Different Bummer. What is it?

Subject: Different Bummer. What is it?
From: Davetnova
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 03:29 AM

The bummer gigs thread got me thinking about this. Sheena Wellington's Women O' Dundee has the line
- And the wailing o' the bummers and the clacking o' the looms.
What's a Bummer? I've always taken it to be something to do with weaving but what I don't know. Now I'm curious and I can't find out.

Subject: RE: Different Bummer. What is it?
From: open mike
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 03:39 AM

a poor little orphaned lamb....
bummer lamb...

Subject: RE: Different Bummer. What is it?
From: Davetnova
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 03:58 AM

The song was about the jute mills, hardly lamb country.

Subject: RE: Different Bummer. What is it?
From: GUEST, Hamish
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 04:25 AM

Ah, yes: I was born and bred in Monifieth: now a sprawling suburbia dormitory town of Dundee. Then (late 1950's/early 1960's) it was a small seaside village with three (yes three!) foundries and a carpet factory. Population something under 3,000.

The bummer was the horn - I think probably steam driven, but maybe electric - which signalled the end of the work shifts at the factories. 12.00 and 17.00 (or 5 o'clock as we used to say in our quaint way). And then the workers would stream out. It was clearly audible all over town: well it had to be to be audible inside the foundry!

A totally different town: days of the eleven-plus where those who didn't make the cut left school at fifteen and served an apprenticeship and/or worked at one of the local industries, which was within walking distance of home. I don;t know, but my impression now is that unemployment levels were low.

I don't know how widespread the word was: certainly all over Dundee. It's basically onomatopoeic, and never had any rude connotations to my innocent mind.

The use of the word "bummer" for a negative event is relatively recent, at least in the UK. I guess it was the 70's when I first became aware of that use of the word.

Subject: RE: Different Bummer. What is it?
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 04:28 AM

As Hamish says, the mill horn - glossary for the song give in Lyric req: Women of Dundee.

Mick

Subject: RE: Different Bummer. What is it?
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 04:28 AM

(Sorry missing closing tag - can some JC fix?) - Mick

Subject: RE: Different Bummer. What is it?
From: Davetnova
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 04:35 AM

Thank you, Hamish and Mick.

Subject: RE: Different Bummer. What is it?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 04:53 AM

It makes you wonder just how rude you have to be in Dundee....

Subject: RE: Different Bummer. What is it?
From: Inukshuk
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 05:22 AM

From the sounds of it, "Boomer". Perhaps. Maybe.
Bring back the eleven plus!

Subject: RE: Different Bummer. What is it?
From: GUEST, Hamish
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 06:10 AM

Thanks, Mick: great song. Wonder how to get hold of the tune. Any ideas?

"Now the men they werena lazy, but the work was hard tae find
The Parish and the Means Test they'd to face,
But a lassie"s hands are nimble, and a lassie's wage is sma
So the women o Dundee worked in their place."

Hence the nickname for Dundee men around a hundred years ago was "kettle boilers ('bilers')"

Subject: RE: Different Bummer. What is it?
From: GUEST, Hamish, again
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 06:14 AM

okay, okay: Google. Such as:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/scottishhistory/media_museum/victorian_popup2.html which has a clip or

http://www.musicinscotland.com/acatalog/Sheena_Wellington_CDs.html where it's on CD

I'm on my way!

(Definitely not a modern day bummer: looks like a new song is winging its way into the repertoire! Thanks, again, Mick!!!)

Subject: RE: Different Bummer. What is it?
From: fat B****rd
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 06:17 AM

Isn't there a Dylan song (Days Of 49 ?) with a reference to the Bummer Shore ?

Subject: RE: Different Bummer. What is it?
From: GUEST, Hamish
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 06:42 AM

Yes, Mr B:

Self Portrait has

I'm old Tom Moore from the bummer's shore in that good old golden days
They call me a bummer and a ginsot too, but what cares I for praise?
I wander around from town to town just like a roving sign
And all the people say: There goes Tom Moore, in the days of '49
In the days of old, in the days of gold
How oft'times I repine for the days of old
When we dug up the gold, in the days of '49

But I guess that's yet another sort of bummer. As in someone who bums around i.e. a hobo???

