Origin: Bald Headed End of a Broom

Subject: RE: Origin: Bald Headed End of a Broom
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 28 Mar 18 - 01:07 PM

Information on the song here;

https://www.fresnostate.edu/folklore/ballads/FaE190.html

Subject: RE: Origin: Bald Headed End of a Broom
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 Mar 15 - 05:21 AM

waterson carthy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8M23Fl6T3M

Subject: RE: Origin: Bald Headed End of a Broom
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 Mar 15 - 05:19 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC40QfWnlto&list=RDRC40QfWnlto&index=1 GRANDPA JONES.
WATERSON https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8M23Fl6T3M CARTHY
Dick miles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmqpgT0ClK4

Subject: RE: Origin: Bald Headed End of a Broom
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 Mar 15 - 05:13 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmqpgT0ClK4 GRANDPA JONES

Subject: RE: Origin: Bald Headed End of a Broom
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 Mar 15 - 05:11 AM

if you listen to this versionhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmqpgT0ClK4 and now this later versionhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmqpgT0ClK4 and now the earlier version from grandpa jones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmqpgT0ClK4
you can hear that the tune in my version is adapted and slightly different from grandpa jones, my tune which has been subsequently used by waterson carthy was orignally collected by peter kennedy in ireland, these things have to be be acknowledged. when i recorded this in 1981 no one else was singning the song it had been forgotten, partly due to the fact that most english revival singers were singing mainly english material, in 1981 I was responsible for popularising the song again in the UK.

Subject: RE: Origin: Bald Headed End of a Broom
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 11:37 PM

First heard it on Argo World of Folk compilation in the 1960s.

Subject: RE: Origin: Bald Headed End of a Broom
From: GUEST,michael
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 04:00 PM

I first heard this song on an album called The String Band Project (Elektra EKS-7292) that was released in the 60s. It was performed by the Dry City Scat Band.

Subject: RE: Origin: Bald Headed End of a Broom
From: Mark Ross
Date: 19 Oct 12 - 04:20 PM

First heard it sung by Mac Benford with the Highwoods String Band some 40 years ago when they were busking on Sproul Plaza at UC Berkeley.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Origin: Bald Headed End of a Broom
From: GUEST,Greta in Wichita, Kansas
Date: 19 Oct 12 - 03:26 PM

I posted (above) back in 2008 with my family's history regarding this song. Just now finally listened to a Grandpa Jones version on YouTube, and his tune is very similar to the one I learned. Just thought I'd add that. Thanks for this site!

Subject: RE: Origin: Bald Headed End of a Broom
From: Abdul The Bul Bul
Date: 29 May 12 - 04:18 PM

if we BOTH live that long!
Al

Subject: RE: Origin: Bald Headed End of a Broom
From: The Sandman
Date: 29 May 12 - 01:23 PM

if i live that long.

Subject: RE: Origin: Bald Headed End of a Broom
From: Abdul The Bul Bul
Date: 29 May 12 - 12:59 PM

I'll look forward to hearing it at Faversham Mr M.
Al

Subject: RE: Origin: Bald Headed End of a Broom
From: The Sandman
Date: 28 May 12 - 01:34 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmqpgT0ClK4

Subject: RE: Origin: Bald Headed End of a Broom
From: The Sandman
Date: 28 May 12 - 01:33 PM

I think the best tune is the one that I sing here, I reckon I sing it much better now than i did when this was recorded, I think i had a bit of hayfever at the time
.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmqpgT0ClK4

Subject: RE: Origin: Bald Headed End of a Broom
From: GUEST,Kerri Steward
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 09:03 PM

We just had the 84th and final Steward family reunion. We all sang this song together during the reunion. It was apparently Great Uncle Evert's favorite song to sing. We have meeting notes from every single year of the reunion. Many family members would participate in a "program". They would sing songs, recite poetry, play instruments, tell stories etc. This song was sung during many of the reunion programs.

Subject: RE: Origin: Bald Headed End of a Broom
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 May 09 - 02:50 PM

refresh.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmqpgT0ClK4
Jez lowe playing guitar and singng harmony,SueMiles playing bass clarinet

Subject: RE: Origin: Bald Headed End of a Broom
From: JohnE
Date: 06 Apr 09 - 05:49 PM

Seems like this is an American song. I had no idea where it came from but I loved it when I heard Roaring Jelly do it brilliantly in the Cartwheel Folk Club in Hathersage, Derbyshire about 1975. Thanks for the lyrics and the memory.

