Origins: The Tailor & The Mouse

Subject: Lyr Req: The Tailor & The Mouse
From: GUEST,klickitat
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 12:12 AM

Looking for verses and variations to "The Tailor & The Mouse." Thanks, in advance,

Blessed be

klickitat

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Tailor & The Mouse
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 01:04 AM

The onsite search engine (see "Lyrics and Knowledge Search" box at the top of every page) finds several references to published examples, and one file in the DT:

The Tailor and the Mouse

That one is taken from the Burl Ives Song Book; no previous source is indicated for text or tune. Another, slightly longer example (tune very close) was printed in Sabine Baring-Gould and Cecil Sharp, English Folk-Songs for Schools, 1905; it seems to have been collected by Baring-Gould. Apparently derivative of The Tailor and the Louse, which has been discussed here in the past.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Tailor & The Mouse
From: Billy the Bus
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 02:24 AM

Wheww.. klickitat and Malcolm - you've put my brain-cell into overdrive. I'm trying to recall words from 50 years ago. Mumble...

Best lyrics I found that relate to my childhood memories are Here - but there are missing verses... The chorus is slightly different too. I'll try to think.

Cheers - San (NZ)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Tailor & The Mouse
From: GUEST,KT
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 02:36 AM

Whew! Another stroll down memory lane. This one's right up there with "I'm a Peddler" and "Old Bone Bags."   Hi diddle um tum....tirum tum tum.......

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Tailor & The Mouse
From: Little Robyn
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 02:55 AM

Hey Sam, was that on Broadcast to Schools? I remember it from 50 years back too. Perhaps the Wellington teachers all learnt it at Training Col. and then taught it to us? You weren't at Petone Central back then, were you?
Robyn

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Tailor & The Mouse
From: Billy the Bus
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 03:05 AM

G'day Robyn - it probably was Broadcast to Schools - but at "Ypuk" not Petone - didn't hit the Hutt until 1953 - for Intemediate, then HVHS - Cheers - Sam

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Tailor & The Mouse
From: rich-joy
Date: 21 Aug 04 - 05:12 AM

Nice version on Kathy Kallick's recent Copper Creek album "My Mother's Voice" ...


Cheers! R-J

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Tailor & The Mouse
From: GUEST,klickitat
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 11:09 AM

that is a nice version, rich-joy    klickitat

Subject: Lyr Add: THE TAILOR AND THE MOUSE
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 05:35 PM

Malcolm mentioned the version in Gould and Sharp, Since Klickitat is looking for variations, perhaps it should be posted.

THE TAILOR AND THE MOUSE

1. There was a tailor had a mouse,
  Hi diddle unkum feedle!
They lived together in one house,
  Hi diddle unkum feedle!

CHORUS:
Hi diddle unkum tarum tantum
Through the town of Ramsey,
Hi diddle unkum over the lea
Hi diddle unkum feedle!

2. The tailor thought the mouse was ill, etc.
He gave him part of a blue pill, etc.

3. The tailor thought his mouse would die, etc.
He baked him in an apple pie, etc.

4. The pie was cut, the mouse ran out, etc.
The tailor followed him all about, etc.

5. The tailor found his mouse was dead, etc.
So he caught another in his stead, etc.

With music, No. 49, pp. 100-101, English Folk-Songs for Schools S. Baring Gould and Cecil J. Sharp, Curwin and Sons, London, Ed. 6051, n. d.

Also printed in "Music Through the Year," Together We Sing Series, Wolfe and Fullerton and Wolfe et al., Follett, 1952, 1956, 1957. With music, lyrics and music same as Baring Gould and Sharp.

Also in "Music Near and Far," Music for Living Series, Grade 4, Mursell et al., Silver Burdett Co., 1962, pp. 136-137, lyrics the same and music slightly modified from Baring Gould and Sharp, with chords.

Subject: Tune Add: THE TAILOR AND THE MOUSE
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 23 Aug 04 - 01:58 AM

And here is the tune for it.

X:1
T:The Tailor and the Mouse
B:Sharp & Baring-Gould, English Folk-Songs for Schools, 1905, no. 49
Z:Collected by Sabine Baring-Gould?
L:1/8
Q:1/4=100
M:4/4
K:Bb
"Allegretto"d2|B2 G2 G2 G2|F2 D2 F4|D2 D D D2 d2|
w:There was a tai-lor had a mouse, Hi did-dle un-kum
B4 G2 d2|B2 G2 G2 G2|F2 D2 F4|D2 D D D2 d2|B4 G2 z2|
w:fee-dle. They lived to-gether in one house, Hi did-dle un-kum fee-dle.
B2 G G d2 G2|B2 G2 d2 G2|A2 c2 c2 c2|A4 c2 z2|
w:Hi did-dle un-kum ta-rum tan-tum Through the town of Ram-say,
B2 G G G2 G2|F2 D D F4|D2 D D D2 d2|B4 G2:|]
w:Hi did-dle un-kum o-ver the lea, Hi did-dle un-kum fee-dle.


