Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 02 Sep 09 - 10:01 PM

Genie - I take it the "Paar" was just a typo for "Parr".

I don't think that the old Tonight show host was a wife of Henry VIII.

Although.....

Seamus

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: robomatic
Date: 02 Sep 09 - 10:01 PM

If Richard Thompson left this one out of his review: "1000 years of popular music" he made a mistake.
One of my faves, along with the Monkey who they took for a Frenchmen in Hartleypool.

I've used it on trails as a bear warning song, along with Stan Roger's "Barrett's Privateers"

Robo (who won't be deterred by his non-singing credentials of longstanding.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her A
From: Genie
Date: 03 Sep 09 - 01:45 AM

I wasn't sure which spelling was right either, Seamus, but I knew it wasn't "Paa." *g*

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her A
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 04 Sep 09 - 09:46 PM

And Paa was definitely a typo -- I think it is Parr......

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: Rafflesbear
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 08:08 AM

Am I the only one who finds this song totally unacceptable?

Ann Boleyn was a real person who was murdered by the English monarch of the time for no good reason (if there can be a good reason for murder)

She was a human being like each of us - how much time has to pass before it becomes acceptable to write or sing a 'comic' song about the death of a real person?

Probably too soon for the soldiers in Afghanistan, the people in the twin towers, Kennedy, those who died in the second world war, what about those who died in the English or American civil wars

Why is it acceptable for this poor woman - or is it just hilarious for someone's head to be cut from their body while they are still alive?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 09:11 AM

This is one of those moral questions which have always exercised me. At what stage does it become possible to make a Carry-On film about the Reign of Terror, for instance?; with the exceptionally giggle-inducing title of Don't Lose Your Head — Oh teeheehee!!!. What are we to think of everyone's favourite film comedy, Some Like It Hot, beginning with the St Valentine's Day Massacre? When are we going to have the hilarious all-singing all-dancing Auschwitz-Birkenau musical? We had that loathsome Oscar-winning comedy Life Is Beautiful which came pretty close; & arguably The Producers is well on the way to it — or is it in fact a comment on the point that I, and Rafflebear above, are making?..)

Subject: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: Genie
Date: 06 Sep 09 - 03:06 AM

Well, it could be argued that a high proportion of folk music is politically or morally "incorrect" in one way or another. Lots of songs about rakes seducing young lasses and then abandoning them (and their bairns); people murdering ex-lovers; infanticide; patricide or matricide; bawdy songs about drunkenness and debauchery; songs about drug abuse; throwing certain (but not all) grannies off of buses, etc. Most of the time there seems to be little in the lyrics by way of expressly condemning the various torts, sins, vices, or felonious behaviors.   

But, really, if we're going to get into a big debate about issues like this, I'd prefer it have its own thread, rather than sidetrack this "lyric request" thread.

As for this particular song, I'd say if anyone deserved to be haunted thru eternity by the ghost of a wronged person, Henry VIII would be a prime candidate.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: Rafflesbear
Date: 06 Sep 09 - 03:49 AM

Start the thread if you like but this song is specific to one real person - laughing at their hideous death - was there a real Matty Groves?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Sep 09 - 04:25 AM

Absolutely, Rafflesbear. Your point related absolutely to this specific song, and I simply tried to extend the excellent moral point you made to some other specific REAL issues where humour seemed to me similarly misplaced. I think Genie has just missed your [our] point.

Subject: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: Genie
Date: 06 Sep 09 - 05:59 AM

I didn't miss your point. I just hope the discussion in this thread will pretty much stay to the topic of this song, whatever people may think of it.

