Lyr Req: July Wakes (Pomfret, Ellison)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes (Pomfret, Ellison)
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 03:55 PM

does anyone know the chords to this song??

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: GUEST,stan ellison
Date: 07 Feb 09 - 05:07 PM

It must have been back in the 60s when I got the words from Paul Graney for July Wakes. If there should be a resolution to this thread it should be a recognition that Paul was an important collector of folk material.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: Fidjit
Date: 25 Mar 08 - 07:49 AM

OoooH! Thanks Mick. I've emailed them today.
It was probably them I heard singing it on the old and very old "Folk on Two" radio program that Jim Lloyd used to run in the times of long wave radio.

Chas

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 24 Mar 08 - 03:10 PM

Chas

According to the Topic Discography, The Oldham Tinkers recorded a song called Oh! That Lancashire Jazz Band on 12TS399 That Lancashire Band. The Tinkers' own site discography shows the title just as The Lancashire Band, but if it's the same song you could try contacting them for information. There's an email and telephone on their home page.

Mick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: Fidjit
Date: 24 Mar 08 - 02:53 PM

Just a thought. I have another song on the Cd. Again I've sung it from the 60's, but can't find it anywhere although I suspect it comes from Lancashire somewhere.

It's called "Lancashire Jazz Band"

Must be written by someone

Any helpers?
Chas

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: Fidjit
Date: 24 Mar 08 - 02:47 PM

Thanks again Mark.

Looking into it.

I see it's Uk based. Might have to go through somewhere in Sweden where I live.

Chas

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: GUEST,c.g.
Date: 24 Mar 08 - 06:50 AM

I've been told that Mike Harding met Richard Pomfret, who was furious that his poem had been put to music.

It makes a great song, though.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: Mark Dowding
Date: 23 Mar 08 - 05:27 PM

Hi Chas

The bit of the MCPS website that you'd be interested in is HERE

It can be a bit complicated so you might be advised to contact them and tell them what you want to do.
Email address is [e-mail]

Cheers
Mark

Subject: Lyr Add: JULY WAKES (Richard Pomfret)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 23 Mar 08 - 11:38 AM

Copied from The Dunkerley-Tuson Family Website (Thanks to Fidjit for the link.):

JULY WAKES
Richard Pomfret

Looms are swept an' brass is drawn,
An' me an' Jack'll up i' t' dawn,
We'll off bi beg or sell or pawn
For t' July Wakes!

We've sweat for one-an'-fifty week,
An' human bones like looms'll creak,
We're gunna lay on Pendle cheek
An' stretch eawr limbs.

We'll roam i' t' woods an' sprawl i' th' Hay,
We'll watch gret cleawds swing up at play,
An' if they brast we'll torn thad way
An' taste cleyn rain!

We'll follar t' river up to t' sky,
We'll watch wick fishes skimmin' by,
An' drink at bruks when throats is dry
– We'll stan' up men!

Days'll flee till Jack, deawncast,
'Ll hearken t' minnits racin' past,
An' t' buzzer's moan through t' linnet's blast
– To Hell wi' t' looms!

Monda'll see us stood i' t' shed,
Shuttles spewin' eawt their thread,
Weyvin' fifty-one weeks' bread
– An' one o' Life.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: Fidjit
Date: 22 Mar 08 - 04:44 AM

Thanks Mark

Now ow and where do I get the MCPS form ?

Chas

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: Mark Dowding
Date: 21 Mar 08 - 07:16 PM

I recorded this on my CD Travelling Tales a year or so ago. If you fill in your MCPS form with Author Richard Pomfret and Composer Stan Ellison then it will get sorted out. I can't honestly remember what the payment for that particular track was because Cock Robin Music did the paperwork - I just payed the bill for the whole CD.

Good luck with the CD

Cheers
Mark

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: Fidjit
Date: 21 Mar 08 - 06:46 PM

After much searching. I

found this

Reason for my searching is that I've just recorded it for a CD. To be produced soon.
Thinking, having sung it since buying Mike Hardings LP, Lancashire Lad in the 70's that it was traditional. As was noted on the LP. Mike says t'was collected by Paul Grainey. Don't know about Hardings book.
Wilfred Pickles has Richard Pamfret as author.

Now what do I do. Who has the copyright ??

Chas

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 10 Feb 03 - 09:54 PM

G'dat Mick,

Thanks for that - it seems to me that the background for the song must be from much that time. The "modernity" I refer to above may simply be something that Mike Harding injects into his performance - a way of emphasising the final line that doesn't seem like mid-19th c. performance style ... but does echo a common traditional way of ending powerful songs.

Hmmm ... case not proven ... yet!

