Lyr Add: Wife swapping song (Squire and Farmer)

Subject: Wife swapping song
From: pavane
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 07:32 AM

Just found this in the Bodliean library and thought it worth sharing!

The squire and the farmer

Subject: RE: Wife swapping song
From: pavane
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 07:34 AM

PS I think the last line ends

'Wearing each other's horn' but can't be sure.

Subject: RE: Wife swapping song
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 10:12 AM

thanks for posting it.

Subject: RE: Wife swapping song
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 10:25 AM

I'd swap mine for a set of banjo strings.
eric

Subject: RE: Wife swapping song
From: The Shambles
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 01:25 PM

My wife and I are used to swapping verses of songs. Never tried swapping entire songs though.....

Subject: RE: Wife swapping song
From: Ernest
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 07:06 AM

BNen Sands wrote a song called "Fair Exchange" about a farmer and a tinker swapping their positions in life. It`s on his CD "Better Already".

Subject: Lyr Add: THE SQUIRE & FARMER (from Bodleian)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 12:37 PM

From The Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads Harding B 11(3635).

THE SQUIRE & FARMER

You farmers and squires of renown, come listen awhile to my ditty:
To a story that's lately found out. It happened near to London City.
A farmer had a handsome young wife. Such a beauty there's not in the City.
He loved her as dear as his life, because that she was such a beauty.

The farmer to market did go, for he was in want of some money.
When the squire popped in and said, "Give me one kiss, my dear honey."
He says, "My dear jewel, consent, for I mean to do you no harm.
Your husband shall pay me no rent if you will let me embrace your sweet charms."

She says, "Noble squire, forbear. My husband will come home tomorrow,
And if the same news he should hear, it would cause me great grief and sorrow."
He said, "My dearest jewel, consent. Here are fifty gold guineas so bright.
Your husband shall pay me no rent if you let me lie with you tonight."

The sight of the gold won the day, which pleased the young squire to the life.
He often came to her again, and for her he left his own wife.
The farmer did hear, by the bye, how he had been tricked by the squire,
And he kept the matter so sly until the whole joke he did enquire.

The farmer from home did go one evening, as he had pretended,
On purpose the joke to find out, for lately he had been offended.
In the dusk of the evening returning, according to his resolution,
He hid himself in his own room, where of him she had got no suspicion.

The squire he tripped upstairs. The farmer's wife soon followed after.
Under the bed he lay there as still as a mouse, sir.
The bed it began to shake just as the whole begun.
Not a word did the young farmer speak. Now comes the best of the fun.

They played till they both fell asleep. The farmer let them take their repose,
And he crept from under the bed, and put on the young squire's clothes,
And off to the squire's house goes, the door of which being ready,
As boldly he entered the room and then went to bed to his lady.

They played till they both went to sleep, and then lay in each other's arms till morning,
And when the young lady awoke, so dismal she then began mourning.
To her the whole joke he made known, from the beginning unto the ending.
The lady she smiled and said that they had been borrowing and lending.

The lady and farmer arose on purpose the joke to sort (?) out, sir.
And off to the squire he goes and found him in bed with his wife sir.
They at one another did stare. Not a word was spoken for an hour.
The lady she smiled and said, "We are cuckolds all four."

The squire and farmer do now agree without any wrangling or strife.
Each man he fills up his glass and drinks to his own lawful wife.
The farmer he now lives rent-free by the squire's thrashing his corn.
Both unto the course do agree, wearing each other's horn.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Wife swapping song (Squire and Farmer)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 01:12 PM

Thanks for transcribing the song. If it is worth discussing, it should be posted. Looking at the date ranges, it seems that these broadsides probably came out in the 1830s.
Can anyone post "Fair Exchange"?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Wife swapping song (Squire and Farmer)
From: pavane
Date: 02 Aug 04 - 03:35 AM

Thanks John.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Wife swapping song (Squire and Farmer)
From: pavane
Date: 02 Aug 04 - 03:35 AM

Sorry, I meant JIM! Old age is creeping up...