Genie

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: sing4peace
Date: 06 Sep 09 - 08:06 AM

I agree with Genie both on the suggestion of a separate thread to discuss "political correctness" of lyrics - oughta be interesting - and also on the point about Henry VIII being deserving of haunting. The song isn't condoning cutting off anybody's head.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Sep 09 - 08:26 AM

Genie: Rafflesbear was writing about this particular song, pointing out a way in which it could be regarded as objectionable; & I was agreeing with this, by showing comparisons and analogies with other narrative artworks in a genre of which this particular song was a part. I can't see where you consider this to be any form of thread-drift demanding of a separate thread of its own. Nothing to do with 'political correctness': just with what isn't funny. Sing4peace, do you really think that laughing at the actual horrible death of a real person isn't condoning it? Then what would you say would 'condone' it?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her A
From: Charley Noble
Date: 06 Sep 09 - 02:11 PM

I admit that this type of song is gallows humor. at the expense of actual historic persons. It's the kind of thing I particularly enjoyed singing in college when "death" was theoretical; after all other people died while "we" were immortal. This song was also the kind of song that provoked a response from the overly squeamish at drinking parties, much to our amusement. I still enjoy singing it, especially at Halloween, but I no longer feel immortal.

I don't think I'd work up a similar song about some celebrity who had recently died but others would and do. I'd rather let the matter ferment for 50 years or so.

Never leave a tern unstoned!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 06 Sep 09 - 02:19 PM

I've been singing WHHTUHA for years now and think it a rare old hoot. Royalty have been abusing one another for centuries thus providing the principle entertainment of we peasantry of Olde England. God knows they must of some use: English Royalty - the longest running soap opera of them all; it's the Reality Drama & Celebrity Myth upon which our culture is founded. In such things we find such a delightful hoary and gruesome resonance by way of a cultural catharsis one might even deem essential.

There may be no future in England's Dreaming - but there is a past, and one might take very real comfort from the fact that no-one is laughing at the true horrors of history, no matter how remote.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Sep 09 - 02:59 PM

Oh, aren't they? What's this song doing then? {I put that bit in to avoid all these thread-drift accusations}. & what about that absolutely horrible film Life Is Beautiful which won an Oscar for taking the piss out of Auschwitz, in which, according to the movie, you could just walk off your work detail & back to your hut where your little boy was hidden whenever you felt like it. Oh teeheehee. And how remote is Auschwitz then? & what were the wanker who made it, & the other wankers who gave it the Oscar, thinking about?

Oh, what's the use...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 06 Sep 09 - 05:02 PM

& what about that absolutely horrible film Life Is Beautiful which won an Oscar for taking the piss out of Auschwitz,

You seems to be itching on this one MtheGM. I'm assuming you haven't seen the film otherwise you'd realise the last thing Life is Beautiful does is to take the piss out of The Holocaust; rather it tells a deeply affecting, and harrowing story set during The Holocaust. Personally I found it preferable to Schindler's List (as far as cinematographic entertainment goes) in attempting to tackle what remains now, and perhaps eternally, unsayable.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Sep 09 - 09:51 PM

Of course I've seen it — I'm not the sort of, ah, person to condemn something unseen [see my most recent exchange on the Wela Wallia thread]. It tells its 'deeply affecting and harrowing story' by insufferably sanitising and misrepresenting the reality of Auschwitz, turning it into a sort of benign holiday camp where the inmates just swan about from work-detail to living quarters where, unnoticed to all the guards, they have kept a sweet little boy hidden - yuk·puke. Have you any idea what it was really like in Auschwitz! I can't say I find Schindler's List that impressive either, apart from the clever shtick with the red coat. But I realise I probably am drifting this thread unacceptably now [tho it wasn't me who brought Schindler into it, Sweeney old dear]. So shall just say again that Head·Under·Arm does still strike me as an exemplar of a laugh·at·misery·if·far·enough·in·the·past [ReignOfTerror, RomanGladiators] genre that I [and Raffelesbear who started this train-of-consideration off] clearly agree in finding distasteful.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Sep 09 - 10:57 PM

... which is not to say I am unaware of the valuable, disinfecting concept of 'gallows-humour' so pertinently cited above by Charley Noble; or of that phenomenon whereby 'sanitising, coming·to·terms' jokes inevitably follow some catastrophe [Michael Jackson jokes are probably the most current example, & I expect there were Princess Diana jokes 12 years ago — but, come to think of it, I don't remember any Aberfan jokes, do you? There are some things where even jokes are beyond the pale, perhaps?]...

but but but   ---   a nagging question about taste & moral seemliness will obtrude...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: sing4peace
Date: 09 Sep 09 - 09:40 AM

MtheGM -

Yes, I do think it is necessary and healthy to laugh in the face of horror. There is a reason why the fool was the only one allowed to tell the king the truth. This song does not condone cutting off heads, it actually calls Henry on the carpet for having done so.

