Barbagal/Daddy Fox - which came first?

Subject: Barbagal/Daddy Fox - which came first?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 16 Aug 05 - 03:15 AM

On the new CD called In Harmony's Way, a collection of songs by a collection of San Francisco Bay Area singers, there's a song called "Daddy Fox," sung by Sylvia Herold. It sounded very familiar, and I finally realized that the tune and most of the chorus was identical to a song called "Barbagal," which is on Gordon Bok's "The February Tapes, vol. II," and also on Bok/Muir/Trickett's "Fashioned in the Clay." Sylvia's verses are in English, and are a version of "The fox went out on a chilly night." "Barbagal" is in Piemontese, a dialect of Italian, and the verses are about an old drunken man.

Now, I assumed that "Daddy Fox" resulted from someone putting "new" old words to the tune of "Barbagal."   But then I happened to come across a website called The Originals, by a man from Holland named Arnold Ruypens (based on his radio show and book by the same name), which says this about the song:

Original: Cantovivo (1979) - Messaggerie Musicali -
Seventies folkband from Piemonte (It) with Alberto Cesa. On their album Leva La Gamba. Lyrics mean nothing; plain sound pleasure. Cesa nails it as "Musica tradizionale inglese, testo in stile non senso". According to folkband Snakes In Exile this song originally came from Ireland. Must have traveled to Italy by sea.

So, did someone from Italy put new words to "Daddy Fox"? Or what? Anybody have the straight dope?

Aloha,
Mark

PS: Buy the CD. It's got some very fine songs and singers, including Mudcatters chanteyranger, RiGGy, radriano, Dave Swan, and Dave's wife Pam (whose Mudcat name I've forgotten, sorry, Pam).

Subject: RE: Barbagal/Daddy Fox - which came first?
From: GUEST,Dave'sWife
Date: 16 Aug 05 - 03:29 AM

and Dave's Wife Pam is NOT me!
(just to add some confusion to the mix)

Subject: RE: Barbagal/Daddy Fox - which came first?
From: Torctgyd
Date: 16 Aug 05 - 06:06 AM

Daddy Fox (according to the song data base on folkinfo.org) is very wide spread and their version was collected in Cornwall and makes a reference to an Irish version. According to the Opies the earliest version is in Gammer Gurton's Galand of 1810.

Versions have been recorded by, among others, Burl Ives, The Copper Family, The Young Tradition, and The Witches of Elswick. In the best tradition of tradition it seems a different traditional tune has replaced the original traditional tune.

Subject: RE: Barbagal/Daddy Fox - which came first?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 17 Aug 05 - 03:14 AM

Here's the chorus of Barbagal:

E foli, fola, follero, e follero, lero, li
O bun om Barbagal pour'om
Diridin don, diridon, poura mi.

And here's the chorus from the version of Daddy Fox by Sylvia Herold (same exact tune):

E foli fola folero
E folero lero li
Up jumped John, ringing on his bell
With a ding dong dilly dong cora mi.

To muddy the waters even more, here are the liner notes from "In Harmony's Way":

"Sylvia's version of this well-known song came from a group of four young British folk songstresses called The Witches of Elswick. They tell us that the words were pu to the tune of 'The Carrion Crow' by Mick Peat, who produces a folk music radio show in England."

Who's on first?

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Barbagal/Daddy Fox - which came first?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 17 Aug 05 - 03:46 AM

Actually, this is the way the chorus is transcribed on the "In Harmony's Way" website.

Hey, fa li, fa la, fa lero,
Hey, fa lero, lero li;
Up jumped John, a-ringin' on his bell,
With a ling dong, dilly dong, kiro mi.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Barbagal/Daddy Fox - which came first?
From: Little Robyn
Date: 17 Aug 05 - 04:14 PM

It looks as if she's combined the 2 songs. The Carrion Crow in DT here

has slightly different words but close enough to get the idea.
Daddy Fox's chorus should be the 'town-o, town-o' type of chorus really. I prefer the Cornish tune (the Young Tradition version) to the American tune (Burl Ives version).
Robyn

Subject: RE: Barbagal/Daddy Fox - which came first?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 17 Aug 05 - 07:55 PM

A very widespread song; you'll find it pretty much wherever English is spoken, set to rather a lot of tunes. The DT has two ancestral texts; it's 500-odd years old (one of the few traditional songs that is genuinely old. Most aren't).

