songs where the woman comes out on top

Subject: songs where the woman comes out on top
From:
Date: 08 Jun 06 - 08:17 PM

I'm looking for songs where the woman comes out on top. Ballads are best. Any folk songs would be good. Where the woman doesn't end up pregnant, heart-broken, or dead.

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: jaze
Date: 08 Jun 06 - 08:28 PM

How about "Jackaroe"? A wealthy merchants daughter who dresses as a man to find her true love in the war and actually does!

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: freightdawg
Date: 08 Jun 06 - 08:31 PM

Is the title of this thread a double entendre?

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: IvanB
Date: 08 Jun 06 - 08:42 PM

"Willy Taylor" He's pressed before they can marry, she signs on board a ship to go find him, finds he's married a rich young lady, shoots him and is rewarded with command of a ship.

"The Outlandish Knight" Child #4, also known by various other names. In most of them the maiden outwits the knight, leading to his death or to his looking the fool outside her father's gates.

"A Blacksmith Courted me" Another one where the man marries another. Her response, is, basically, "Well that was stupid of me, but the best revenge is a good life."

There's another one where the young lady is angered by the long lost lover's testing upon his return and tells him to get lost, but I can't remember the name.

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: GUEST,TJ
Date: 08 Jun 06 - 08:49 PM

"The Elf Knight", in which a young woman is lured into the woods by an unpleasant little fellow who turns out to be a serial murderer, but she successfully induces him to fall asleep and then stabs him with his own knife. Moral of the story: don't date elves.

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Susan of DT
Date: 08 Jun 06 - 08:56 PM

Broomfield Wager
Maid on the Shore
Crafty Maid's Policy
Phoebe and Equinoxal/Old Grumble

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 08 Jun 06 - 08:58 PM

Yonder Stands Little Maggie is the only Bluegrass song that I know of where the woman comes out ahead.

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Abby Sale
Date: 08 Jun 06 - 09:58 PM

Cherry Tree Coral
Bonnie Lass of Anglesee
Baffled Knight, #112 & all its varients - Shepherd L
Birken Tree (not the one in DT, the one where she tricks him - again)
Tailor's Breeches (in its way and all the other prostitute/beggar lass songs where he winds up with a std & she winds up with his money & clothes. Dozens of these.
The Half Hitch
Most songs that begin "The Female ..."
Get Up and Bar the Door (?)
Prince Heathen (Carthy's version, anyway)
Ned of the Hill
Devil And Feathery Wife
Farmer's Crust Wife

Oh, I think there's plenty

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: mrdux
Date: 08 Jun 06 - 10:13 PM

Sovay, about an apparently successful woman highwayperson, whose lover turns out to be faithful. A version is in the DT. Bert Lloyd's version adds this final verse (our heroine to her lover (and erstwhile robbery victim)):

"I only did it for to know
Whether you were a man or no;
If you would given me that ring", she said,
"I'd pull the trigger,
I'd pull the trigger and shot you dead!"

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Deckman
Date: 08 Jun 06 - 10:28 PM

I was going to mention "EQUINOXIAL AND PHOBE", but some else already did. So, I won't mention "EQINONIAL AND PHOBE" again ... tonight ... maybe. Bob

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Little Robyn
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 12:55 AM

Mike Waterson's song

A stitch in time.
Here in Digitrad.
Robyn

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 01:01 AM

The Friar And The Well.

eric

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: bfdk
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 10:20 AM

Bloke "hires" a bonny maid and refuses to pay. The song ends

"For I will hae the last laugh
For I've left ye wi' the pox.."

From "Fair Maid of London Town", to be found on this CD.

Best wishes,

Bente

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: nutty
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 12:03 PM

I would love the words to this song .... the chorus goes something like.......

So I'll go and I'll GET BLUE BLAZING BLIND DRUNK
JUST TO GIVE MICKEY A WARNING
AND THEN, JUST FOR SPITE,
I'LL STAY OUT ALL NIGHT
AND COME ROLLING HOME DRUNK IN THE MORNING

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 12:28 PM

"The Ten Dollar Bill"
a young serving woman at a 'gathering' is seduced by cad who gives her a $10 note for her trouble....so next year at the gathering, he settles back to smoke cigars with the boys, when the girl walks up and plops a baby in his lap...."What's this?", he cries...."do you not remember last year when you gave a girl a note for 'services'? Here's your change."

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 12:31 PM

also...Unfortunate Miss Bailey in the DT.

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 12:35 PM

Eggs and Marrowbone

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 12:41 PM

"The Fair Flower of Northumberland" - Maiden is jilted by her lover, upbraided for her foolishness by her father, but then welcomed home warmly by her mother who notes that she's not the first romantic girl who has been beguiled by young Scots, and she's still the fair flower of Northumberland regardless! This is a bit unusual in such songs, where such maidens normally end up tragically dead, to suit the style of the time. Evidently her mother had an extra measure of both common sense and compassion. She must have seen her own young self in her daughter.

Then there's "She Belongs To Me", by Bob Dylan. It's quite clear that that woman always comes out on top.

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Scoville
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 12:48 PM

There's one I know as "Diddly-Aye" where the girl is the one who plays the field while her sailor boyfriend is away. Pretty humorous, really. I'll see if I can find the words somewhere.

I know there are others. I'll have to look through my old C&W stuff tonight.



This isn't really true of "Wagoner's Lad" (aka "Hard is the Fortune") but at least the girl has the satisfaction of the verse (as I learned it):

"Your parents don't like me because I am poor,
They say I'm not worthy of entering you door,
My work it is honest, my money's my own,
And if they don't like me they can leave us alone."

