Origin: (I'm) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: IanC
Date: 28 Jun 01 - 09:10 AM

I thought the whole point of the song was that the bloke was an outlaw because, when out with his dog & gun, he shot a man. Don't tell me I've been wrong all these years (again).

Cheers!
Ian

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: davidg
Date: 28 Jun 01 - 09:03 AM

OK - Maybe I was too terse in my previous explanation of why Jock shoots his dog. So here's the full version. When I first heard this song on the Pogues record I thought it was beautiful. I figured out the chords and wrote down the words and I'd play it and my wife would sing it and she enjoyed the way the melody hung on her voice but she was uncomfortable every time she got to the part about shooting the dog. But we loved the song so much that we kept coming back to it. You know how the way you think about a song can change after you've sung and heard it a bunch of times? Well. that's what happened, one day it just clicked. The reason he shoots the dog is because HE HAS TO! The dog has taken sick or gotten old. He's recounting his story in a pub where he is not known. (Otherwise, why would he have to recount his story?) Perhaps his fellow patrons are impressed by his acres of land and men he commands, but this is not mere bragging. Jock himself is marveling at the irony that no matter what he has, no matter how much he is envied, he has this pain that all his possessions can't shield him from. And the pain is probably exacerbated by the fact that all these gomers that he's drinking with can't see beyond his riches. It just occurred to me that this song is a lot like "Richard Cory" in that regard. Would you say that, in that song, it makes no sense that he kills himself because the preceding verses have detailed his seemingly happy life? Anyhoo, that's what I think and that's why I love this song and, I should add, credit where credit due, many (most) of these ideas were my wife's. I'll be interested in what you think.

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: Noreen
Date: 28 Jun 01 - 07:57 AM

I agree totally, Kendall.

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: kendall
Date: 28 Jun 01 - 07:42 AM

I dont really care which version is most authentic. I'm stating that shooting the dog makes no sense. Look what he is saying in the rest of the song. He is listing all the good things about his life, then suddenly, he shoots his dog? It reminds me of Stan Friebergs "History of the US". George Washington is berating Betsy Ross about the flag she made, he says "Wait a minute, stars? I said Polka dots!! Stars with stripes? how does that work together, design wise?" IT DOESN'T!

Shooting the freekin' dog makes NO sense!!

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: Aidan Crossey
Date: 28 Jun 01 - 07:12 AM

Surely the fact of the way that folk music has evolved means that songs and tunes which have emerged in one place get passed along to another in which place they take on a life of their own and evolve separately.

So, for example, tunes from Scotland which have become "naturalised" in Ireland include Rakish Paddy and Money Musk. Songs from England which have "naturalised" in Ireland include The Banks Of The Roses. There are many songs from Scotland where the tunes or tunes and lyrics have established themselves as part of the Irish canon, e.g. Peggy Gordon, Carnlough Bay, Come By The Hills, etc.

It appears that "A Man You Don't Meet Every Day" also naturalised here and, in the process, the meaning of one of the verses changed. But that doesn't mean that the version which has evolved separately is not correct ... just different.

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 28 Jun 01 - 07:10 AM

G'day Liz TS,

Yes, but if you go back to the last time this song did the rounds, you will see the the Stewart family song is a comparatively modern re-write over the older Irish (or 'Stage' Irish) song. Neither is "Correct", but we need to be clear about which we are speaking at any particular moment.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 28 Jun 01 - 06:47 AM

English? Irish?? His name is JOCK STEWART for heaven's sake. He couldn't be more Scottish if he were Hamish MacHamish of Hamish town near Glasgow!!!

Alright, as the song is in Geordie I will concede that he could be from Northumberland, but as far as most Englishers are concerned that's Scotland!!!

LTS

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: Aidan Crossey
Date: 28 Jun 01 - 06:34 AM

Have to take issue with Kendall's comment about a "correct" version of this song. (The points are relevant to many other songs which exist in different versions.)

It would appear that there are versions of this song which have evolved differently over time ie the Irish version where Jock Stewart takes out his dog "And him I did shoot down in the County Kildare", the version I heard my dad sing many years ago and the English version where the dog merely accompanies Jock.

