Lyr Req: Sailor's Hornpipe

Subject: RE: lyrics to Sailors Hornpipe
From: Charley Noble
Date: 02 Mar 04 - 05:12 PM

Barry-

Your verse about "Iron Peg" is a keeper. I'm sure it would have been well received in some of the best Sailortown establishments around 1900.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: lyrics to Sailors Hornpipe
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 03 Mar 04 - 05:11 AM

Ting a ling goddamn
Find a woman if you can
If you can't find a woman
Find a clean old man
If you'r ever in Gibralter
Try a flying fuck at Walter
Can you do the double shuffle
When your balls hang low

Do your balls hang low
Can you heave them to and fro
Can you tie 'em in a knot
Can you tie 'em in a bow
Can you throw them o'er your shoulder
Like a continental soldier
Can you do the double shuffle
when your balls hang low

Traditional, from ' Bawdy Ballads ' Ed Cray
eric

Subject: RE: lyrics to Sailors Hornpipe
From: GUEST,Ian
Date: 18 Mar 04 - 03:04 PM

How funny is this site! Amazing

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sailors Hornpipe
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 11 Jun 10 - 11:05 AM

To revert back to Malcolm's post about 'Jack Robinson' - the song was composed by comic song writer Thomas Hudson (1791-1844).

The phrase before you can say Jack Robinson was already in existence by then.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sailors Hornpipe
From: Bounty Hound
Date: 11 Jun 10 - 05:29 PM

Do your balls hang low
can you swing 'em to and fro,
can you tie them in a knot
can you tie them in a bow
do you get a funny feeling
when you swing them to the ceiling
you can always join the navy
if your balls hang low


Variations on a theme!

Subject: Lyr Add: DO YOUR BALLS HANG LOW?
From: Haruo
Date: 10 Oct 10 - 11:30 PM

The following version was just posted to the Yahoo!group of the AA hall I sobered up in. This is not our typical topic, but it's welcome, and seems to be different from any of the specific versions I've found here or elsewhere:

DO YOUR BALLS HANG LOW?
Tune: Sailor's Hornpipe

Tiddly winks young man, get a woman if you can,
If you cann't get a woman get a clean old man,
From the lofty heights of Malta to the shores of old Gibraltar,
Can you do the double shuffle with your balls in a can.

Do Your balls hang low, can you swing 'em to and fro?
Can you tie 'em in a knot, can you tie 'em in a bow?
Can you swing'em o'er your shoulder like a European soldier?
When you do a double shuffle do your balls hang low.

Do your balls hang tight, can you hide 'em in a fight?
Can you tuck 'en neath your arm, can you keep 'em out of sight?
Are they tough enough to buckle up another man's hard knuckles?
When you do a double shuffle do your balls hang tight.

Do your balls hang loose, as loose as a goose?
Can you slide 'em down the hall, can you bounce 'em off the wall?
Does it really make you stammer when you hit 'em with a hammer?
When you do a double shuffle, do your balls hang loose?

=====

This is the first one I've seen that says "European" instead of "Continental"; doesn't feel right. Otherwise not bad at all.

Haruo

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sailor's Hornpipe
From: Haruo
Date: 10 Oct 10 - 11:34 PM

Apparently the source of this is this site (which may also have other versions of songs that could enrich the Mudcat.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sailor's Hornpipe
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Oct 10 - 04:47 AM

I have always known "Do your balls hang low?' to the tune that also carries 'In the South of France, Where they do the hula prance, He'll sing "Nelly put your belly close to mine"', as well as to the Jacky Tar hornpipe: ~~ a mock oriental tune which I can't at the moment precisely place; is it perhaps from Samson & Delilah? Can anyone identify the tune I mean?

W H Logan's The Pedlar's Pack Of Ballads & Songs [Edinburgh 1869] also contains Jack Robinson; & also, which no-one above has mentioned, a song called JACKY TAR which has the refrain "With his trousers on";
of which Logan notes "The air to which it has been sung is the well-known dance tune known as the Sailor's Hornpipe, which, it is believed, was danced long before the tune was rendered vocal". Jack-ashore courts a girl successfully, with, it is stressed at the end of each verse, 'his trousers on' ~~ presumably with ref to the fact that, as Phillis Cunnington & Catherine Lucas note in 'Occupational costume in England from the 11th century to 1914' {A&C Black 1967}: "Trousers. or trowsers were not commonly worn in the 18C. Their use was restricted to labourers, sailors, and soldiers, and on occasion to the country squire."

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sailor's Hornpipe
From: pavane
Date: 11 Oct 10 - 06:53 AM

I thought tune "Jacky Tar", or "Jacky Tar with his trowsers on" was a completely different tune (i.e. not the same as College Hornpipe, often called Sailor's hornpipe).