Subject: RE: Different Bummer. What is it?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 07:19 AM

Tony Capstick used to sing a magic version of the Old tom Moore song.

Certain songs Tony was just the best at. I loved his version of the Bonny Bunch of roses. so natural and quite perfect.

Subject: RE: Different Bummer. What is it?
From: GUEST,Paul Burke
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 07:29 AM

They were buzzers in Salford in the 50s/60s. They don't have them now.

Subject: RE: Different Bummer. What is it?
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 09:05 AM

Hamish - there's a free MP3 of the entire song (~3.25Mb) at Tara's Thistle - free downloads from their albums (it's the third item, but I've given the page address in case there's anything else that takes your fancy). If I get time I'll put up an abc of the tune later.

On the other use of bummer shore cited above, I think there have been many discussions of it in the various Days of Forty-Nine threads and you can probably find all you want to know about it there (I haven't rechecked that so don't blame me if my failing memory is wrong about that).

My historical slang dictionary has a few entries for bummer (which has been around a bit longer than you think Hamish!), but none relevant here. I'm inclined to go with Inukshuk above, that it's related to boomer.

Mick

Subject: RE: Different Bummer. What is it?
From: Charmion
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 09:26 AM

The American word "bummer" meaning tramp or hobo dates from the mid-19th century and derives from the German "bummel" (stroll, spree) and "bummler" (loafer, saunterer). Civil War mavens will recognize it as the 1860s' equivalent of "garrit-trooper", a soldier hanging around in a rear area where he doesn't have to fight but is not expected to be particularly clean. It can also mean forager or even looter.

Subject: RE: Different Bummer. What is it?
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 10:53 AM

That song was widely song long before Dylan was a squint in his father's eye, mates. And the word bummer in that context means one who bums around, without visible means of support.

Somewhere between the 20's and the 50's the expression developed to give someone a "bum steer", meaning advice that had no merit, perhaps the kind of advice you might get from a bum.

This expanded later on into the expression "a bum deal", meaning an arrangement that did not deliver any value. With the advent of drug exploration, this was expanded to the phrase "a bum trip", a drug experience that was unpleasant, and from there the expression was born "that's a bummer", meaning that experience or relationship was depressing in the way that a bad drug trip is depressing.

So a "bummer", once someone who bummed around not working, was migrated over to mean a bad scene, deal, or experience. In today's argot it has been condensed into an expression of sympathy: "Bummer, dude!".

A

Subject: RE: Different Bummer. What is it?
From: GUEST,Les B.
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 11:53 AM

Interesting how the word differs from one side of the pond to the other. When I lived in a British colony in Africa in the early 70's I soon discovered "bum" meant "butt" or "ass" to most of the expats from Britain, and those they influenced.

So it was a bit amusing when a talented African singer/songwriter asked me what the meaning was of an American tramping song which had as part of the refrain "... go bum again, go bum again" ! Took me a while to explain about bums and hobos, etc.

Subject: RE: Different Bummer. What is it?
From: Severn
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 12:09 PM

As for "The Days Of '49", it was clearly the inspiration and model for the "Gilligan's Island" Theme.


Collossal bummer, man!

Subject: RE: Different Bummer. What is it?
From: Hamish
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 02:57 PM

Mick:

(Home now, and able to play the MP3s...)

Aye, but the Tara's Thistle version is dreadful, whereas I'm thinking I'll need to buy the Sheena Wellington version, which is awesome - at least for the one verse.

Cheers again

Hamish

Subject: RE: Different Bummer. What is it?
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 03:05 PM

Hamish - I'm not one to look askance on someone's performance, but I agree TT's is dreadful (I did play it!) - I offered it for the tune only!

Mick