dec 00 - 06:15 PM

I checked all my usual sources, and then some - couldn't find mention of this song anywhere. With a title like that, it's a song I gotta hear.
-Joe Offer, lover of quirky songs-

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: Mickey191
Date: 13 Dec 00 - 06:23 PM

I was hoping it was composed by George Bush III.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Dec 00 - 08:50 PM

I've checked with the tape again - and I got the title a bit wrong - it's actually "The Bears have got my Daddy".

To date it, it's from a instrument/machine called The Polyphon, coin-operated, in a Museum on the Islem of White at present. It was builty about 1898 atbtehy Polyphon Musicwerke Factory which was established in 1890 by Paul Reissner.

So, a sort of primitive juke-box. Most of the tunes sound as if they were put on at the time it was built - some I've come across, such as "My Irish Molly" and "Whistling Rufus", and some I'd love to find, such as "Three Women to Every Man" and "Three makes Jolly Fine Comopany" (that's two separate songs!)

But "The Bears Have Got My Daddy" is the one that's niggling at me. Perhaps it is a straight backwoods ballad about a nasty episode, as Ebbie suggests...Sort of material that the Carter Family might have used and transformed a generation later.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: GUEST,Sarah
Date: 13 Dec 00 - 09:41 PM

Did Mike Ditka write it?

Sarah

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Dec 00 - 11:42 AM

Refresh - or perhaps "bear up" might be a more fitting way of putting it...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Dec 00 - 01:07 PM

And here is a site about the Polyphon, with a picture and a sound file. Strange sound, slightly sinister, like all Music Boxes. But no bears as yet.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: UB Ed
Date: 14 Dec 00 - 02:33 PM

Perhaps this is a song written by Uncle Walter's son. I'm thinking of "Waltzing with Bears" which is in the Digitrad. Walter is taken in the last verse.

Well we begged and we pleaded, "Oh please won't you stay" Managed to keep him at home for a day But the bears all barged in and they took him away Now he's dancing with pandas, And he can't understand us And the bears all demand at least one waltz a day

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: NightWing
Date: 14 Dec 00 - 05:11 PM

Hey McGrath, you left off the URL. Please try again; this is one I want to see, too.

BB,
NightWing

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Dec 00 - 06:58 PM

Yes, I'd just come back and noticed that, Nightwing. here it should be

And in case the blue clicky goes pear-shaped - http://www.mbsgb.org.uk/- that is the address too. And it looks interesting.

I agree with UB Ed that it sound like a sequel to Uncle Waltrer. Except I doubt if that was around in 1898. If I can find it though, it might turn out to be an appropriate companion.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: MartinRyan
Date: 15 Dec 00 - 07:50 AM

McGrath Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: MartinRyan
Date: 15 Dec 00 - 08:02 AM

Sorry about the mysterious posting!

What I MEANT to type was: McGrath - was that "Irish Molly" the usual "my sweet acushla dear" one or the earleir one which grew into "The Sash"? I'm curious abouit the date.

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Dec 00 - 02:37 PM

I think it's the usual one. I'll check when I get the tape back.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Jan 01 - 07:29 PM

Problem solved!

I posted a query about it on that music box thread I mentioned earlier The Musical Box Society of Great Britain - and I have just had an email from a helpful fella called Mark, with the answer.

It's not "the bears" - it's "The Boers". Which makes sense - I've got a feeling I'v come across it before somewhere. A classic mondegreen, that had me and other people looking in completely the wrong durection.

Anyway, Mark's going to let me have the words, and I'll post them here.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: MartinRyan
Date: 08 Jan 01 - 05:04 PM

Now we're motoring! Try a Google search on "Boers have got my daddy". Among others, you get THIS

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: MartinRyan
Date: 08 Jan 01 - 05:19 PM

Sorry about the duplicate posting. The lyrics are well down that page.

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Jan 01 - 07:26 PM

Thanks for that, Martin - I followed through that link, and got to a New Zealand site with someone singing it (among others) - here it is.

And they are both of them fascinating sites! I advise anyone reading this to push the blicky and visit.

I love the way you never know where you get once you start looking. You can turn up stuff to break your heart and split your sides.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: Snuffy
Date: 08 Jan 01 - 07:46 PM

You managed to get a "d" in href, Kevin. Try this: here it is.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Jan 01 - 09:18 PM

Thank you Snuffy - I normally check the blicky spellings, and correct if need be, but I slipped up. I hope you visited the site and heard the song. Sentimental - but restrained where it needs to be, in the last verse:

I learnt his father was a private
In an Irish corps,
But when I heard the name I knew
He'd never see him more;
For in the list of casualties
I'd only read that day,
Beneath the scorching veldtthat youngster's
Gallant father lay.
The nipper left me standing there,
And marched away with pride,
But turned his little curly head
Again to me and cried -

Subject: Lyr Add: THE BOERS HAVE GOT MY DADDY
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 21 Jul 02 - 11:39 PM

Copied from http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/Gallery/SAW/songs.htm

THE BOERS HAVE GOT MY DADDY
(Written and composed by Mills and Castling)

This morning in a busy street, a tiny lad I spied.
With paper hat, and little wooden sword slung by his side.
Said I, "Good morning, Gen'ral!" in a playful sort of way.
"I see by your appearance you're preparing for the fray."
He stood up to attention, looked at me with flashing eye,
Then gripped his little wooden sword as he made this reply:

CHORUS: "The Boers have got my Daddy, my soldier Dad.
I don't like to hear my Mammy sigh.
I don't like to see my Mammy cry.
So I'm going in a big ship across the raging main,
And I'm going to fight the Boers, I am, and bring my Daddy home again!"

I smiled down at the youngster, though a lump came in my throat,
And marvell'd at the pluck beneath that little ragged coat.
To hear the way that kiddy talked, it really was sublime,
But there you are! The old, old tale: A Briton all the time!
Said he, "I've wrote to Gen'ral Bobs, to join his gallant band.
I'll pay the naughty Boers for keeping Daddy when I land!" CHO.

I learnt his father was a private in an Irish corps,
But when I heard the name, I knew he'd never see him more,
For in the list of casualties I'd only read that day,
Beneath the scorching veldt that youngster's gallant father lay.
The nipper left me standing there, and marched away with pride,
But turned his little curly head again to me and cried, CHO.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 05:17 AM

Given the current Stock Market conditions - BEARS would have been post appropriate

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 11:23 AM

Bears/Boers/Bores whatever! Clearly this mix-up should be the subject of a song challenge!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: Mudlark
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 12:21 PM

Great sentimental song, but oh, I LOVE the thread title, exactly as it is.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: Dead Horse
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 01:57 PM

Sounds like Montypolython to me!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 05:57 PM

I see my mondegreen has resurfaced. It came in two parts - the first was that tape I got which gave the title of the tune as "The bears have got my Daddy" - and then when I asked at the Mudcat the tape wasn't handy, and I remmebered it as "My Daddy's been taken by bears", so adding chaos to the confusion.

Still, I'm sure that back in the days of the Boer War there'd actually have been children who got the Boers and the Bears mixed up in their head.

I can remember in the war (WW II) getting mixed up between Germans and Germs. I think I had the feeling that if you didn't get rid of the Germs by washing it'd mean Hitler might be coming to get you.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Daddy's been taken by bears
From: Gareth
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 06:58 PM

Ahh ! Kevin, its nice to know a Mudcatter who is old enough to remember the songs of the Boer War !!!

Gareth - Ducking for cover