Does the Devil have the best tunes?

Subject: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: alanabit
Date: 14 Jun 02 - 05:07 PM

A couple of years back, when my girlfiend was researching for her dissertation, "Bawdy Ballads in the Twentieth Century", we discovered the Mudcat and received some splendid help - especially from Joe Offer. We knew the old quote,"Why should the Devil have all the best tunes?" We were interested in it, because we knew that many profane songs allegedly had their tunes taken over by hymn writers. From my own inglorious rugby playing days, I was also well aware that many of the tunes I had previously sung in churh had travelled in the opposite direction. "Ours Is Not A Happy Household" is a particular favourite of mine. I think the tune is Haydn's and it is also used for the German national anthem as well as the churh hymn "Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken". What I have long wondered, is whether anyone has an example of a song which has done the whole journey. Is there a song which started out being rude, got taken over by the church and was later reclaimed by rugby players or some other miscreants?

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: Sorcha
Date: 14 Jun 02 - 05:09 PM

Well of course he does. Fiddle ain't called the Devil's Box for nothing. Haven't you been to the Crossroads yet????

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: mousethief
Date: 14 Jun 02 - 05:12 PM

Just one word: Johann Sebastian Bach.

Well okay that's 3 words. But the last one is very short.

Alex

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: alanabit
Date: 14 Jun 02 - 05:13 PM

Thanks, but did you guys read my post?

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: Sorcha
Date: 14 Jun 02 - 05:16 PM

(read the title, alan)

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: alanabit
Date: 14 Jun 02 - 05:19 PM

I see. Well one should appreciate the unsophisticated responses too...

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: mousethief
Date: 14 Jun 02 - 05:23 PM

One should be less stuck up, perhaps.

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: mousethief
Date: 14 Jun 02 - 05:33 PM

I'm sorry; that was uncalled-for. I take it back and apologize.

Alex

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: Mrs Cobble
Date: 14 Jun 02 - 06:30 PM

Was not the devil invented by the church ? If that is so and the church "nicked " the tunes for hymns then the devil MAY have all the best tunes.....

Mrs C

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Jun 02 - 10:03 PM

Correction. The Devil did have the best tunes. Then William Shatner recorded "Mister Tambourine Man" and "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds". All that had gone before was instantly rendered passe. Nothing that came after would ever surpass it.

And to think I lived to hear it...

- LH

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: GUEST,Old Scratch
Date: 14 Jun 02 - 10:13 PM

I would answer, but some would consider my response rather biased!

O.S.

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: Mr Red
Date: 15 Jun 02 - 05:06 AM

No but he has the best PR man.
AND his favourite colour is RED.

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: alanabit
Date: 15 Jun 02 - 06:25 AM

No hard feelings Mousethief and Sorcha. I expect people to take the Mickey out of me from time to time. However, I really would be interested to hear if someone can come up with an example of a song which started out being rude, got taken over by the church and then was reclaimed as a bawdy ballad. I only know songs which have been through two of those stages.

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: Susan of DT
Date: 15 Jun 02 - 04:50 PM

dick greenhaus here:

Sadly, there's very little documentation of early bawdy songs. You might try a search of Pills to Purge Melancholy for an example.

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: Mr Red
Date: 15 Jun 02 - 05:50 PM

Not quite Church but
When I sang "A trooper watering his Nagg" at the Redditch FF a woman thanked me for singing the whole of it. She had known it in her yout as a single verse nursery rhyme (There was an old woman lived underneath the hill, and if she's not dead then she's living there still).
So it was bawdy in 1717 and described as an "old" song by Thomas D'Urfey, she found it as a kiddies song and got it back as a bawdy song again.

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: The Pooka
Date: 15 Jun 02 - 10:59 PM

Biased or no, unsophisticate or sophist, I'd still like to hear "Guest Old Scratch"'s answer. (Then maybe we can recruit him as a Member.) C'mon, auld Hornie, give us thy fork-tongued word. Or are ye awa' wi' th' exciseman? Again?

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Jun 02 - 08:53 PM

The interplay between what gets sung in church and what gets sung in social gatherings has always been a two-way process. I suspect there are as many tunes which started off as hymns as the other ways round.

As for an example of a song which has gone from folk to church and back again - I seem to remember hearing a rugby song derived from To be a Pilgrim, which of course uses the tune associated with The Blacksmith. (Though it wouldn't the least surprise me if someone finds out someday that it had previously been used for another hymn, and maybe was a song before that...)

An interesting short discussion of how the Sally Army used Music Hall tunes according to the principle alluded to in the thread title.

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: Celtic Soul
Date: 16 Jun 02 - 10:23 PM

Well, it's the other way around, but there is a hymn (the name of which I do not know) that wound up the tune for the bawdy song "Hairs of her Dickey Dido". That same tune wound up being used by a fairly famous radio preacher for a song he wrote afterwards.

Sorry, I have no more information than that...

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: CapriUni
Date: 16 Jun 02 - 11:08 PM

Celtic Soul --

Do you have the lyrics to "Hairs of her dickey dido"? Just the title sounds fun to sing!

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: masato sakurai
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 01:17 AM

The tune to "The Hairs on Her Dicky Di Do" [or Dicky-di-doe] (aka MAYOR OF BAYSWATER'S DAUGHTER in the DT) is "The Ash Grove", which is used as a tune for hymns "The Master Hath Come" and "On This Night, Most Holy" (Click here).

