Origins: Speed the Plough (or Plow if you prefer)

Subject: Origins: Speed the Plough (or Plow if you prefer)
From: Torctgyd
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 08:04 AM

Okay, I know it's not a song but where and when did the tune come from?

T

Sorry if this has been done before but I did try a search of the forum and found nothing relevant.

Subject: RE: Origins: Speed the Plough (or Plow if you prefer)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 08:23 AM

Some background here, though the original source was surely a downloadable ringtone site . . .

Subject: RE: Origins: Speed the Plough (or Plow if you pref
From: Paul Burke
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 08:27 AM

A quick google brought this up:

GOD SPEED THE PLOW -- "God speed the plough, 'a wish for success or prosperity,' was originally a phrase in a 15th-century song sung by ploughmen on Plough Monday, the first Monday after Twelfth Day, which is the end of the Christmas holidays, when farm laborers returned to the plough. On this day ploughmen customarily went from door to door dressed in white and drawing a plough, soliciting 'plough money' to spend in celebration. "Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins" by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997).

Subject: RE: Origins: Speed the Plough (or Plow if you prefer)
From: Torctgyd
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 08:46 AM

Thanks for the link Countess R, Looks like a mine of information on many things. I didn't know there were two different tunes called Speed the Plough. Didn't find anything on origin tho'.

Subject: RE: Origins: Speed the Plough (or Plow if you prefer)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 08:47 AM

soliciting 'plough money' to spend in celebration

Hah! That's one way of putting it! East Anglian Molly Dancers use it as a thinly disguised version of demanding money with menances. I think the ploughboys did it at that time of year because they had nothing else to do, the ground being too hard to plough. Colin Cater has written an excellent modern song describing the custom:

Penny For The Ploughboys

recorded by Pete Coe on In Paper Houses

Subject: RE: Origins: Speed the Plough (or Plow if you pref
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 09:16 AM

Great song that goes down like a lead balloon when a townie like Pete sings it to a prediminantly rural / agricultural audience.

Subject: RE: Origins: Speed the Plough (or Plow if you prefer)
From: masato sakurai
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 11:28 AM

See The Fiddler's Companion (scroll down).

Subject: RE: Origins: Speed the Plough (or Plow if you prefer)
From: Flash Company
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 11:38 AM

The verse which you often see on two-handled mugs called'The Farmer''s Arms' is:-

Ihave lawns, I have bowers,
I have fruit, I have flowers,
And the lark is my morning alarmer,
So, jolly boys now, here's God speed the plough,
Long life and success to the farmer.

FC

Subject: RE: Origins: Speed the Plough (or Plow if you prefer)
From: Torctgyd
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 12:01 PM

Very interesting Masato, but the none of the ABC versions look like the version I know (although I admit to not really being up on ABC).

Subject: RE: Origins: Speed the Plough (or Plow if you prefer)
From: masato sakurai
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 12:10 PM

Torctgyd,

Which tune are you familiarized with?

JC's ABC Tune Finder (Speed the Plough).

Subject: RE: Origins: Speed the Plough (or Plow if you prefer)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 01:09 PM

What a fascinating new way of wasting time! I played MIDIs 1 - 20 in JC's Tune Finder, all of which were identifiable as Speed The Plough as I know it with some resembling Scotland The Brave a little more than others. 5 and 16 were most like how I play it. Then, by clicking on the text format you get the sources: 5 is Winterbourn Morris and 16 is the Fiddler's Companion. Which is where I got it from in the first place.

Subject: RE: Origins: Speed the Plough (or Plow if you pref
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 02:58 PM

Money was not demanded with menaces on Plough Monday, but if you didn't pay up in gold, or beer, or some such acceptable currency, you were likley to have you garden ploughed up. More of a threat than a menace.....

Subject: RE: Origins: Speed the Plough (or Plow if you prefer)
From: GUEST,3 Left Feet
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 06:50 PM

The WebFoot page that Countess R quoted is a trifle odd - its discography doesn't include the 1930s version by the Morris Motors Band that i.i.r.c. most of the "new wave" bands e.g. Old Swan, New Victory etc got it from. It's the opening track on Stepping Up on Topic, the best anthology of English ceilidh bands. It also questions whether anybody ever danced to Tiger Moth's version - well I did lots of times in the 80's and again at Sidmouth 2004, and so did everybody else. Love the key changes, gives it lots of extra lift.

Subject: RE: Origins: Speed the Plough (or Plow if you pref
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 18 Aug 05 - 11:49 PM

Guest 18 Aug 9:16 am -- huh? Which Pete? What words (since its primarily a tune that folks are talking about)? Elaborate, please.

~ B in T

Subject: RE: Origins: Speed the Plough (or Plow if you pref
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 01:37 AM

David Mamet wrote a play called Speed-the-Plow, a satire on Hollywood. It's been said by some critics that his use of the old English farming phrase in the title is an ironic comparison between the staid and wholesome life of the 16th century English farmer and the glitzy amorality of the 20th century Hollywood producer. Or not. In any event, nobody has apparently been able to figure out why-the-hyphens.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Origins: Speed the Plough (or Plow if you pref
From: Paul Burke
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 06:01 AM

The Manchester Klezmer lot shifted Speed the Plough to the Ahava Raba scale (as used in much Klez music). The result was a pretty good tune that went under the name of the Vulgar Bulgar- sadly not on their tunes page .

Subject: RE: Origins: Speed the Plough (or Plow if you prefer)
From: Torctgyd
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 08:40 AM

I tried to post earlier but mudcat went down (for me anyway). Having converted the version I know to ABC it does indeed look similar to whats above particularly No. 5 as stated by CR.

So according to the notes in the fiddler's tune book it was written by a Scots-born Irishman living and working in London about 200 years ago (does it seem to have spread suspiciously quickly around the country after that to you?)

Subject: RE: Origins: Speed the Plough (or Plow if you prefer)
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 10:53 PM

Information at the Fiddlers Companion is included uncritically (ascertainable truth, lies and speculation alike), and the sources of comments are not always made clear: it's very useful for pointers, but if you want to take your investigation further you'll have to check the same sources yourself and draw your own conclusions based on whatever verifiable evidence you can find.

If O'Neill is correct (and he often wasn't), Moorehead seems only to have lived in Ireland for a fairly short time; whether there's any "Irish" flavour to Speed the Plough I couldn't say, though if there is it's not immediately obvious to me.

You'll find a few sets of 19th century sheet music at The Lester S. Levy Collection. The only dated example is of 1831.

Not to be confused with the completely unrelated song mentioned by "flash company". The expression, usually "God speed the plough", was of course proverbial, so to be found very commonly in all sorts of situations.