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: GUEST,MCP
Date: 10 Feb 03 - 04:05 AM

The other song the Horden Raikes attribute to Mrs. Bellasis (The Smokeless Chimneys) is from the time of the American Civil War, when American cotton imports were stopped and the mills were closed. (See the money-raising story above).

I have looked online and in my own books for references to both Mrs.Bellasis and Richard Pomfret, without success.

Mick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 10 Feb 03 - 12:01 AM

G'day Malcolm,

Thanks for the date (well, floreat, at least) for Stan Ellison. I guess that the critical date is for Richard Pomfret, i.e. whether this is entirely a modern work, or whether Stan Ellison set an old poem, collected - or found in older books.

The attitudes and background suggest the late 19th / very early 20th century, at the latest, for these working conditions ... but I might just be biased by my Australian viewpoint. I do know that my paternal Grandmother worked about 80 hours a week (in a strawberry garden) with little holiday leave, down around Portsmouth (Titchfield) ... until 1919, when she came to Australia and married my grandfather (who had enlisted in the Australian Army, fought in France and met her before demob.).

Either way, it's a great industrial song - but there are strongly modern aspects about the song, as performed by Mike Harding.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 09 Feb 03 - 10:12 PM

I assume it's the Stan Ellison who played guitar and did some songwriting in the early '70s, but I don't know anything about him, really, beyond the fact that he recorded with Lea Nicholson at one time. Sam Laycock was a well-known Lancashire dialect poet (as I expect you know), but I don't think he had anything to do with it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 09 Feb 03 - 09:35 PM

G'day Malcolm,

In the tape I worked with - recorded c. 1975 from a folk music program ... and obviously recorded at a live concert some time before ... Mike Harding describes the song as "collected by Paul Grayney (~sp.?), in Lancashire". He sings quite a few extra words and a few different ones, compared with the attributed text in his 1980 book.

This suggests, to me at least, that he subsequently found a published (or collected?) text and some details of its history. I see that his book credits Richard Pomfret with the words and Stan Ellison as having 'put (the tune) to it'. What I would love to know is a few dates ... as well as how Mrs Bellasis fits in the story ... and when?

(I'll assume that the "Sam Laycock" attribution at the head of one of the earlier threads was just a hopeful guess!)

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 09 Feb 03 - 07:10 PM

"Brid", "brast" and so on are earlier forms (Middle English) retained in dialect; the Standard English forms are more recent (metathesis of R).

It seems likely that the text quoted in Harding's book is the one he learned, and the differences in the recorded text are due to improvisation in performance. The book gives no information other than what I've quoted.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 09 Feb 03 - 06:44 PM

G'day Mick,

I'm glad to see that the question of authorship has come up. I could see that the song has sort of slipped into the "folk" scene as a collected song - then started to gather claimants for authorship.

It seems to me that the social and industrial conditions it describes must be earlier than World War One ... but that doesn't necessarily mean it is that old (or not!). Does anyone have any dates / references for Mrs Bellasis ... or the author quoted by Mike Harding in his 1980 book? (Sorry, I'm not sure I can sneak back to the older thread without losing this text!)

Ms Lemon: Thanks for the phonetics/linguistics on the switch of "r" locations in Lancashire dialect. I was aware of the brid - bird one and should have thought of that, except that I was distracted by the change of vowel from "u" to "a"!

All up, it's a great song ... it would be nice to be able to pin down its origins!

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: GUEST,MCP
Date: 09 Feb 03 - 11:30 AM

The Horden Raikes tune is quite similar to Bob's (1st half of the tune), the last line of each verse being spoken. They give this tune as trad. They also credit the words differently - they have words:Bellasis, presumably the same Mrs Bellasis they credit with The Smokeless Chimneys ("Mrs Bellasis wrote this song and sold it at the railway stations for the benefit of the millworkers who were out of work. She collected £160 for this cause"). So who did write it?

(Although referred to in one of the earlier threads, their version is not given, and while differing only slightly from ones already posted, I may still post words and tune).

Mick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 09 Feb 03 - 09:53 AM

Common in Lancashire dialect for words spelled bur/bir in standard English to be said br eg. brid=bird

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: Ed.
Date: 09 Feb 03 - 07:50 AM

brast=burst

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: GUEST,MCP
Date: 09 Feb 03 - 07:13 AM

I've just listened to the Hordern Raikes version on King Cotton. The words are broadly similar to Bob's transcription, however they definitely sing:

And if they burst then we'll turn that way

and also

the linnet's blast.

(If it's not one of the version already here, I might put up the full transcription later. I'll have a look at the tunes too).