~Masato

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: masato sakurai
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 01:20 AM

The Master Hath Come

On This Night, Most Holy

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 08:58 AM

"On Ilkley Moor baht 'At" was pinched from Thomas Clarke's tune "Cranbrook" which was originally used for "While Shepherds Watched" (and other sets of words).

I was part of a vocal consort which sang Clarke's original setting at a carol concert. A lady in the congregation took us to task for "using such a disreputable tune for a christmas carol - in the house of God as well !". Even when we explained the origin of the tune, she insisted that it was now "contaminated". I can remember thinking that a quick recital of all the bawdy words which I knew to religious tunes would leave her with very few singable hymns and carols.

Perhaps it is more dificult for a "tainted" tune to return to respectability than for a camel to squeeze through the eye of a needle !

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 09:59 AM

"On Ilkley Moor ba t'at" hardly counts as "disreputable" in any sane mind.

An army chaplain told me once that My Darling Clementine tended to be used by soldiers for any hymn tune that sounded vaguely like it, and he use to welcome that because it meant they weren't shy about joining in. I imagine it's probably a hymn tune previously in any case - it's got that kind of feel.

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: GUEST,Arkie
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 11:24 AM

I once had an organist refuse to play "Come Ye Sinners Poor and Needy" declaring she would never play "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" in church.

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 12:35 PM

Particularly innappropriate with a title like that to be picking and choosing and excluding. I hope she got told off good and proper.

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: Celtic Soul
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 09:15 PM

CapriUni, dunno if you (or anyone else, for that matter) reeeeeeally *want* this, but ooooookay...here ya go. Don't say I didn't warn ya though.

(chorus) That hairs of her dickey-di-do, the hairs of her dickey-di-do, the hairs of her dickey-di-do hung down to her knees...There's a red one and a white one, and one with a little shite on, and one with a little light on to show us the way.

She's not a great looker, but everyone took 'er And the hairs of her dickey di-do hung down to her knees (chorus)

You'd need a coal miner to find her vagina And the hairs of her dickey di-do hung down to her knees (chorus)

If she were my daughter I'd have them cut shorter And the hairs of her dickey di-do hung down to her knees (chorus)

I've touched it, I've licked it, it tastes just like brisket And the hairs of her dickey di-do hung down to her knees (chorus)

She lived by the waterfront, with the waves lapping up and down her cunt And the hairs of her dickey di-do hung down to her knees (chorus)

She married an Italian, who was hung like a fucking stallion And the hairs of her dickey di-do hung down to her knees (chorus)

She divorced the Italian, and married the stallion And the hairs of her dickey di-do hung down to her knees (chorus)

I folded her lips back, and there found a six-pack And the hairs of her dickey di-do hung down to her knees (chorus)

It was always hit-or-miss, whether I could find her clitoris And the hairs of her dickey di-do hung down to her knees (chorus)

I reached into her thing, and there found my class ring And the hairs of her dickey di-do hung down to her knees (chorus)

I've licked it, I've felt it, it was just like velvet And the hairs of her dickey di-do hung down to her knees (chorus)

She says that she's not a whore, but she bangs like a shithouse door And the hairs of her dickey di-do hung down to her knees (chorus)

The aroma it lingers, it smells like fish fingers And the hairs of her dickey di-do hung down to her knees (chorus)

She stayed in Seattle, and went down on cattle And the hairs of her dickey di-do hung down to her knees (chorus)

She met a Hash House Harrier, who fucked her but wouldn't marry her And the hairs of her dickey di-do hung down to her knees (chorus)

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 09:27 PM

I prefer the Haydn Sikh symphony.

art

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: GUEST,greg stephens
Date: 18 Jun 02 - 07:06 AM

Glad to know she's alive and well in Seattle (and presumably sleepless). She was active in Bayswater when I was a lad.

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: alanabit
Date: 18 Jun 02 - 03:09 PM

When I played rugby too...

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 18 Jun 02 - 04:21 PM

A lot of the time hymn tunes were used because everyone was familiar with them -- labor songs, for example.

Linn

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: GUEST,BEELZEBUB
Date: 19 Jun 02 - 05:58 AM

OF COURSE I DO - COME DOWN TO MY PLACE SOMETIME AND FIND OUT.

SESSION ANY TIME - LASTS AN ETERNITY.


BUT I DON'T LIKE THOSE CHRISTIAN BUGGERS STEALING MY TUNES BACK !

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: greg stephens
Date: 19 Jun 02 - 08:08 AM

Piano accordions and bodhrans compulsory, I imagine.

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: 53
Date: 19 Jun 02 - 10:25 AM

Somebody told me a while back that if you played rockand roll or country or the blues is that you are playing for the devil. I don't believe that in a skinny minute. Everybody has good music to play but you can get yourself into troubeif you dig deep enough.

Subject: RE: Does the Devil have the best tunes?
From: GUEST,BEELZEBUB
Date: 19 Jun 02 - 11:58 AM

And Kazzoos and Highland Pipes....

Playing melodeon with red-hot steel buttons definitely keeps the tempo FAST and the air button helps fan up the flames !

BOB 53, you and SPAW would be welcome ANYTIME - no prior appointment necessary.