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sailor's Hornpipe
From: Lighter
Date: 11 Oct 10 - 08:42 AM

The familiar tune MtheGM refers to is James Thornton's "Streets of Cairo" (1893):

http://www.shira.net/streets-of-cairo.htm

Listen to the great Midi! (And the splendidly constrasting moods of the song's two parts!)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sailor's Hornpipe
From: doc.tom
Date: 11 Oct 10 - 09:25 AM

And what's the betting that Mother Rackett is our old friend Sally - just a bit older?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sailor's Hornpipe
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Oct 10 - 01:37 PM

Many thanks, Lighter. There is a most informative Wiki entry on this, I find from following your lead.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sailor's Hornpipe
From: pavane
Date: 12 Oct 10 - 04:27 AM

I have Jacky Tar (hornpipe) in a book, and did learn to play it at one time. I think Nic Jones may have recorded it, too - I will check.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sailor's Hornpipe
From: pavane
Date: 12 Oct 10 - 05:29 AM

On : From the Devil to a Stranger (1978), Nic Jones, unfortunately not available (See Celtic Music threads)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sailor's Hornpipe
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 12 Oct 10 - 06:30 PM

MtheGM,
We always sang (at about 9 years old)

               "All the girls in Ceylon
                Run around with nothing on.
                All the girls in Calcutta
                Do a weewee in the gutter.
                All the girls in Spain
                Have a piddle down the drain.
                Nellie put your belly next to mine."

accompanied by a pseudo-Arabian Nights wiggly dance.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sailor's Hornpipe
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Oct 10 - 04:05 AM

Nice ~~thank you, Eliza.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sailor's Hornpipe
From: clueless don
Date: 13 Oct 10 - 08:33 AM

I was just looking over this thread, and it is interesting to see that people think "Do your <body parts of your choice> hang low?" is sung to the tune of The Sailor's Hornpipe. Perhaps it is, somewhere in the world. But the tune I know for "Do your ..." is distinct from The Sailor's Hornpipe.

Don

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sailor's Hornpipe
From: JWB
Date: 13 Oct 10 - 08:54 AM

Don, like you I've always heard the "...hang low" words sung to a variant of the verse melody from Turkey in the Straw. Perhaps that's the Yank tradition?

Jerry

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sailor's Hornpipe
From: Vic Smith
Date: 13 Oct 10 - 09:00 AM

               "All the girls in Ceylon
                Run around with nothing on.
                All the girls in Calcutta
                Do a weewee in the gutter.
                All the girls in Spain
                Have a piddle down the drain.
                Nellie put your belly next to mine."


.... and they say traditional song is dead!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sailor's Hornpipe
From: pavane
Date: 13 Oct 10 - 09:39 AM

I have only ever heard "...hang low " sung to college (sailors) hornpipe here in UK. Turkey in the straw is not as well known here, I suppose.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sailor's Hornpipe
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 13 Oct 10 - 10:32 AM

The usual song to ' Turkey in the Straw ' is

The cow kicked Nellie in the belly in the barn, x3

And the doctor said it wouldn't do her any harm.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sailor's Hornpipe
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 13 Oct 10 - 02:46 PM

Vic Smith

Depends how old a song has to be to be called traditional. I sang "All the girls in Ceylon" in the early fifties, and no doubt it wasn't new even then! The Opies ("The Lore and Language of Children", I think) did quite an extensive study of children's chants and songs, and it turns out many of them have extremely old origins. Anyway, it made me giggle as a child, I'm ashamed to say!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sailor's Hornpipe
From: Ged Fox
Date: 02 Jan 14 - 01:27 PM

Found in "Benton of the Royal Mounted", R.S. Kendall, 1918:

'... the old barrack-room chorus "Johnny Green," which, to the tune of the "Sailor's Hornpipe" goes, as all Service men are aware:

    "Oh, say, Johnny Green! did you ever see the Queen?
    Did you ever catch a Blue-jacket lovin' a Marine?
    May the Rock of Gibraltar take a runnin' jump at Malta
    If I ever see a nigger with a white—rum-tum." '

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sailor's Hornpipe
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Jan 14 - 01:19 PM

I remember from long ago [1940s] an exchange in ITMA between Tommy Handley and Clarence Wright, who played the salesman who always began "Good morning. Nice day...". He once offered his goods musically to the hornpipe tune. All I remember is

"Do you want some jam? Or a lovely tin of ham?
Or some [something else that rhymes with 'jam']?"
"No I don't so you'd better hop it
Or you're very sure to cop it
...."

Sorry about the gaps; but it was 70+ years ago...

~M~

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sailor's Hornpipe
From: GUEST,stu
Date: 27 Mar 20 - 01:43 PM

When the Rock of Jib-aar-altaa takes a flying leep at Malta, you can always tell a salior with his night shirt on

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sailor's Hornpipe
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 13 Oct 22 - 05:19 PM

Lyrics the same as Malcolm Douglas, 03 Aug 01 above. No music.
[The Universal Songster; Or, Museum of Mirth, 1825]


"On board a well-disciplined man-of-war, no person except the officers is allowed to speak during the performance of the various evolutions. When a great many men are employed together, a fifer or fiddler usually plays some of their favourite tunes; and it is quite delightful to see the glee with which Jack will “stamp and go,” keeping exact time to “Jack's the lad,” or the “College Hornpipe.” On board a revenue cruiser for want of music, it is customary for one of the men to give them a song, which makes the crew unite their strength, and pull together."
[R.B., A Cruise of a Revenue Cutter, The United Service Journal and Naval and Military Magazine, Pt.I, 1834]


““Steam's up sir.” touching his cap to the captain, and with great difficulty checking himself from executing another pas de seul round the decks as the ship's fiddler struck up “Jack's the Lad,” while the crew were engaged in running the galley up to the davits.”
[Cox, Nearly Eaten, or The Professor's Adventure in Haiti, The Boy's Own Paper, No.271, Vol.VI, 1884]

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sailor's Hornpipe
From: clueless don
Date: 13 Oct 22 - 05:32 PM

There was a Disney Sing-Along video with words to Sailor's Hornpipe. I suspect the words were written by Disney staff writers. I don't have it handy, but some of the words were something like:

Oh I love to live on the rolling sea
Oh a sailor's life is the life for me
and I never ever ever
do a thing about the weather
'cause the weather never ever does a thing for me.