(I think most of us could agree which dog we'd rather have been!)

Correctness is not really the issue. Both versions are "correct" in the context of how they have evolved.

Another example illustrates my point. There are at least three versions of Arthur McBride floating about which are widely known. The version which both Paul Brady and Bob Dylan have recorded, the version recorded by Planxty and a version (which I haven't heard recorded, but which many of my friends are familiar with) which I learnt from my family which is different again from each of these. There doesn't appear to me to be much point in debating the "correctness" of these. They've evolved through different paths is all.

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Jun 01 - 12:20 AM

"My lodging is on the cold ground"- song and tune in Vocal Music or The Songsters Companion, 1775, and Vocal Enchantress, p. 236, 1783; Tune = "I loe no a laddie but ain"; Scots Musical Museum #267; = that for Moore's song, "Believe me if all those endearing young charms"; Moore's Irish Melodies, II, #12 (1808)

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 11:40 PM

G'day (particularly Liam's Brother, Snuffy & dick greenhaus),

The Australian version I slip in with a nice collected waltz (the words collected from Alan Offa of Toowoomba, Queensland - who sang it to another tune well known in Australia) is just a short part - basically the first verse and chorus - of the one quoted above by Liam's Brother. There are longer versions here and all seem to come from Irish (or stage Irish) music Hall versions. I would see the one above as Irish, rather than the Poms sending up the Paddys.

The waltz tune to which I sing these words is related to My Home is on the Cold Cold Ground ... the tune used by Moore for his verse Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms (one of his more sincere verses, since it referred to his wife's ailment). Stan Hugill's song is even closer to the well known version and is about an English sailor who stops in Australia to dig for gold ... after 20 years he announces he is going back to the girl who waits for him ... and the English make fun of the Irish?!?

Snuffy: Given the location and the goldfields concerned, the origins of Hugill's song would be between early 1850s (when a sailor ancestor of mine, Jan van Kampen, jumped ship and scarpered up to the Turon Goldfields) and circa 1875. Of course, the song could be written much later but that is the period when such things could have happened in those locations.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 10:07 PM

Back in the 40's, I heard a version sung to the tune of Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms. That's the tune for the version in Hugill (The First of the Emigrants).

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: Susan A-R
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 10:01 PM

Folk process??? Just picked up that Archie Fisher recording and it is lovely.

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: kendall
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 07:00 PM

Shooting the dog is too drastic a change from the overall mood of the song. The speaker is relating all the good stuff in his life, so, why would he throw in such a distasteful task? It makes no sense to me.

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: Snuffy
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 06:54 PM

Isn't there a version in Stan Hugill's 'Shanties of the Seven Seas'? And what sort of date would that be?

Subject: Lyr Add: THE MAN YOU DON'T MEET EVERY DAY
From: Liam's Brother
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 05:05 PM

I am fairly sure that just about every version that just about everyone has heard of this song can ultimately be traced back to the singing of Jeannie Robertson. Jeannie made a few commercial recordings of it starting in the late 1950s, I believe, that were available both in Britain and the USA and, of course, she sang it live in various places too. Jeannie's version referred to Jock Stewart.

In the notes to one or more of those JR recordings, mention is made of an Irish music hall (vaudeville) origin for the song.

It was with great interest that I came across a song entitled 'The Hard Working Miner' in a collection by George Korson of songs from Pennsylvania (Minstels of the Mine Patch). The words were composed by P.J. 'Giant' O'Neill. It was a song obviously inspired by 'I'm A Man You Don't Meet Every Day. [I recorded it on the Folk-Legacy 'Irish in America CD with a number of other fine singers and players.] O'Neill was a miner and also a former vaudevillian who had toured with an outfit called Howorth's Hibernica.

Some months afterwards, I was able to aquire a copy of the songster that was sold at Hiberica performances (no date but roughly 1880). I was very pleasantly rewarded on opening the booket to see that the 2nd song inside it was 'The Man You Don't Meet Every Day.'

Here then, is that quite old version of this song. Is it the original? I don't know but I think it is pretty safe to say that it is older than the Pogue's version.