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Wife swapping song (Squire and Farmer)
From: pavane
Date: 02 Aug 04 - 03:43 AM

Mopre info: This song was printed by several different printers between about 1818 and 1830. There are at least 5 copies in the Bodley collection.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Wife swapping song (Squire and Farmer
From: GUEST,The York Contingent Of Wakefield Morris
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 12:10 PM

does anyone happen to have the tune written down please? any format would be great!
pete

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Wife swapping song (Squire and Farmer
From: Nerd
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 01:08 PM

In the next to last stanza, first line, I think it's "the joke to see out," in other words, "to see it through to its end." (It's not much better than "sort out," in terms of meaning or of rhyme...but I think "see" is what the broadside says.)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Wife swapping song (Squire and Farmer)
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 09:46 PM

Like most broadside songs of the period, no tune was specified; and since, so far as I can tell, the song (like most 19th century broadside songs, most of which quickly disappeared without trace) has never been found in oral currency, there's no tune to write down. If you want to sing it, you'll have to find something else in the right metre and use that; as the ballad hawkers of the day will probably have done.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Wife swapping song (Squire and Farmer
From: Tootler
Date: 25 Feb 08 - 04:50 PM

Like most broadside songs of the period, no tune was specified; and since, so far as I can tell, the song (like most 19th century broadside songs, most of which quickly disappeared without trace) has never been found in oral currency, there's no tune to write down. If you want to sing it, you'll have to find something else in the right metre and use that;

Or write your own!

Subject: Lyr Add: FAIR EXCHANGE (Ben Sands)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 03 Jan 25 - 08:19 PM

Here’s the other song mentioned in this thread. You can hear it at Spotify and at Broadjam.com, where I also found these lyrics:


FAIR EXCHANGE
As recorded by Ben Sands on “Better Already,” 2003.

They say that Dan the farmer had been married late in life:
Forty-seven summers gone before he took a wife,
A woman from the town who thought she’d like the country life
Although she was some twenty years his junior.
Well, after six warm months or so, the temperature declined.
Their words got few and far between and passion fell behind.
They lived together quietly like two odd socks on the line,
And they only pulled together at the milkin’.

Seventeen months later and no babby in the cot,
The farmer looked around himself to see what he had got:
A stony wife and stony ground; that seemed to be his lot.
He thought he couldn’t face another winter.
The wife was disenchanted with the quiet of the farm,
For she’d been used to company and someone on her arm,
But the only one she ever saw was Tim, the tinker man
When he passed that way with caravan and pony.

The farmer’s mood got blacker as he viewed his stony ground.
One day he took his bicycle and likewise fifty pound.
He nodded to his missus; he was headin’ for the town,
And she watched him disappearin’ up the loanin’.
He hadn’t traveled far until he spied a tinker man
Who was pokin’ at a fire for to boil a billy can.
They struck up conversation, tinker Tim and farmer Dan
Where the rocky road it winds around the mountain.

The tinker spoke of hardships in his movable abode.
And how modern times were most unkind for travelers on the road,
While the farmer moaned and mumbled with his own sad episode.
They swapped their troubles well into the evenin’.
Well, to make the story shorter, they agreed upon a plan,
That the farmer take the pony and the tinker’s caravan
While the tinker’d try his fortune with the farmer’s wife and land,
And make what sense they could out of the bargain.

A wondrous idea it seems, and maybe no surprise:
The farmer’s wife was overjoyed with all that did arise,
For she had just been thinkin’ of the need to advertise
When heaven smiled upon her situation.
As far as I can gather now, the deal was for a year,
But it’s more than seven summers since the farmer disappeared.
While the man who’d been a tinker loves the farmin’ atmosphere
And his five wee children help him at the milkin’.

And so I end my story, though a strange one it may be:
How peoples’ lives are altered with some ingenuity.
As to where the farmer went to, that remains a mystery,
But his missus and the tinker’s not surmisin’.
Some say he went to Dublin where he met a millionaire
Who, bein’ a far-out relative, made sure he got his share.
Some say he might be buried with a caravan and mare
Where the rocky road it winds around the mountain.