Lyr Req: The Cot in the Corner

Subject: Lyr Req: the cot in the corner
From: GUEST,Frances
Date: 08 Aug 05 - 05:39 PM

Hi
I heard a lovely irish song.... the cot in the corner...... could anyone help me find the lyrics
thanks
Frances

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: the cot in the corner
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Aug 05 - 06:06 PM

Noel McLaughlin, "Music and Ballads from Ireland."
"Shaskeen," produced Costello.

Can't find the lyrics. May be copyright.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: the cot in the corner
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 08 Aug 05 - 08:36 PM

A wee bit more information would help. What was the song about? Do you remember any of the words at all?

I'm guessing, for now, at a song called (The Cot in) the Corner; Sarah Makem had a set which began "Kathleen Mavourneen now sad is our lot", and Daniel O'Keefe prints a set of words in The First Book of Irish Ballads (Cork: Mercier, 1968) beginning "O, wirra aroon! how sad is our lot". No tune is given and no source is credited.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: the cot in the corner
From: DannyC
Date: 08 Aug 05 - 09:59 PM

I know it as a waltzy song... yet sorrowful with the signature phrase drummed over and over...   I am unsure of the opening phrase, but a little more sure of the first few verses:

" Oh whether we're ruined how sad is our lot
since the landlord turned us out of our cot
and to us in this wide world no happier spot
than the hillside alone in the corner.

It was covered all over in with bright yellow straw
and the walls were as white as the snowflakes so braw
sure 'twould make a fine picture for painters to draw
from the borreen outside in the corner"

Is that it?   If so, I'll dig thru my disordered tapes and get the rest.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE COT IN THE CORNER
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 10 Aug 05 - 01:22 AM

Lyrics copied from http://villasubrosa.com/Nathan/texts/burketext.html
^^
THE COT IN THE CORNER

We're as true and how hard was our lot
O the landlord he turned us out of our cot
But O 'twas the happiest place of our lot
The dear little cot in the corner.

The roof was thatched over with fine yellow straw
And the walls were as white as the snowflakes a ghrá.
'Twas as neat a picture a painter might draw
From the boreen beyond in the corner.

Of bacon go leor we had many a fletch in
Which hung high on the walls of our old kitchen.
It would your teeth water and ready to drop in
The hams that hung high in the corner.

It's down by the fireside my mother would knit.
Right opposite to her my father would sit,
And the stories he told while his old dudeen was lit
As he smoked away in the corner.

When supper was over and the neighbors walked in,
It's down by the fireside they warmed their shins,
And the boys and the girls ne'er thought it a sin
For to hug and to kiss in the corner.

Goodbye, father and mother, I will ne'er see you more,
For between me and you the Atlantic doth roar,
But I'm sure we will all meet in heaven a stór.
Farewell to the cot in the corner.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Cot in the Corner
From: GUEST,Frances
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 03:34 PM

Thanks very much, this is the song I wanted. Where do I get the tune for it now.
Frances.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Cot in the Corner
From: DannyC
Date: 12 Dec 06 - 10:43 AM

A friend recently presented us a lovely compilation of music from the Galway/California boxplayer - Kevin Keegan. I was delighted to hear the air of this song being played as a waltz thinking,

"I'll get home and look up the name of this tune on the web - another of life's deep mysteries solved..."

The melody seems to be listed on the track list as "Kevin Keegan's Waltz". The progress that I had hoped to be making in this world, again, turns out to be an illusion. I'll keep my ear to the ground for ya'll.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Cot in the Corner
From: DannyC
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 11:56 AM

Got a good listen to the sparkling Angelina Carberry & Martin Quinn (banko/button box) CD while cruising thru a gap in the Smokey Mtns. (NC - USA) this past week.

Track Four leads with a hornpipe they call "The First of May". This tune is basically the air to the above song except it's modified from a waltz into a hornpipe. Their liner notes state:

"This Hornpipe is a version of a song called "Fagamaoid sud mar ata/ se/".   It appears in Francis O'Neill's Minstrels and Musicians. According to O'Neill...considered to be one of the oldest of Irish Airs."

Having posted this, I think I'll set a spell now and play a few tunes myself... the wife wants to trim my hair... the weather has gone glorious.

Cheers,
Danny