I've a nice little cabin that's built with mud in the beautiful county Kildare;
I've acres of land and men at command and I've always a shilling to spare.
Och! I didn't come here boys to look for a job but just a short visit to pay;
And as I walk through the streets people say that I meet, "There's a man you don't meet every day."

CHORUS.
Then call for you glasses, have just what you want and whatever the damage I'll pay;
Bhoys, be airy and free when you're drinking wid me, For I'm a man you don't meet every day.

When I landed in Glasgow, what a sight met my eyes as I first put my foot on the shore;
There was Felix O' Donough, Blind Barney McGurk and around two or three dozen more.
Och! murther! you ought to have seen them all stare and then they did all run away;
Said I, my spalpeens, do you think I'm a ghost because I'm a man you don't meet every day.

I'm in love with a nice little girl in the town and we're going to be married today;
And if you come over a twelvemonth from now, a right welcome to you I will pay;
And I think I can show you a little spalpeen who will then be able to say
To my friends and companions, while pointing me out, "There's a man you don't meet every day."

The song has been in Australia, by the way, but I'll leave it to Australian Mudcatters to tell you about that.

All the best,
Dan Milner

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 04:53 PM

Ey oop, Ah dint knaw Ah cud spek Nyorthern, bein as I's a Suthernerr laaaasss.

LTS

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: Anglo
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 01:46 PM

With hands that were trembling I took out my gun, and aimed it at Shep's faithful head; I just couldn't do it, I wanted to run, I wished they would shoot me instead.

(from my early days of Elvis fandom - yes I know he didn't write it).

When I heard Archie introduce the song (not Old Shep), he referred to an Irish version with the "and my dog I did shoot" line as opposed to the "with my dog..." that he actually sang. Of course he might just have been having us on - that's showbiz. I had to ask him about the "canny goin' man" bit too. Exactly as LTS pointed out above.

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From:
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 01:19 PM

I know this song as Jock Stewart.

The Pogues version misses out one of the best verses of the song as I know it, which goes as follows:

I'm a piper by trade I'm a roving young blade And there's mony's the tunes I do play Sae be easy and free When you're drinking wi me etc etc

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: davidg
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 12:10 PM

Look, Noreen, I'm a decent sort of guy. I try to be polite, clean-living, good to my mother. I've got nothing against dogs. Some of my best friends are dogs! I just think that the song works better as a dramatic statement if Jock shoots the poor beast. By the way, do you know the George Gerdes song "Hey Packy?" George shoots Packy at the end of that one too, doesn't he?

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: Noreen
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 11:59 AM

davidg, what did the poor dog ever do to you? *grin* The Pogues obviously misunderstood it too.

Of course you are entitled to sing it any way you wish, and whether it makes sense or not...

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: kendall
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 11:07 AM

the correct words are...I took out my gun WITH my dog I did shoot (HUNT) fuck it up if you must, but, you will get static.

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: davidg
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 10:41 AM

Is it OK if we still sing that he shoots his dog? I really like it that way. And just by-the-by, on the Pogues record Cait sings "O I took out my dog and him I did shoot..." Sounds to me like the dog bought it, yes?

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 08:25 AM

This was covered in a thread of Jan. 1998. Do Forum search for 'man you don't'

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: kendall
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 08:21 AM

Many people make that mistake of assuming that he shoots the dog. In the USA, we say, we are going hunting, in the UK, they go shooting. In fact, Rolls Royce used to build a "shooting brake" on which the upperclass twits would sit on their dead asses and shoot at game as they motored along. Some sport!

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: pavane
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 08:04 AM

It should have said Henry & Suzanne's Folksong index but I got a bracket reversed.

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: pavane
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 08:00 AM

Try this link I just found it today.

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: MudGuard
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 07:19 AM

derrymacash, that's because you wrote it as a relative url, i.e. without // at the beginning which would have made it an absolute url.

Other recordings of this song:

Bron Yale (Mudcat member Llanfair) on her "Songs from Ashdale" CD

Dubliners also recorded it (on album 30 years a-greying).

