Lyr Req: mistress and a whore

Subject: Lyr Req: mistress and a whore
From: GUEST,daystar
Date: 01 Aug 03 - 05:58 PM

Hi folks cannot remember title of song The story is servent girl is getting what the mistress is not and getting paid by farmer so mistress gives her notice to leave cant remember tune or who sang it

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: mistress and a whore
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 01 Aug 03 - 08:05 PM

There are quite a few possibilities. For a start, have a look at  The Bedmaking. Although the DT file doesn't name any traditional source, the version given there is basically the one that the Hammond brothers got from Mrs Marina Russell of Upwey, Dorset, in 1907 (tune) and George Udall (Halstock, Dorset) and Benjamin Arnold (Easton, Hampshire) (text) in 1906. The collation was published in Frank Purslow, The Wanton Seed, EFDS London, 1968. The DT transcription is pretty accurate, though it exhibits the odd tendency, common among people who transcribe lyrics from records made by professional "revival" performers (as opposed to traditional singers) of mistaking accent for dialect, and insisting on rendering words like "myself" as "meself", under the impression that it's somehow more authentic.

Of course, you may be looking for a completely different song, and my comments may be completely irrelevant. Do let us know.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: mistress and a whore
From: Forsh
Date: 02 Aug 03 - 01:33 PM

Is it the one about the whore in red, and the bride in white?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: mistress and a whore
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 02 Aug 03 - 06:09 PM

First song that came to my mind, too, is "The Bedmaking." BTW, I sing an added verse at the end that I got from Frankie Armstrong's recording:

She cursed him first through the kitchen and then through the hall
And then through the parlor among the ladies all,
Saying, "If you won't pay me, here's your little son John,
Who never cost you naught but the bedmaking."

Linn

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: mistress and a whore
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 02 Aug 03 - 06:42 PM

Both recordings referred to in the DT file include that verse. It isn't in the Wanton Seed collation, and I rather think that Martin Carthy wrote it himself.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: mistress and a whore
From: GUEST,Daystar
Date: 03 Aug 03 - 07:10 AM

Thanks for your help I did look at Bedmaking before I posted It is in the same vain but not the one I was looking for The song I am trying to remember has convisation between the mistress and the servant girl in the last verse where the mistrees gives the girl the gold the farmer had given to his wife mistaking her in the dark for the girl