Mick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 09 Feb 03 - 07:10 AM

G'day Ed,

You're dead right about that ... I forgot to fix that when I adapted the post I put together, off site, before logging back in. I did say my ancestral Lancashire accent was non-existent ... Grandfather was from Haslingden, near Bolton, but had a Grammar School background before coming to Australia and I never heard any Lancashire dialect pass his lips!

"Brast", of course, makes no sense at all to me ... but I'm sure it's good Lancashire - presumably for "storm", "rain" or something similar. I was transcribing what I could make of what I heard on a copy of a tape from a live performance ... apparently before Mike Harding found the original poem - as he refers to it as " ... collected by Paul Grayney (spelling ... ?) and makes a lot of variations from his later version. His book gives more detail and different names.

My main reason for posting the (now modified) entry was to submit the MIDItext for anyone wishing to decode it with the Mudcat program and check out the tune.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: Ed.
Date: 09 Feb 03 - 06:40 AM

Bob,

Having never heard the song in performance or recording, it's hard for me to comment on your transcription.

However the book's:

And if they brast

makes a lot more sense than:

And if we've any brass,

of your hearing.

Subject: Lyr/Tune Add: JULY WAKES (from Mike Harding)
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 09 Feb 03 - 12:42 AM

G'day Ed & MCP,

Thanks for the tips - I had tried searching with no avail before posting this - it certainly hasn't made it into the DT yet! (So .. why should it be different from dozens I have posted ... ?)

The intriguing thing is that I found that I had contributed to one of those threads about 2½ years back ... also complaining that I couldn't find the song on this site! nyway, I did dig out an old cassette of a radio program that played the song and I did my transcription of Mike Harding's words - rather different from the published ones posted by Malcolm Douglas - and I worked out the tune.

Here are the words as I take them from Mike's (~ 1975) singing and a MIDItxt version of the tune, as I heard it (none too sure about the key, from the tape copy ...! I've put it in Am, but it could be a semitone lower.)

The verse/tune structure is a bit unusual: it's really a 5-line structure, with the fourth line - the short final words - being spoken, in a short of low, slow 'turn' about the key note ... followed by a line of music. The notes in my MIDI are a fairly conjectural representation! In between verses, Mike Harding played right through the tune on a banjo, as he had for the sung verses,- but without the 2 bars for the spoken part

JULY WAKES

Collected by Paul Grayney (~sp.?), Lancashire... ?
Sung by Mike Harding

Looms are swept and brass is drawn,
And me and Jack will be off at dawn
And we're off to beg or steal or pawn...
- For July wakes.

We sweat for one and fifty weeks
And human limbs, just like looms, go creak
So we'll go and climb up Pendle Cheek...
- And we'll rest us limbs!

We'll roam in woods and we'll sprawl in th' hay;
Watch grey clouds swing up at play.
Aye- and if we've any brass, then we'll turn that way...
- And we'll taste clean rain!

We'll follow rivers up to sky,
Watch great fishes swimming by
And we'll sup from brooks if we get dry...
- And we'll stand up men!

We'll have days carefree till Jack, downcast,
Watching larks and linnets racing past;
Hears th' hooter's first moan through the linnet's last...
- To hell with looms!

'Cause Monday'll see us ... we'll be back in Shed,
Watching the shuttles spewing out miles & miles of thread,
And we'll be weaving fifty-one weeks of bread...
- And just one of life!

(Musical reprise)

- To hell with looms!

MIDI file: julywake.mid

Timebase: 240

TimeSig: 4/4 24 8

Tempo: 120 (500000 microsec/crotchet)