See Martin Graebe's Sabine Baring-Gould site for the MS reference.

I am reminded of The Haggis of Dunbar...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Tailor & The Mouse
From: Compton
Date: 23 Aug 04 - 10:18 AM

Can obtain "Tailor and a Louse" John Kirkpatrick / A.L. Lloyd lyric (which is V. similar if you want it!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Tailor & The Mouse
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 Aug 04 - 09:50 PM

I remember this from a songbook used in St. Francis Solanus grade school, Quincy, Illinois, around 1953. It was the Baring-Gould version.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Tailor & The Mouse
From: GUEST,N
Date: 13 Nov 10 - 07:03 PM

The lyrics Q posted are the exact ones I remember from childhood. In Michigan when I went to elementary school there in the 1960's, there was a radio program produced by the University of Michigan called "Festival of Song". It was on a couple times a week, and schools could use it to supplement their music program. There were songbooks (different every year), and I remember we had this one in the 1967-68 school year.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Tailor & The Mouse
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 16 Nov 10 - 11:38 PM

Sheet music for THE TAILOR AND THE MOUSE, arranged for piano and 4 voices, can be seen in One Hundred Folk-Songs: From Many Countries edited by Henry Franklin Belknap Gilbert (Boston: C. C. Birchard & Co., 1910), page 112.

An arrangement for one voice can be seen in Grammar School Songs: A Collection of Songs for Fun and Fancy by Charles Hubert Farnsworth (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1917), page 12.

The lyrics are identical to those posted by Q above.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Tailor & The Mouse
From: Joe Offer
Date: 25 Apr 22 - 04:36 PM

Tailor and the Mouse, The

DESCRIPTION: "There was a tailor had a mouse, Hey diddle inkum feedle, They lived together in one house...." The mouse eats the tailor's hat. The mouse grows ill; the tailor tries to save it, then puts it in a pie. The mouse escapes and dies. The tailor finds another
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1905 (Baring-Gould and Sharp, English Folk-Songs for Schools)
KEYWORDS: burial death humorous animal food clothes escape
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (2 citations):
SongsOfAllTime, pp. 68-69, "The Tailor and the Mouse" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, TAILMOUS*
Roud #16577
NOTES [33 words]: Roud lumps this with "Tailor and Louse." Obviously there are similarities in both plot and lyrics -- this is probably a derivative of that -- but I'd consider them clearly separate as they stand. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.3
File: SATTaMou

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THE TAILOR AND THE MOUSE (DT Lyrics)

There was a tailor had a mouse
Hi diddle um come feed-a
They lived together in one house
Hi diddle um come feed-a

CHORUS:
Hi diddle um, come tintrum tantrum
Through the town of Ramsey,
Hi diddle um, come over the lea
Hi diddle um come feed-a

The tailor had a tall silk hat
The mouse he ate it, fancy that

The tailor chased him over the lea
The last of that mouse he never did see.

From the Burl Ives Song Book
@kids @animal
filename[ TAILMOUS
TUNE FILE: TAILMOUS
CLICK TO PLAY
RG

Popup Midi Player

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Note from Joe Offer: The DT lyrics are an accurate transcription of the song, found on pp 24-25 of the Burl Ives Song Book (Ballantine Books, New York, 1953) - but note the spelling in the chorus:

Hi diddle um, cum tintrum tantrum
Through the town of Ramsey,
Hi diddle um, come over the lea
Hi diddle um cum feed-a

Burl Ives Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54NbPnfe30E

Subject: RE: Origins: The Tailor & The Mouse
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 26 Apr 22 - 10:47 AM

My version of this lovely little song comes from The Daily Express Community Songbook published in 1927. In the preface to the book it notes that on November 20th 1926 ten thousand people assembled in the Albert Hall (London UK) to launch the Daily Express Community Singing Movement. It lists the Tailor and the Mouse as a Somerset Folk Song. The tune is also slightly different.

The only question really is: Where is Ramsey? There are many contenders with the front runners being in the Isle of Man and Cambridgeshire. But not in Somerset!