Lyr Add: The Spoons Murder (Con O'Drisceoil)

Subject: Lyr Add: THE SPOONS MURDER (Con O'Drisceoil)
From:
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 01:03 PM

THE SPOONS MURDER
Con O'Drisceoil
As recorded by Con O'Drisceoil on "It's No Secret" (an album by Hammy Hamilton, Seamus Creagh, and Con O'Drisceoil, 2012)
In the tavern one night we were sitting.
I'm sure 'twas the last week of March.
From our drinks we were cautiously sipping
To ensure that our throats didn't parch.
We played music both lively and dacent
To bolster our spirits and hopes,
While we gazed at the females adjacent
And remarked on their curves and their slopes.

Till this gent wandered into our session
And decided to join in the tunes.
Without waiting to ask our permission
He took out a large pair of soup spoons.
Our teeth in short time we were gritting
As he shook and he rattled his toys,
And the company's eardrums were splitting
With his ugly mechanical noise.

Hopping spoons off our heads to provoke us,
He continued the music to kill.
Whether hornpipes, slow airs or polkas,
They all sounded like pneumatic drills.
Then he asked could we play any faster
As his talent he wished to display,
With a grin on the face of the bastard
Like the cat as she teases her prey.

Our feelings by now were quite bloody
And politely we asked him to quit.
We suggested a part of his body
Where those spoons could conveniently fit.
This monster we pestered and hounded.
We implored him with curses and tears,
But in vain our appeals they resounded
In the desert between his two ears.

When I went out the back on a mission,
He arrived as I finished my leak.
He says: "This is a mighty fine session.
I think I'll come here every week."
When I heard this, with rage I was leppin'.
No more of this torture I'd take.
I looked 'round for a suitable weapon
To silence this damn rattlesnake.

Outside towards the yard I did sally
To find something to vanquish my foe.
I grabbed hold of a gentleman's Raleigh
With 15-speed gear and dynamo.
Then I battered this musical vandal
As I shouted with furious cries:
"My dear man, your last spoon you have handled.
Say your prayers and await your demise."

With the bike, I assailed my tormentor
As I swung in a frenzy of hate
Till his bones and his skull were in splinters
And his health in a very poor state.
And when I was no longer able,
I forestalled any last-minute hitch
By removing the gear-changing cable
And strangling the son of a bitch.

At the end of my onslaught ferocious,
I stood back and surveyed the scene.
The state of the place was atrocious,
Full of fragments of man and machine.
At the spoons-player's remains I was staring.
His condition was surely no joke,
For his nose was clogged up with ball-bearings
And his left eye was pierced by a spoke.

At the sight I was feeling quite squeamish,
So I washed up and went back inside;
Then I drank a half gallon of Beamish
For my throat in the struggle had dried.
Unpolluted by cutleries clattered,
The music was pleasant and sweet.
For the rest of the night, nothing mattered
But the tunes and the tapping of feet.

At an inquest the following September
The coroner said: "I conclude
The deceased by himself was dismembered
As no sign could be found of a feud.
For the evidence shows that the fact is,
As reported to me by the Guards,
He indulged in the foolhardy practice
Of trick-cycling in public-house yards.

So if you're desperately keen on percussion
And to join in the tunes you can't wait,
Be you Irishman, German, or Russian,
Take a lesson from his awful fate.
If your spoons are the best silver-plated
Or the humblest of cheap stainless steel,
When you play them abroad, you'll be hated,
So just use them for eating your meals.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Spoons Murder
From:
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 01:07 PM

This came from a discussion at The Session.org

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Spoons Murder
From:
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 01:08 PM

Sorry.

This came from a discussion at The Session.org

Session Etiquette

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Spoons Murder
From: Leadfingers
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 01:50 PM

My worry is that someone will do a version for a Banjo player!!

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Spoons Murder
From: Charley Noble
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 05:26 PM

Very tasteful, George. No spoonerisms intended.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Spoons Murder
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 09:39 PM

Another example of the sad results of mixing alchohol and testosterone.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Spoons Murder
From: MartinRyan
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 10:02 AM

... and another example of Con Fada's great songs!

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Spoons Murder
From:
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 06:32 PM

I've looked up the information on the "Maid With the Bonny Brown Hair in the Ballad Index. It sais that it has the same tune as Lough Erin's Shore and The Bonnie Wee Lass of the Glen.

MMario has supplied a MIDI in a thread on Lough Erin's Shore some time back. It MIGHT be the same song.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Spoons Murder
From: MartinRyan
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 06:56 PM

Don't we have a midi of The Pretty Girl Milking her cow somewhere? That's the tune, as far as I recall.

Regards

Subject: Lyr Add: THE RETURN OF 'SPOONS'
From: GUEST,a pheasant plucker
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 08:30 PM

The Return of 'Spoons'
^^
When next at the tavern we gathered,
(I think it was sometime in May)
We raised up our glasses and chattered
As the pipes and the fiddles did play.
The tunes and the songs flowed around us
And the porter it flowed down our throats,
The temperature rose like a furnace;
And we loosened the collars of our coats.

I drew into the spirit of the occasion,
By bestowing a kiss on a lass;
(She was of the female persuasion,
And single, with curves smooth as glass.)
I said 'My young lass, are you willing
To try your good fortune with me?
For I have in my purse some bright shillings
That I'd spend in your good company.'

But my passion was dowsed in cruel fashion,
And no answer she gave unto me,
For a stranger strode into the session,
And sat down betwixt her and me.
I told him the seat had been taken
And that there was room in the bars,
But he said I was sorely mistaken
For he'd sat here before, kiss my arse.

