Lyr Req: Man in the mill

Subject: Man in the mill
From: Dharmabum
Date: 12 Apr 01 - 10:02 PM

I don't know the name of this song so I'm not having much luck finding it.
I only know this verse.

Little old man workin in the mill
Mill turns around of it's own free will
Hand in the hopper & the other in the sack
Ladies step forward & the jents fall back.

Seems to me there was a thread on this awhile back & I've probably missed something painfully obvious in my search.

Thanks,Ron.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Man in the mill
From: Stewie
Date: 12 Apr 01 - 10:45 PM

There was a previous thread on this:

Click

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Man in the mill
From: Louie Roy
Date: 12 Apr 01 - 11:14 PM

Dharmabum,Man in the mill is an old hoedown and is danced with four couples and a caller and has many different versions due to the fact that each caller makes up there own version and adds on as the dance progresses but regardless what he speils out the dancers know the steps This is similar to Birdie in the Cage also a hoedown and both of these were brought over to the USA from Europe in the 1600s as were many others Louie Roy

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Man in the mill
From: Dharmabum
Date: 12 Apr 01 - 11:32 PM

Thanks guys, That'll give me enough verses to piece together a complete song.

Ron.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Man in the mill
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 12 Apr 01 - 11:32 PM

If you do a search for mill* hopper" you'd find it in DogiTrad. Titles are not necessary

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Man in the mill
From: Jacob B
Date: 13 Apr 01 - 12:06 PM

I don't know a four couple square version of this. Louie Roy, can you post a description?

The version I know is a big circle mixer. I think I posted a description of it last year. I'll see if I can find it and post a link to it.

Jacob

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Man in the mill
From: Jacob B
Date: 13 Apr 01 - 12:40 PM

Here is the link to the description of The Happy Miller, danced to a different version of the song.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Man in the mill
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 13 Apr 01 - 01:10 PM

The song was recorded as "Old man at the Mill" by Mary Louise Howell 'Dulcimer : Old Time and Traditional Music", Troubadore, TR-2, 1977. Her version of the song is crossed with verses of "The Leather Winged Bat" ("Birds Harmony/Woody Choristers", Scarce Songs 1 on my website)."

Millers in old popular and traditional songs are often known for the number of maidenheads lost at their mill, or for murdering the lovers they had already gotten pregnant.
. The c 1760 "Miller of the Dee" isn't bawdy, but is quite possibly a sanitized version of an older song. [Herd's 'Scots Songs', II, 1776] See "Miller and the Lass" in Purslow's 'The Constant Lovers', the 17th century version being listed at ZN956 in the broadside balad index on my website. [Many other versions are listed at #1128 in Steve Roud's folksong index.]

Our song here is listed as "Miller Boy" in 'The Traditional Ballad Index' on the web. It is there said to be traced back to a song in Pill's to Purge Melancholy (ostensibly by Thomas D'Urfey, Pills, I, 128, 1719, "The old wife she sent to the miller her daughter"), but the broadside ballad text, "The Lusty Miller's Recreation (ZN1067 in the broadside ballad index on my website) is earlier that the one attributed to D'Urfey. I believe this tracing to the Pills song to be nonsense, anyway.