I dare say that there may be some people who know absolutely nothing at all about Ann Boleyn or any of the other wives murdered by Henry. The song will outlive a lot of dusty old history books. That's why we are folk singers isn't it?

Joyce K.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Sep 09 - 10:11 AM

I take your point to a considerable degree, Joyce; but it's a bit of a vanilla denunciation which wouldn't, one feels, have distressed King Hal too much if he had heard it - esp as it lists the wrong wives he doesn't know her from, when one should have been Cath Howard — only one other wife, not 'other wives' got topped: & he was distressed at having to execute C Howard whom he loved but could not hide the fact that she was a shameless adultress & the Privy Council reluctantly convinced him she had to go, so whether he actually 'murdered' her is a mootish point, I think; but neither Seymour nor Parr, both mentioned in the song was beheaded so its historicism is suspect. It might have been a more cogent anti-naughty-old-Henry polemic if a bit more accurate in its denunciation, eh?

BTW, in a rejoinder to a point you have made accusing me of advocating censorship on another thread [the LittleBoxes one], I apostrophise you as 'Mr' sing4peace. Sorry about that - but how was I to know?

Best regards Michael

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: Rafflesbear
Date: 09 Sep 09 - 03:51 PM

I am still totally unconvinced by the argument

"Yes, I do think it is necessary and healthy to laugh in the face of horror"

What next then - a comic song about Madeline McCann

Ann was no older than 36 and mother of a two year old daughter - her 'crime' was to suffer two miscarriages

"This song does not condone cutting off heads"

quite right it doesn't - it just thinks it's a great hoot - quote

Until he made the headsman bob her hair!

Gad Zooks, she's going to tell him off

just in case the Headsman
Wants to give her an encore
She has her head tucked underneath her arm!

And it's awf'lly awkward for the Queen
To have to blow her nose

She holds her head up with a wild war whoop
And Henry cries, "Don't drop it in the soup!

Perhaps you enjoy watching death videos on the internet - equally real equally funny?

Speaking for myself I continue to miss the humour

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: GUEST,Descendent of a Black Plague survivor...
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 03:58 PM

Good grief! So full of righteous indignation are you two, Rafflesbear and MthGM! This song was written almost a century ago about something that happened centuries ago! I suppose you swoop in a spoil the fun of children singing "Ring Around the Roses," too. After all, it's a song about putting posies in your pocket to protect you from the Bubonic Plague, which was a remedy desperately postulated during the time. "Ashes, Ashes, " refers to the human ashes blanketing the earth from burning the bodies of those who died, and "we all fall down" is a direct reference the MILLIONS of people -- half the population of Europe -- who died horrible painful deaths. My point is that it's human nature to approach difficult subjects with either humor or disengaged academian attitudes. Which is worse? To dispassionately dissect and describe in detail, all in the name of knowledge or transparancy, of course, or to sing a farsical tale of one who was wronged getting their revenge? I don't think Anne Bolyn really cares what we sing about. I appreciate that you feel strongly that this song is unacceptable. You've made that very clear. I, for one, would love to be remembered so long after I'm gone... even in a song about my untimely and unseemly demise. So many from our own time are forgotten, and it seems to me that your abhorence, albeit genuine, is misplaced. It would be wonderful if, in the future, you would (please) make your heartfelt denunciations once and then move it to another thread. The rest of us just want to know the lyrics.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 04:37 PM

That might make a point if it were not for the fact that the connection between Ring Around the Roses & the Plague is nothing but a piece of romantic C19 fakelore — "one of those tiresome pieces of folklore about folklore", as the great Peter Opie once described it to me. We recently had a thread about it; for heavens sake don't start it all up again. Meanwhile, enjoy your gruesome black bloody humour, Descendant & your fortunate ancestor both; & I hope it keeps fine 4U!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: Artful Codger
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 04:19 AM

Sounds like someone needs a remedial course on "The Function of Humor in Social Tolerance". Meanwhile, I'll be humming "They're rioting in Africa..."