Subject: RE: Origin: Bald Headed End of a Broom
From: Dave Ruch
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 10:39 AM

In a 1941 oral tradition version from New York State, the chorus ends "they'll love you till your wed, then they'll hit you till your dead, with the bald headed end of the broom".

Subject: RE: Origin: Bald Headed End of a Broom
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 07:27 AM

yes well the lyrics Ising are.boys Isay from the girls keep away and give them lots of room for when you get wed you get hit on the head with the bald headed end of the broom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmqpgT0ClK4&feature=channel_page have alisten

Subject: Lyr Add: LOVE (BALD-HEADED END OF A BROOM)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 11:01 PM

From College Songs and Popular Ballads for Guitar arranged by Emma Schubert, C. W. Bemis, H. W. Harris and others (Boston: Oliver Ditson Company, 1888)—where it appears with a musical score:

LOVE

1. O love, it is such a very funny thing.
It catches the young and old.
It's just like a chance in a lottery game,
For many's the man's been sold.
It will make you sing like a bird on the wing.
It will cause your heart for to swell.
You may love your wife as you do your life,
But 'twill empty your pocketbook as well.
So boys, keep away from the girls, I say,
And give them plenty of room.
You will find when you're wed they'll bang you till you're dead
With the bald-headed end of a broom.

2. When a man's in love with a very pretty girl,
He talks as gently as a dove.
He calls her his honey and he spends lots of money
For to show her he's solid in love.
When his money's all gone and his clothes up the spout,
He will find the old saying true:
That a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
What the deuce is a fellow going to do
With a wife and fourteen half-starved kids?
I tell you it is no fun
When the butcher comes round to collect his bills
With a dog and a double-barrell'd gun.

3. So, boys, keep away from the girls, I say,
And give them plenty of room.*
You'll think you're in clover till the honeymoon's over,
And then you'll wish you were dead.*
With a cross-eyed baby on each knee,
With a wife with a wart on her nose,
You will find that love don't run so smooth
When you have to wear your second-hand clothes.
When the rents are high, the kids will cry
Kase they ain't got nothing for to chaw.
You'll holler for your son for to load up the gun
For to vaccinate your mother-in-law.

[*Something seems wrong here because these lines don't rhyme, but that's the way I found it.—JD.]

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 10 Apr 08 - 07:02 PM

Phillipa Robinson, way back ten years ago, in '98, said:

also I once added a verse to point out that it's more often the wife than the husband that's at the wrong end of the stick,

Granted, in the real world. But it's the reversal of roles that gives the song its comic air. And there's a lot of other songs about relations between the sexes that get their humor from the role reversal.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Apr 08 - 05:04 PM

Kennedys Version collected in Ireland mentions hash,Which is an American culinary delicacy.
IT must be originally an American song
so I assume it was heard by someone in Ireland,who changed the tune,deliberately or accidentally,or perhaps it arrived in Ireland as a set of words and someone made up the tune,it has been folk processed,and the version I sing does sound very English.
as I sang it for many years in folk clubs,and as Martin played guitar on my second lp,and must have been familiar with the material on my first lp,I always assumed he had heard me sing it and had been inspired to learn it,which I find very complimentary,However this may not be the case,he may have discovered it,by a completely different route.
I also love Charlie Pooles Version[look before you leap] .Dick Miles

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: irishenglish
Date: 10 Apr 08 - 07:09 AM

From the notes to Waterson Carthy's Broken Ground,"Bald Headed End Of The Broom is more widespread than I ever imagined. I had thought of it as a piece of 1920's (ish) vaudeville, and remember Mike Seeger singing it with or without the New Lost City Ramblers, but lo and behold it turns up in Northern Ireland in the repertoire of a woman called Martha Gillen and recorded by Seamus Ennis and Sean O'Boyle with a totally different tune."

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: GUEST,Greycap
Date: 09 Apr 08 - 06:33 PM

Hey, Paul Q,
I'm really flattered about your kind comments. It's still one of my favourite songs after all these years, I learned it from Mike Seeger.
Roger Knowles

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Apr 08 - 07:23 AM

correct,but the lyrics and tune are SAME AS Kennedys.
Peter Kennedy bootlegged a recording from Folk on Two[bbc radio]and sold cassettes[totally illegaly] without my or Greenwich Village or the BBC S Permission.
Kennedy had no right to make money from our arrangement.
the version I sang had Jez Lowe playing guitar[double drop d tuning] and bass clarinet by SueMiles[ now Weir]
Alan Ashwell used to play it in Dadgad[Ithink].
just for the record in case, anyone thinks I am a Carthy copyist,Irecorded it in 1981,long before Martin Carthy sang it.
I normally sing it unaccompanied .Dick Miles