Start

0000 1 57 080 0192 0 57 064 0048 1 57 080 0192 0 57 064 0048 1 69 080 0192 0 69 064 0048 1 64 080 0192 0 64 064 0048 1 67 080 0192 0 67 064 0048 1 69 080 0192 0 69 064 0048 1 64 080 0225 0 64 064 0135 1 64 080 0096 0 64 064 0024 1 64 080 0225 0 64 064 0015 1 64 080 0192 0 64 064 0048 1 64 080 0192 0 64 064 0048 1 62 080 0096 0 62 064 0024 1 62 080 0113 0 62 064 0007 1 60 080 0192 0 60 064 0048 1 59 080 0192 0 59 064 0048 1 57 080 0192 0 57 064 0048 1 57 080 0096 0 57 064 0024 1 57 080 0096 0 57 064 0024 1 57 080 0192 0 57 064 0048 1 57 080 0192 0 57 064 0048 1 69 080 0192 0 69 064 0048 1 64 080 0192 0 64 064 0048 1 67 080 0192 0 67 064 0048 1 69 080 0192 0 69 064 0048 1 64 080 0288 0 64 064 0912 1 55 080 0192 0 55 064 0048 1 57 080 0192 0 57 064 0048 1 59 080 0192 0 59 064 0048 1 57 080 0432 0 57 064 0048 1 62 080 0096 0 62 064 0024 1 64 080 0096 0 64 064 0024 1 62 080 0096 0 62 064 0024 1 60 080 0096 0 60 064 0024 1 62 080 0192 0 62 064 0048 1 59 080 0192 0 59 064 0048 1 57 080 0900 0 57 064 0060 1 57 080 0192 0 57 064 0048 1 57 080 0192 0 57 064 0048 1 69 080 0192 0 69 064 0048 1 64 080 0192 0 64 064 0048 1 67 080 0192 0 67 064 0048 1 69 080 0192 0 69 064 0048 1 64 080 0225 0 64 064 0135 1 64 080 0096 0 64 064 0024 1 64 080 0225 0 64 064 0015 1 64 080 0192 0 64 064 0048 1 64 080 0192 0 64 064 0048 1 62 080 0096 0 62 064 0024 1 62 080 0113 0 62 064 0007 1 60 080 0192 0 60 064 0048 1 59 080 0192 0 59 064 0048 1 57 080 0225 0 57 064 0135 1 57 080 0096 0 57 064 0024 1 57 080 0192 0 57 064 0048 1 57 080 0192 0 57 064 0048 1 69 080 0192 0 69 064 0048 1 64 080 0192 0 64 064 0048 1 67 080 0192 0 67 064 0048 1 69 080 0192 0 69 064 0048 1 64 080 0288 0 64 064 0192 1 62 080 0096 0 62 064 0024 1 64 080 0096 0 64 064 0024 1 62 080 0096 0 62 064 0024 1 60 080 0096 0 60 064 0024 1 62 080 0192 0 62 064 0048 1 59 080 0192 0 59 064 0048 1 57 080 0900 0 57 064

End

This program is worth the effort of learning it.

To download the March 10 MIDItext 98 software and get instructions on how to use it click here

ABC format:

X:1

T:

M:4/4

Q:1/4=120

K:C

A,2A,2A2E2|G2A2E3E|E2E2E2DD|C2B,2A,2A,A,|

A,2A,2A2E2|G2A2E4|-E6G,2|A,2B,2A,4|DEDCD2B,2|

A,8|A,2A,2A2E2|G2A2E3E|E2E2E2DD|C2B,2A,3A,|

A,2A,2A2E2|G2A2E4|DEDCD2B,2|A,15/2||

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: GUEST,MCP
Date: 08 Feb 03 - 05:03 PM

Ed

It wouldn't be the first time I've typed first and then remembered to check either!

Mick

Subject: Tune Add: JULY WAKES (Pomfret, Ellison)
From: Ed.
Date: 08 Feb 03 - 08:27 AM

X:1
T:JULY WAKES
C:Words: Richard Pomfret. Tune: Stan Ellison
Q:1/4=60
M:2/4
L:1/16
K:D
D3D d2A2|cd3 A4|zGGG c2BB|AGF2- F2EE|
w:Looms are swept an' t'brass is drawn An' me an' Jack we'll be up at dawn_ An' we're
D3D dd3|c2d2 A4|z3A2 AA2A-|A4|]
w:off to beg or steal or pawn For t'Ju-ly Wakes._

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: Ed.
Date: 08 Feb 03 - 07:48 AM

Mick,

I just did that after typing out the words :-(

I'll post an ABC for Bob, anyway

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: GUEST,MCP
Date: 08 Feb 03 - 07:45 AM

If you type Wakes in the Filter box and set the Age drop-down to All and press the Refresh button, you'll find a handful of threads on this song (and one on Droylsden Wakes IIRC), with the words already posted. I don't think the tune's there, but I didn't check every thread.

Mick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: Ed.
Date: 08 Feb 03 - 07:34 AM

It's in Mike Harding's 'Folk Songs of Lancashire' I'll post it later today. Is ABC OK for the tune?

Subject: Lyr Req: July Wakes
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 08 Feb 03 - 07:25 AM

G'day,

Yorkshire Tony's recent request for a tune for Colin Dryden's The Factory Lad got me thinking of other well-crafted songs of the factory genre ... and a song I remember Mike Harding singing on a radio program I heard decades back: July Wakes - a 19th c. Lancashire song about two lads spending their one week holiday - "the Cotton Holidays" climbing Pendle Cheek.

I can't see it in the DT ... does any one have the words (and tune ... )? I could try to get them down from a rather tired old cassette ... but my ancestral Lancashire accent can't pick up a lot of the lyrics!

Regards,

Bob Bolton