Lyr Req: Constant Lovers (A Sailor Courted...)

Subject: Constant Lovers
From:
Date: 04 Feb 97 - 02:36 PM

Who knows the words to The Constant Lovers, as sung by Kathryn Roberts and Kate Rusby on their album. The song starts: A sailor courted a farmers daughter, that lived convenient in the Isle of Man. Please reply to [e-mail]

Subject: RE: Constant Lovers
From: Susan of DT
Date: 05 Feb 97 - 12:23 PM

There is a song of that title that sounds roughly like what you are looking for in the Digital Tradition

Subject: RE: Constant Lovers
From: belter
Date: 05 Feb 97 - 01:38 PM

it looks like the title listed on the dt is "A Sailor Corted"

Subject: ADD Version: Constant Lovers (A Sailor Courted...)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 04:57 AM

Well, heck, it's only twelve years after this request was posted. Note that the song is a version of A Sailor Courted, which is in the Digital Tradition. This version is significantly different - is it traditional, or a modern composition based on the traditional song? Tis is not the Constant Lovers song that is sung by Dave Webber and Anni Fentiman, among others.

I found the lyrics at this Kate Rusby fansite:
http://spathos.www7.50megs.com/Disc.html
(watch out for popups)

THE CONSTANT LOVERS

A sailor courted a farmer's daughter that lived convenient to the Isle of Man,
And mark good people, what followed after,
A long time courting and nothing done.
A long time courting but still discoursing of things concerning the ocean wide.
He said, "My darling, at our next meeting if you'll be constant,
I'll make you my bride."

As for sailors, I don't admire them because they sails in so many parts.
First they love you and then they slight you
And leave you behind with a broken heart.
Don't say so, my dearest jewel, I never intended to serve you so.
I have once more to cross the ocean; you know, my darling, that I must go.

The news was carried unto his mother before he set one foot on board,
That he was courting a farmer's daughter whose aged parents could not afford
One penny portion. Down to the ocean, like one distracted his mother ran.
If you don't forsake her, your bride not make her,
I will disown you to be my son.

Mother, Mother, you're in a passion, I'm sorry you have spoke too late.
Don't you remember in your first beginning,
My father married you from a servant maid.
Don't you despise her, I mean to rise her,
As my own father to you has done.
And I will take her, my bride I'll make her, you may disown me to be your son.

When his truelove she heard the story, straight to the ocean then she did run.
Saying in a passion, you need not mind her,
We shall have money when they have none.
Money or not, you are my lot.
You have my heart and my free good will,
And I will take you, my bride I'll make you,
Let my scolding mother say what she will.

The sailor married his farmer's daughter, they live contented in the Isle of Man.
And mark good people what followed after, a long time courting and all was done.
A long time courting and still discoursing of things concerning the ocean wide.
He said, my darling, my dearest jewel, I love you dearly my constant bride,
constant bride, constant bride, constant bride, my constant bride.


from the CD, Kate Rusby & Kathryn Roberts

I listened to the recording and made a few corrections to the text I found online, but there are portions that are not completely clear to me.

Subject: RE: Constant Lovers (A Sailor Courted...)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 05:45 AM

And then there's Dominic Behan's:

A sailor courted a farmer's daughter,
Who lived contagious to the town of Strabane
With love and melody he did besought her
That she'd marry him before she'd marry any other type or classification of a man.

Now this farmer's daughter had proud posessions,
A silver teapot and two-pounds-ten in gold,
"Would you marry me, me dear deepwater sailor,
If I wrapped them up in a bundle and threw them down deep into the ocean cold?"

"I'd marry you, me heart's conchantment,
If you had nothing but your ould one's curse"
So she made a bundle of alll her posessions,
And threw them down deep in the bottom of the ocean; that ends that verse.

But this brisk young sailor could swim like a duckeen,
So diving deep to the bottom of the ocean, he dived down deep below.
He got the bundle and come up chuckling,
Thinking of the wonderful time he'd have with the money when he got to the fair of Ballinasloe.

But this farmer's daughter near kilt herself laughing,
For all in the bundle was a wee pinthaneen of a stone.
A sailor courted a farmer's daughter,
Now he wished that he'd left her...... alone.

Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Constant Lovers (A Sailor Courted...)
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 07:05 AM

I love the song, and I still sing it, almost as you wrote it down Jim.
Must admit I didn't know Dominic had written it, as I learned it from the singing of Noel Murphy.

J.

Subject: RE: Constant Lovers (A Sailor Courted...)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 07:20 AM

John,
I understand it was Dominic's parody of Percy French's parody of the original traditional version - wheels within wheels sort of
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Constant Lovers (A Sailor Courted...)
From: Leadfingers
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 08:21 AM

Lovely man though Noel Murphy is , he DID have a bad habit of not crediting any of the people whose songs he performed !

Subject: RE: Constant Lovers (A Sailor Courted...)
From: domo
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 07:17 PM

The above version by Kate Rusby is published as "The One Penny Portion" in "More Irish Street Ballads" by Colm O Lochlainn, without the last verse. The repetitive "constant bride" in the last line of the last verse sounds more like what the Beatles might write than waht you wold find in traditional song

Subject: RE: Constant Lovers (A Sailor Courted...)
From: Gurney
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 11:59 PM

I've heard Sean Cannon sing the version that Jim has above, with lots of extra Nyahhhs and words like:
...any other kind, type, specification, species, or sort of a man. Nyaaahh.

...when he got home to his Uncle George and Auntie Edith away home in Ballinasloe. Nyaahh.
And the ocean was "full of dead dogs and old prams..."

Great fun.

Subject: RE: Constant Lovers (A Sailor Courted...)
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 04 Mar 09 - 01:11 AM

Yes, lots of people sing the parodies. They are amusing to begin with, but like most parodies tend to wear thin with repetition. The other discussions here of the song concentrate on those parodies, indeed, and maybe they would better be discussed there; there is more about them here than there is about the original song, which is rather a pity.

Having said that, the Rusby/Roberts arrangement, though pretty, is itself hardly representative. As 'domo' says, it's been turned into a nice little acoustic pop song. I suppose that it may have started out as the O Lochlainn version, but it's more likely to have been based on one of the examples found in English tradition in the early years of the 20th century. I don't have time at the moment to do a tune comparison in order to find out, or to check the fansite transcription Joe has posted.

At all events, the girls probably won't have known: they weren't that far into their teens when they recorded it, and they got most of their songs off records in their parents' collections made by the previous generation of folk club singers (which explains the high proportion of Nic Jones covers on Kate's early records). At the time, they showed no particular interest in where the songs they arranged came from; it's later in life, as a rule, that you start to want a bit more depth.