Subject: Lyr Add: WITH HER HEAD TUCKED UNDERNEATH HER ARM
From: Gurney
Date: 15 Nov 14 - 11:13 PM

WITH HER HEAD TUCKED UNDERNEATH HER ARM
(Weston/Lee)

In the Tower of London, large as life,
The ghost of Ann Boleyn walks, they declare.
Poor Ann Boleyn was once King Henry's wife
Until he made the headsman bob her hair.
Oh yes! He did her wrong long years ago,
And she comes up at night to tell him so.

With her head tucked underneath her arm she walks the Bloody Tower,
With her head tucked underneath her arm at the midnight hour.

She comes to haunt King Henry; she means giving him what-for.
Gadzooks! She's going to tell him off for having spilt her gore,
And just in case the headsman wants to give her an encore,
She has her head tucked underneath her arm.

With her head tucked underneath her arm, she walks the Bloody Tower,
With her head tucked underneath her arm, at the midnight hour.

Along the draughty corridors for miles and miles she goes.
She often catches cold, poor thing; it's cold there when it blows,
And it's awfully awkward for the Queen to have to blow her nose
With her head tucked underneath her arm.

The Beefeaters all know her well by sight.
To see the plight she's in fills them with grief,
And when she wanders 'round their hut at night,
Oh, they always ask her in to share their beef.
She thanks them, and then with a puzzled frown,
She asks them how she's going to get it down.

With her head tucked underneath her arm she walks the Bloody Tower,
With her head tucked underneath her arm, at the midnight hour.

One night she caught King Henry; he was in the canteen bar.
Said he: "Are you Jane Seymour, Anne of Cloves, or Katherine Parr?
How the sweet-san-fairy-ann do I know who you are
With your head tucked underneath your arm?"


From the singing of Stanley Holloway, on the LP Argo(Decca)
SPA/A 199, circa 1971. The sleeve notes say that he was contacted directly by the songwriters as this "would suit me." He did sing Anne of Cloves, not Cleeves.
It may be that the verses in the DT about football are a variant for a specific audience.
The versions in the DT are under the title 'Anne Boleyn.'

---

Stanley Holloway recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a0cFYa5Ffw

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 Nov 14 - 11:34 PM

Hi, Gurney - I hadn't seen the Beefeaters verse. Thanks.
Hope you don't mind that I moved your message to an existing thread.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: Long Firm Freddie
Date: 16 Nov 14 - 03:27 AM

Gurney's interesting post shows how the lyrics were updated for a later audience, both relating to Arsenal and the Beefeaters verse.

The football references are in the original song which in 2003 Joe copied into this thread from a post by Charles Colyer in 1997 to a thread about Halloween songs:

The sentries think that it's a football
That she carries in
And when they've had a few they shout,
"Is Ars'nal going to win?"
They think it's Alec James
Instead of poor old Anne Boleyn,
With her head tucked underneath her arm.

The mention of Alec James is, I think, a reference to Alex James, a famous Arsenal player of the time. He helped his team win the First Division Championship in 1930-31, 1932-33, 1933-34 and 1934-5 (He was injured during the 1931-32 season and Arsenal were only runners up!) The song was written in 1934 so he was at the height of his fame then. He didn't score so many goals himself, but provided an abundance chances for others (or "assists" as we say these days.)

The Beefeaters verse seems to me to be a later improvement over the original verse:

Sometimes gay King Henry gives a spread
For all his pals and gals, a ghostly crew.
The headsman carves the joint and cuts the bread.
Then in comes Anne Boleyn to "queer" the "do";
She holds her head up with a wild war whoop
And Henry cries, "Don't drop it in the soup!"