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: Darowyn
Date: 09 Apr 08 - 02:46 AM

I'd never thought of this an an American song- you see I learned it from an album by a chap called Dick Miles, Mudcat's own Captain Birdseye.
He sang, "You'll be hit on the head" rather than "they'll beat you till you're dead",
It's sounds so 'East of England' in this version that I'd never have suspected a US origin.
Dick says he learned it from Alan Ashwell of Chatham.
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: Ross Campbell
Date: 09 Apr 08 - 02:41 AM

Top of YouTube's list for "Bald Headed end of the Broom is Mudcat's own Captain Birdseye et al (Dick Miles, Jez Lowe, Sue Miles on "Dunmow Flitch")
Presumably? this is an English version of the song. I've also heard Martin Carthy sing this, and when in Australia a few years back I found a version recorded there.
Time I got round to learning it!

Ross

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: katlaughing
Date: 09 Apr 08 - 12:26 AM

Welcome to the Mudcat, Greta and thanks for posting the info about your family and this song. That's great background!

I checked in the DigiTrad Song Database and don't see a midi for this song. If there were one, all you'd have to do is click on it to listen.

There is an older fellow on youtube who does an instructional video of what he calls "this old Grandpa Jones tune" but he only sings it at the very end and it's not very clear.

Someone will probably come in, soon, and post a link to a tune somewhere. Mudcatters are pretty good about that.

If you have a way to get the tune onto your computer and then a place where you can upload it, you could then put a link in this thread, but we don't have tunes actually in the threads, per se.

Hope this is clearer than mud.**smile**

All the best,

kat

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: GUEST,Greta in Wichta, Kansas
Date: 08 Apr 08 - 11:50 PM

I can't believe I found this link! I have known a version of this song since I was little (I'm 56). It's an old family favorite, and I've NEVER known anyone else who'd heard any part of it.

It's the only song I ever knew my Grandfather John Paulk to sing. He'd sing it when he held a couple of us grandchildren on his knees (which made us giggle).

Grandpa Paulk was born in 1890 in a dugout in "Indian Territory"(later Oklahoma) and grew up there and in Arkansas in a dirt-poor family of eight children who lived past infancy. My grandfather had less than a year of formal schooling (in a "brush arbor") and owned no shoes until he was an adult and bought them himself. He lived, worked, and raised a family in Coffeyville, Kansas, and was proud to have paid cash for every car he ever owned. In the 1950s he drove Cadillacs; in the 1960s and 70s, he switched to Mercedes Benzes, because "they're the best car you can buy."

I am quite sure Grandpa said he learned this song from his father, Selden Paulk, after Selden returned home from the Civil War (Selden joined the Union Army near the end of the war at about age 16 and received an Army pension until his death in 1940.) This is how my grandfather, aunts and cousins all sang it:

Cross-eyed baby on each knee
And a woman with a plaster on her nose.
I tell you, boys, it ain't no fun
When you have to wear second-hand clothes.

Stay away from the girls, I say,
And give them plenty of room.
For when you're wed, they'll beat you till you're dead
With the bald-headed end of the broom.

If I can figure out how to post the tune, I will. Can anyone tell me how to listen to the tunes on this site?

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: JohnB
Date: 28 Feb 06 - 11:41 PM

Grren Fiddle Morris from Toronto Ontario do a Morris dance, with four brooms, to the tune and sing the chorus at the end of the dance.
JohnB.

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 28 Feb 06 - 01:39 AM

Thanks, Stewie - the brain is fried. I feared as much!

Seamus

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: Stewie
Date: 27 Feb 06 - 06:17 PM

Seamus, the complete discography by Rinzler, Cohen and Russell in the book accompanying the Bear Family box set indicates that Uncle Dave did not record this song either commercially, in his live show recordings or in his post-1942 home recordings.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: Charley Noble
Date: 27 Feb 06 - 05:42 PM

A version is also recorded of Jeff Warner's new CD JOLLY TINKER.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 27 Feb 06 - 04:45 PM

Did Uncle Dave Macon do this one too, or is my memory acting up again?

Seamus

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: GUEST,Paul Q
Date: 27 Feb 06 - 04:01 PM

This song is on the LP: Pete Stanley And Roger Knowles - Picking And Singing. It goes by the alternative name of "Boys Stay Away From The Girls"

My father had this LP copied onto an old reel-to-reel tape. When I was a young child of no more than 4 or 5 years of age, I often had my father play me this tape when I went to bed at night. "Boys Stay Away From The Girls" was always my favourite song. Indeed the whole album has always had significant sentimental importance to me.