MudGuard

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: GeorgeH
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 06:24 AM

Tannahil Weavers also recorded this, many years ago . . (it's on one of our slices of vinyl somewhere . .)

G.

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: Aidan Crossey
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 06:17 AM

Steve

Blue clicky thing to the thread you started

Blue clicky thing to advice on how to create blue clicky things

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: Noreen
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 05:37 AM

Welcome davidg.

Re the phrase you quote above, I've come across this misunderstanding before…

Now, I took out my gun,
With my dog I did shoot,

means he's going out with his hunting dog to shoot game, not that he's going to shoot the poor dog! I've heard it sung:

Well, I took out my dog,
And my gun for to shoot

which is possibly more understandable.

Good luck with the band.

Noreen

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: Aidan Crossey
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 04:21 AM

Actually, davidg, don't be so sure that no-one here's interested in your band. There just might be some of us who'd be quite willing to have a female singer tear our hearts out singing A Man You Don't Meet Every Day. (I mean, Cait's not around with the Pogues to do it anymore!)

Pay The Reckoning

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 01:39 AM

A canny guan man - a canny going man. Means he's canny - smart(arse); guan is just Geordie for going - meaning he's smart and easy going, something you don't get every day round here....

LTS - who once had a singing competition with Ian Bruce, with this very song, in the Middle Bar, Sidmouth. We were trying to see who could hold on to the bit 'when you're drinkiiiiiiiiiiiiiing with me' longest and loudest. I won. No mean feat if you've ever heard Ian sing. Oh, and I was doing it in harmony, almost an octave above him..... (head swells to point where it won't fit through door....)

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: davidg
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 01:07 AM

I haven't heard the Archie Fisher version but, if he leaves out the part about shooting the dog...that's the crux of the whole song right there! I mean here's this powerful guy, he's got acres of land and men he commands, and still he's broken up because he had to shoot his dog. It kills me every time I hear it. (Iknownobody'sinterestedinmybandbut)By the way, regarding a woman singing this song...my wife sings it in our band (Pipsqueak) and it would tear your heart out.

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 12:54 AM

Fisher's rendition knocks me out, as does the rest of that disc. Thanks, Sandy, for making such art available. (Twa Bonnie Maidens has been kicking around in my head for a couple of days; an antidote to recently-heard murder ballads on the two sisters theme.)

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: davidg
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 12:45 AM

Just one more thing: What the heck is a "canny guan man?" Is it some horrible disease? Can I catch it?

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: mousethief
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 12:34 AM

Welcome aboard, davidg!

If Jock Stewart is a man you don't meet every day, then he must not be a person in my neighborhood (as per Sesame Street).

Alex

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: davidg
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 12:24 AM

Aw, geez, I feel like a kid at Christmas. You've all been so very kind to me. I just went to the membership thingy and joined.

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 12:19 AM

Archie Fisher recorded it on his Folk-Legacy CD: The Man With a Rhyme (Folk-Legacy CD-61). For another text set to the same tune, check out "The Hard Working Miner" on the fine new CD by Mudcatter "Liam's Brother" (Dan Milner), also on Folk-Legacy: Irish in America (Folk-Legacy CD-129).

Sandy

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 12:06 AM

I too heard the Pogues version and started a thread on it awhile back. Hopefully someone will blueclickything this for me.

www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=29430&messages=19

And welcome to Mudcat. A wonderful place.

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: Stewie
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 12:04 AM

The song is better known as 'Jock Stewart'. Put Jock Stewart (no quote marks) in the Digitrad and Forum Search box on the main forum page and you'll get heaps of stuff. It is in the DT also.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Help: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: Barry Finn
Date: 27 Jun 01 - 12:02 AM

You'll find it & a bit of info in the DT. Search under Jock Stewart. Good Luck, Barry

Subject: (I'm a) A Man You Don't Meet Every Day
From: GUEST,davidg
Date: 26 Jun 01 - 11:49 PM

On The Pogues record "Rum, Sodomy & the Lash" there's this song "A Man You Don't Meet Every Day." It's got a trad/arr credit but I've never been able to find it on any other record or in any book. Anybody know any other recordings or any history?