LFF

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: Gurney
Date: 16 Nov 14 - 03:23 PM

I was asked if I sang this, so I thought I'd learn it. I've heard all the variations above, but as I'm not a Londoner and no longer sing to an English audience (or ANY audience, usually) I went back to the LP I found in an op-shop.

S.H. was a Londoner, despite the accent he usually used in monologues.

On the LP;
The Lion and Albert. (Monologue. A boy gets eaten)
Pick Oop Tha Musket   (Monologue. Just before Battle of Waterloo)
Uppards               (Monologue. Skit on the poem Excelsior)
Albert Comes Back    (Monologue. Boy gets Un-eaten)
Beat the Retreat on Thy Drum. (Monologue. Drummer boy meets Napoleon)
Brahn Boots.          (Monologue. Proper dress for funerals)
Good Old Yorkshire Pudden. (Monologue. About the comestible)
Runcorn Ferry.       (Monologue. Albert and Lancashire parsimony)
With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm. (Song. Above)
Three Ha'pence a Foot. (Monologue. Noah's Ark and stubbornness)
Albert's Birthday.    (Monologue. Albert and Lancashire parsimony)
Old Sam's Party.       (monologue mostly. Sam Small in old age)

I think most of them are on the site 'Make 'Em Laugh', if they aren't and you want one, PM me.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Nov 14 - 11:53 PM

Stanley Holloway also a considerable actor, of course -- The Way Ahead, nominations for Oscar & Tony for his Doolittle in original My Fair Lady, stalwart of the Ealing comedies, &c.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: Mrrzy
Date: 17 Nov 14 - 12:08 AM

The version I grew up with didn't have the san ferry ann verse, so when I heard it I just thought they didn't know that line so they'd kind of mumbled it... I am edified. Coolio.

Subject: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 29 Oct 15 - 05:41 PM

I, took, grew up with the Kingston Trio recording. And I distinctly remember that what's-his-name sang:


"GADZOOKS! She's going to tell him off,
She's feeling very sore!"

rather than, "spilt her gore." This thread is the first time I have heard or seen the latter phrase.

We live and learn.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: EBarnacle
Date: 30 Oct 15 - 11:44 AM

Very little humor, including puns, lacks some element of pain, either about the characters in the joke or from the hearers.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: GUEST,Dan
Date: 12 May 17 - 08:21 PM

If anyone's looking, I've added a verse to this song annually for about the last decade. I'm up to about fourteen, after bagging a couple of the originals lyrics that don't strike me as particularly clever. A few are slightly topical, but mostly they just play out variations on the basic "head tucked underneath her arm" idea. Be happy to share them. Message me at [e-mail] .

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: GUEST
Date: 12 May 17 - 09:47 PM

john lennons favourite song

inspired sgt pepper...

yoko and apple corp have invited stanley holloway to curate 50th anniversary festival at south bank...
if he turns up...

albert and the lions are rumoured to headline

bbc4 red button will be broadcasting conkers from wembley
see youtube for nothing interesting...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: GUEST
Date: 12 May 17 - 09:54 PM

that was me pfr sat on my sofa internetting on my smart
telly

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 May 17 - 10:15 PM

funnily enough... its one of my favourites.... original goth rock...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm
From: Senoufou
Date: 13 May 17 - 06:28 AM

I used to teach my pupils this song (with actions!) when we were studying the Tudors. They particularly liked the verse where Anne Boleyn finds it hard to blow her nose!

I reckon children adore the macabre, within reason.

When I was a little Brownie (aged about nine) we were taught that horrible song 'Whenever you see a hearse go by..." and we just loved the bit that went:-

"Your eyes fall in and your teeth fall out,
Your brain comes trickling down your snout..."

Makes me shudder now, but unfortunately children revel in such gruesome stuff!

At Hallowe'en, the sights that arrive at our door every year make the blood run cold. Children with fake blood all over them, bolts through the neck, plastic 'fangs' and so on. Little horrors :) (literally)