I recently purchased my own copy of this album from ebay. Its label number is XTRA 1146, for anyone that is interested in looking for it. It appears on ebay from time to time.

A description of the song, on the sleeve of the album is as follows:

"An old time cautionary song with ragtime overtones, telling of the perils of matrimony"

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: Stewie
Date: 30 Oct 04 - 10:40 AM

Pete, thanks for that.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: GUEST,Pete Peterson
Date: 30 Oct 04 - 09:37 AM

Stewie-- Kinney and I have talked this over (while sitting at Charlie Poole's "eating table"-- Rorrer is a collector of Poole memorabilia and other things) and he leans more to the conclusion that both Poole and Smith learned it from a common source and then modified it as they each sang it. From the notes to the Document CDs of "Walter 'Kid' Smith and Friends" it looks like everybody knew everybody else; everybody learned songs and tunes from everybody else, and nobody would feel quite comfortable if cited as the "source" for a song. Maybe certain topical verses. . . like in Man who Rode the Mule where Poole sings "I rode up on the line and got throwed off on a pine" -- Norm Woodlieff is quoted as saying THAT really happened to Poole. Which I can well believe.

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: Stewie
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 10:51 PM

Kinney Rorrer, Poole's biographer, seems to suggest Walter Smith's earlier recording may have been Poole's source. Smith was a friend of Poole's. Smith's recording has more or less the same lyrics as Poole's first 3 stanzas, plus the familiar chorus as in the DT. Smith's final stanza is the same as that in the second version in the DT - 'Young fellows all take my advice' etc. I wonder where the first four lines of Poole's final stanza came from: maybe he wrote them. Has anyone heard the Reneau recording? There were also earlier unissued recordings by Bill Chitwood (1927) and Blevins & Blair (1928). The Poole lyrics may be found here: CLICK. In that transcription, the third line of the final stanza should read 'load up your gun'.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: GUEST,Pete Peterson
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 09:58 PM

and Poole called it "Look Before You Leap" in 1930, Co 15630.

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: RangerSteve
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 07:39 PM

Charlie Poole also recorded it, a slightly different version than Grandpa Jones' and with a different tune.

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 11:08 AM

I just looked in the DT for the words, and I'm puzzled.

Does anyone have an understanding of the lane about "a mole on the arm's worth two on the legs"? Weird!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: Stewie
Date: 28 Oct 04 - 09:31 PM

Meade gives 'Harry Bennett, w&m, ca 1877'. The earliest publication that he cites is 'Harry Woodson's Gwine Back to Dixie Songster (1877)'. The earliest issued recordings were by George Reneau (1924) and Walter Smith (1929). [Meade et alia 'Country Music Sources' p141].

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: GUEST,Dave Ruch
Date: 28 Oct 04 - 09:16 PM

Yes, I recently came upon the song myself in that same Merchant's Gargling Oil Songster, 1885, not from Chicago but Lockport NY. Merchant's Gargling Oil was a highly successful product and company in this area (Western NY) in the second half of the 19th century, making & selling their liniments for both man and beast. Apparently, they would put out a songster every so often as a promotional piece, with product testimonials and other hype printed after each song. They have several years' worth of this songster at the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library, all with great artwork on the covers. I also have a version of this song from a Westchester County (NY) singer born in 1858. Jeff Warner has some great background on the song from his parents' research as well as from Martin Carthy and some others. Jeff believes that the song started here in the US and moved to the British Isles.

Other interesting songs in the 1885 edition of this songster are a version of Give An Honest Irish Lad a Chance, an early version of Jimmy Brown the Newsboy (which I only knew from Peter Rowan and the like), and of course the Merchant's Gargling Oil theme song, which I'd love to set to music sometime.

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: karen k
Date: 17 Jan 99 - 05:55 PM

This song appeared in Sing Out!, Volume 18, Numbers 2 & 3, June/July, 1968. Nothing is written as to the origin of the song. It says that the Dry City Scat Band of the early 60's learned it from Jerry Jordon on Supertone Records. It also says that Mike Seeger did it on "Oldtime Country Music" - Folkways FA 2325.

The first verse is as follows:

Well love is such a very funny thing,
Catches the young and the old.
Just like a plate of boardinghouse hash
Many a man's been sold.
It makes you feel like a fresh water eel
It causes your head to swell.
You lose your mind for love is blind
And it empties your pockets as well.

The rest is just about the same as the last two verses of the Grandpa Jones version posted above. The first verse in the Grandpa Jones version does not appear in Sing Out!