'You're welcome, kind stranger,' I told him,
'Though I hardly remember your face.
Did you sing, play or dance in times olden
Ere politeness evolved in your race?
For my father's grandfathers, God bless them,
Have fiddled and piped here as well,
And never a soul dared disturb them
But a spoonsman who now bides in Hell.'

The temperature fell like an icicle,
And the stranger announced to the room,
Said he 'It is due to a bicycle
That ever I met with my doom.
For the last time I came to this session
My skills on the spoons I displayed,
But I met with unwonted aggression
And got murdered by velocipede.

But we spoonsmen let nothing deter us,
Even death shall not make us quit -
And so I arrived at Saint Peter's
To play with the angels a bit.
He said: "Oh you're welcome in Heaven,
And we've got some fecking great tunes,
Sure all of your sins are forgiven,
But I can't say the same for your spoons."

"But don't worry," he says very civil,
"You're dead lucky you met me, you know,
For there's a fella who plays like a divil
Runs a hell of a session below.
In a room at the foot of the staircase
You can hear some most infernal tunes,
The crack it is fast and its furious,
But the racket needs help from your spoons."

So I joined the cacophanous rabble,
And the records of Hades will tell
That since Adam ate half of Eve's apple
Such discords were ne'er heard in Hell.
And such was their utter amazement
At the rattles and rolls of my spoons,
They sent for the hostelry's management
And summoned him into the room.

"This fella will make us demented,"
They all cried aloud with one voice,
"We were never so vilely tormented
By such cruel and unusual noise."
The Devil he said, and he meant it,
"You've a talent I wish I could use,
But the sin hasn't yet been invented
That I'd punish with such an abuse.

Go home and take all of your cutlery
You can practice little bit more -
It may take a couple of centuries,
But I'll call when we want you, I'm sure."
'So I'm back, and I've something to please youse.'
And as we stifled our horrified groans,
He threw off his coat, and bejasus,
He proceeded to play on his bones !

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Spoons Murder
From:
Date: 18 Mar 04 - 05:32 PM

Wondering who wrote the "Return".

I didn't realize that this song had been posted in 2001 by Fiolar....

Spoons Murder

Subject: Tune Add: THE MAID WITH THE BONNY BROWN HAIR
From:
Date: 18 Mar 04 - 06:12 PM

The people at The Session.org now have the tune in ABC and Gif form. Here's the ABC:

X: 1
T: Maid With The Bonny Brown Hair, The
M: 6/8
L: 1/8
R: jig
K: Dmaj
|:AG|FGE DA,B,|CD2-D2 E|FGA GED|=C3-CAG|
FGE DA,B,|CD2-DDE|FGA EDD|D3 zAG|
FGA BGG|=cA2-A2G|FGA GED|=C3-CAG|
FGE DA,B,|CD2-DDE|FGA EDD|D3 z:|

Here's the GIF of the dots

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Spoons Murder
From: MartinRyan
Date: 10 May 05 - 06:44 AM

The "Return" certainly read's like Con's own work. God preserve us if there's someone else out there imitating him! One is enough!

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Spoons Murder
From: MartinRyan
Date: 06 Oct 05 - 03:54 AM

Fans of Con Fada's warped sense of humour may be interested to know that a book/CD of his own writes is planned for publication next spring!

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Spoons Murder
From: Paul Burke
Date: 06 Oct 05 - 04:07 AM

Is there a similar cure for the pests who rattle 50p pieces on the copper table top?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Spoons Murder
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 06 Oct 05 - 05:16 PM

We'll have to work on something Paul...

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Spoons Murder
From: MoorleyMan
Date: 03 Nov 06 - 07:42 AM

Has anyone yet ascertained the authorship of Return of Spoons, posted here by a Guest in March 2004...?
(As Martin observed, it certainly bears hallmarks of Con's style, but it doesn't appear in his book, neither is it referred to therein. My feeling is that it's probably a pretty good pastiche, but the author ought to be identified, if only to take a bow!)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Spoons Murder
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 03 Nov 06 - 08:16 AM

If anyone is looking to hear the melody for this song which is that of   The Pretty Girl Milking her cow, Clannad has done a lovely rendition. I believe it might be on their first or second album. I'm sure at Amazon or other such sources, you can use Realplyer or Windowsmedia to click on a sample. I think they call it Pretty Maid Milking Her Cow, but I could be wrong

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Spoons Murder
From: MartinRyan
Date: 05 Nov 06 - 11:34 AM

Click here for details of Con's Book/CD "The Spoons Murder and other mysteries"". Highly recommended.

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Spoons Murder
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 05 Nov 06 - 08:23 PM

This has got to be one for Splott Man to learn, I'll PM him.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Spoons Murder
From: Splott Man
Date: 06 Nov 06 - 04:15 AM

Moi?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Spoons Murder (Con O'Drisceoil)
From: oldhippie
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 06:35 AM

Now all we need are mp3's of both the original and the sequel.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Spoons Murder (Con O'Drisceoil)
From: DannyC
Date: 16 Aug 07 - 01:25 PM

Reminds me of the Joe Cooley story.   It is said that the great boxplayer was playing away for a few hours in the open, sharing manner that is his reputation and legacy.

After suffering a prolonged siege of unsteady and inelegant rat-a-tat-tat, he is said to have called out: "Will someone please get this fu##er a bowl of soup?!?"

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Spoons Murder (Con O'Drisceoil)
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 17 Aug 07 - 09:39 AM

My lawyers will be in touch...

RtSpoons

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Spoons Murder (Con O'Drisceoil)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 12:18 AM

does anyone know who wrote this parody?

Subject: Lyr Add: THE RETURN OF 'SPOONS'
From: GUEST,a pheasant plucker - PM
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 08:30 PM