Lyr Add: Provo's Lullaby (based on Hobo's Lullaby)

Subject: Lyr Add: PROVO'S LULLABY (based on HOBO'S LULLABY)
From: Wolfgang Hell
Date: 23 Oct 98 - 09:29 AM

What can you do as an Irish rebel if there's an increasing demand for new rebel songs and you don't have enough spare time between hide, bomb, and run to write one of the real good ones (the last bit is serious: some of them, even of the recent ones, are great songs)? You take a well known song with a well known tune and change the absolute minimum of words. Here's a recent example (from a CD: 50 complete Irish rebel songs):

PROVO’S LULLABY
(Tune: obvious)
(Original: obvious)

Go to sleep, my weary provo
Let the time go drifting by;
can’t you hear those bullets humming
That's a provo's lullaby.

Well, they say, your clothes are torn and ragged
and your hair is turning grey.
Some day you’ll die and go to heaven
and you’ll find peace up there some day.

Well, they say, the peelers gave you trouble
, oh they cause trouble everywhere;
some day you’ll die and go to heaven,
and you will find no peelers there.

Just in case you really didn't recognise (or know??) the original go to DT's version of Hobo's lullaby . The Hobo's lullaby I found in my Woody Guthrie songbook was even closer to Provo's lullaby. Less than 10% of the words were changed.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Making a rebel song the easy way
From: Barry Finn
Date: 23 Oct 98 - 02:22 PM

After the words "can't you hear those bullets humming" there's the sound of singers trying to sound like a machine gun, then on to the rest of the chorus. I was in Belfast about 14 years ago at a session somewhere in the Short Strand (Kelly's I think, with it's roof on fire) & was asked to come along to a community center after for some music, this was sung by all on the eve. of Aug. the 12th. I later had to stear my way through burning autos & talk my way past a group of scared young soldiers. I often sang my kids to sleep to the "Weary Hobo" & always thought of this song every time I sang it & how kids no matter where, should be lulled into a peacefull sleep & close their eyes to fear & hate at least while they dream. Barry

Subject: RE: Making a rebel song the easy way
From: Big Mick
Date: 23 Oct 98 - 08:48 PM

Barry, My Friend

Well said.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: Making a rebel song the easy way
From: BSeed
Date: 25 Oct 98 - 05:56 PM

I thought i posted this last night: When I first saw this thread, I thought "Yeeeeeehaaaaaww! Here's a thread for that redneck girl with calloused hands but a heart of gold, stopping traffic in her well-filled blue jeans as she crosses the highway from the Dew Drop Inn to the Little Ol' Church in the Dale," but I guess it's not that kind of thread, so I'd better not post it. --seed