Subject: Lyr Add: BALD HEADED END OF A BROOM (from Jones)
From: Gene
Date: 16 Jan 99 - 09:43 PM

Lyrics to version recorded by Grandpa Jones


BALD HEADED END OF A BROOM
As recorded by Grandpa Jones

CHORUS
Boys, keep away from the girls, I say
And give them lots of room
'Cause when you're wed, they'll beat till you're dead
With the bald-headed end of a broom.

When a boy goes 'round with a pretty little gal
He talks as gentle as a dove
He calls his honey and he spends his money
Just to prove he's solid in love
When his money's gone, his clothes in hock
And he has no bread to chaw
He'll call someone to load up his gun
Vaccinate his mother-in-law.

CHORUS

Now all young men take my advice
Don't be in a hurry fer to wed
You think you're in clover
And the honeymoon's over
And then you'll wish you wuz dead
With a cross-eyed baby on each knee
And a wife with a plastered nose
You'll find that love doesn't run very deep
When you have to wear second-hand clothes.

CHORUS

When married folks have lots of cash
The love runs smooth and strong
But when they have to feed on hash
The love don't last very long
With a wife and seventeen half-starved kids
I'll tell you it's no fun
When the butcher comes 'round to collect
With a dog and a double-barreled gun.

CHORUS

SOURCE:
Grandpa Jones
24 Great Country Songs That Will Live Forever
Gusto Inc./King 967

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: rick fielding
Date: 16 Jan 99 - 08:38 PM

nothing to add to the song, but it just struck me, what an amazing phrase! "bald-headed end of the broom! Man, the "folk" can always give Tin Pan Alley a run for it's money!

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 16 Jan 99 - 07:38 PM

Yeah, Rick; Paul Clayton used to sing it, too, and I'm pretty sure he recorded it, neither of them being as old as the others mentioned so far in this thread. However...

I obtained a used set of the four-volume Ozark Folksongs, by Vance Randolph, back in 1961. Ever since, whenever I have a question about a song of this type, that's the first place I look for information. No collector or scholar that I've met or read (possibly excepting Herbert Halpert, and he hasn't published much, darn it!) has done more investigating of the 19th Century songsters. In this case, when I needed information for my note to the song on the Beech Mountain set, The Traditional Music of Beech Mountain, North Carolina, Volume 2, Folk-Legacy FSA-23, it was to Randolph I went.

I think we have to give this song back to p.d., if not anon or trad. Randolph collected two versions of it in the Ozarks, and reports finding it under the title "Lines of Love" in The Merchant's Gargling Oil Songster, Chicago, circa 1885. So I'd say it's a bit older than Grandpa Jones, Paul Clayton, Will Holt, or Martha Glillen. I've also collected a version of it from Joseph Able Trivett in Tennessee, as well as one from Mack Moody in Huntington, Vermont.

With nothing further to go on, I'd guess it's American in origin and widely spread through oral tradition. So, Philippa, if you want to adapt the song to fit our present concerns about spousal abuse, I'm sure no one could successfully claim that you have violated their copyright, even if they have actually obtained one on the song. With Randolph's printed reference as evidence, you could easily establish prior circulation. But note, please, that this is only folkloric information, not legal advice!

Sandy

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: rick fielding
Date: 16 Jan 99 - 03:46 PM

I learned the song from an old Will Holt album on Electra years ago. He called it "Boys Stay Away From the Girls I Say".

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: Philippa
Date: 16 Jan 99 - 10:59 AM

I've been going through Peter Kennedy, ed. "Folksongs of Britain and Ireland".London: Cassell, 1975 and was surprised to find "The Bald-Headed End of a Broom" therein, with very similar lyrics to version 1 in the DT. Seamus O'Boyle and Seamus Ennis recorded the song from Martha Glillen, Antrim, N Irland in 1954 (BBC 21839) - of course, maybe she learned it from an American recording??? or did the song originally travel to America from Europe?? - the notes also list a recording by Lee Monroe Presnell of North Caroline, Folk Legacy FSA 23
[so maybe Sandy Paton has some info// the are a couple of songs collected from Lee Presnell, Tn. by Frank Warner listed in the DT]

Subject: RE: Bald headed End of a Broom
From: Dale Rose
Date: 08 May 98 - 12:27 PM

This was one of Grandpa Jones' standards, but I don't know if he wrote it or not. His version would at least predate either of the ones that you refer to. You mention brothers, but none come to mind for me at the moment, though in the old days, Louis (Grandpa) Jones worked frequently with Alton and Rabon, the Delmore Brothers, so it might be theirs.