Revival singers who fiddle about with songs, "mixing and matching" tunes and texts that don't belong (historically) together, are not good sources if you want accurate information. They may well turn up something that works, but it will be a modern invention. If they say what they've done, and if people take the trouble to read the sleeve-notes, then all is well; but this sort of question usually comes from people who have heard a song casually -on the radio, perhaps- and so weren't given the details.

Looks like the question is more-or-less dealt with now, anyway.

Subject: RE: Barbagal/Daddy Fox - which came first?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 12:56 AM

I think I first heard the "Daddy Fox" lyrics married to the "Carrion Crow" tune on a old Tradition LP by the Ripley Wayfarers (early-mid 70s I think - I can't seem to put my hands on the LP). The song was re-released on Fellside's "Voices in Harmony" CD. And, checking the liner notes, I see that Mick Peat mentioned above as the source was indeed a member of the Ripley Wayfarers. So there you go.

To my mind it wasn't a perfect fit - Fox is in quatrains, the last line of each being a bit redundant with the "town-o" refrain; Crow is in couplets, so you need to lose some text for each verse.

Subject: RE: Barbagal/Daddy Fox - which came first?
From: Anglo
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 01:04 AM

Sorry, that last post was me. Mudcat seems to keep eating my cookie.

Subject: RE: Barbagal/Daddy Fox - which came first?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 01:29 AM

Well, Malcolm, I may be slow, but at the risk of beating a dead fox, I'm not sure it's been answered completely. I can see that this version of "Daddy Fox" is a fitting of the words to the old fox and goose song into "Carrion Crow." But what about "Barbagal"? I suppose it could be the same thing, somebody putting new Piemontese words to "Carrion Crow." But couldn't it also be the other way around? To my uneducated ear, the chorus of "Carrion Crow," Hey, falero, gil fin-a-garo Hey, falero, gil fin-a-gay, sounds like it could very well derive from an Italianate original like E foli, fola, follero, e follero, lero li.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Barbagal/Daddy Fox - which came first?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 05:24 AM

Looking at the versions listed above i find none of them quite match a version I used to know also called 'Daddy Fox' 1st verse goes.....

Daddy Fox he went out on a winters night
and he prayed for the moon for to give him light
For he'd many many miles for to go that night before he came to the to-own oh.
Town-oh, to-o-own oh
Yes he'd many many miles for go that night before he came to the tow-ow-n oh.

Essentially the same as the Ed McCurdy version but with an elongated refrain/chorus.
Giok

Subject: RE: Barbagal/Daddy Fox - which came first?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 03:11 PM

The Carrion Crow was a political satire relating to some character who chose the wrong side in a dispute and called the King a carrion crow, then ended up worse off as a result.link to song reference
Can't recall dates, but it should be possible to put a date to the song.
The chorus quoted in the above reference is not the "ling dong dilly dong kiro me", so it could be that the tune we are discussing was a later match-up and not the original one used.
That doesn't solve the question, but it may be that the satire was put to your Italian tune in recent times.
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Barbagal/Daddy Fox - which came first?
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 03:15 PM

Giok, that sounds like what Burl Ives sings.

Subject: RE: Barbagal/Daddy Fox - which came first?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 08:35 PM

I have posted the Piemont folk song Barbagal in thread 22988. The version by Cesa is noted as being sung to an old English folk song. It was sung to the tune of "The Carrion Crow" by Bok et al. ("Fox")

Both are valid folk lyrics. I don't think we know the original tunes for either one of them.

Subject: RE: Barbagal/Daddy Fox - which came first?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 08:40 PM

Oops! Accidently hit submit.

"Barbagal" is a drunkard who rides his horse through town at night waking everybody, proclaiming he is drunk. No relation to the Fox story.

Subject: RE: Barbagal/Daddy Fox - which came first?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 09:21 AM

Linguistically, I think barbagal was first.

The daddy fox song also uses "e foli fola folero,..."

The words are related to the French expression: Il est fou, meaning "he is mad", since barbagal is about a drunkard riding his horse through town, it seems to me it's a description of him, he is mad. It has nothing to do with the fox, so I assume it was