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Sooz
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 12:50 PM

The Fair Maid of Islington
The Widow's promise by Mick Ryan

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Cattail
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 01:08 PM

The willow tree
(this may have already been mentioned in other variations)

A stitch in time

Cheers

Cattail!

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 01:09 PM

A "maid errant" misleads several "solicitous" gentlemen and ends up a horse to the good in The Horse Thief. If you use a PC and Windows Media Player, you can hear an excerpt of Claudia Schmidt singing it here (first album, song no. 7).

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Scoville
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 01:15 PM

Here's a slightly different version:

Twiddles
Janie Meneely

When the boats all get to sailing
and the men are off and gone
What about the women
who are up and left alone?
Do you think they sit and twiddle thumbs
until their men come home?
Oh there's other things to twiddle
when a girl's left on her own.

Oh, it's twiddley ai dee ai dee o,
twiddley ai dee ay
Well it's lots of times a man will leave you
broken with dismay
Oh, it's twiddley ai dee ai dee o,
twiddley ai dee ay
There's others willin' to twiddle
when your man is gone away

I remember Nelly,
she was young and she was gay.
She won the heart of Captain Dan
but then he sailed away.
He left her high and dry
with just a kiss upon the chin
But as his ship went sailing out
another ship sailed in.

And then there was Lucinda Brown
as fair as any maid.
Her true love he went a voyaging,
a sailor man by trade.
"Keep the fire burning, love,"
those were the words he spoke.
So she found herself another man
to keep the fire stoked.

When Lucinda.s man came back
and knocked upon her door
She was as glad to see him
as she'd ever been before.
He left her sleeping in her bed
but Lucy didn't care
'Course the poor guy in the closet
sure could use a little air.

Oh you hear a lot of stories
'bout the sailors and their sport.
About how every sailor
has a girl in every port.
But if you'd added two and two
you'd figure out right quick
That it's just because the lassies
have a lad on every ship.

Oh, it's twiddley ai dee ai dee o,
twiddley ai dee ay
Well it's lots of times a man will leave you
broken with dismay
Oh, it's twiddley ai dee ai dee o,
twiddley ai dee ay
There's others willin' to twiddle
when your man is gone away

Oh, it's twiddley ai dee ai dee o,
twiddley ai dee ay
Well it's lots of times a man will leave you
broken with dismay
Oh, it's twiddley ai dee ai dee o,
twiddley ai dee ay
There's other Willie's willin' to twiddle
when your Willie's gone away.

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 02:39 PM

Lovely Joan, where the heroine rips off her wood-be robber & ravager, riding away on his own horse with his (no doubt ill-gotten) bags of gold. You GO girl...

PS: I Freudianly mis-typed the above as his "bags of golf" -

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 02:40 PM

I meant "would-be". Double meanings are working overtime today -

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 02:43 PM

Stagger Lee.

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 02:54 PM

Steve, is there a woman in the plot of Stagger Lee (apart from the offstage "very sickly wife")? The bulldog was barking at the two men who gambled in the dark, so I'm not clear how a woman triumphs in this story - ??? Unless I'm thinking of the wrong Stagger Lee.

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 03:06 PM

On second thought, I like your take on it much better!

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 03:21 PM

Lord Thomas and Lady Margaret. After being chased out of an abusive relationship, Lady Margaret poisons Lord Thomas and promises to bury him, as he's dying.

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 03:22 PM

Before or after?

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: bfdk
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 04:12 PM

Nutty,

Blue Bleezing Blind Drunk is in the database.

Best wishes,

Bente

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: GUEST,Jacqui
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 04:46 PM

Martinmas Time! (it's on the Digitrad)

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 04:50 PM

I'm shocked! How can a thread like this come this far without mentioning The Devil & the Farmer's Wife? Also known as The Farmer's Curst Wife.

Or We Never Mention Aunt Clara" (who lives on the French Riviera)?

Or The Lonely Willow Tree?

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 04:59 PM

Oyster girl.

She picked both his pockets and then down the stairs she went and left him with a basket of oysters...

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 05:24 PM

Isn't there a song on a simiar theme in The English Book Of Singing Penguins called The Basket Of Eggs?

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 06:17 PM

I'd say the women come out on top a lot more often than not, in folksongs anyway.

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: GUEST,Carol Francis
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 06:23 PM

Fair Annie, at least in Martin Simpson's exquisite version.

Carol

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 07:13 PM

"The Ten Dollar Bill"

is a modern update of an old English one...

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Teribus
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 07:33 PM

"Maids when you're young never wed an old man"

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 07:47 PM

Uncle Dave, Abby mentioned the Farmer's CRUST Wife in post number 8. I wonder if she's related to the cherry-pie baker who was engaged to Billy Boy Billy Boy?

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Gorgeous Gary
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 08:52 PM

A personal favorite is Fairport Convention's "Naked Highwayman". The title character finds himself wooed, then stripped of clothes and guns by his female rival. Who then goes on to rob the coach and is last seen riding the poor highwayman's horse into the sunset...

-- Gary

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Dave Ruch
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 08:59 PM

Wisconsin
The Brisk Young Butcher

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 09:02 PM

That's the same plotline as Lovely Joan, though I haven't heard (or else can't remember) Fairport's version, so don't know if it has a different melody or words. Great story, though.

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 09:04 PM

The 19th-century English original of "Ten-Dollar Bill" is called "Christmas Goose".

Eppie Morrie (Child 223). Woman abducted by a gang, one of whose members wants to marry her, wrestles with him all night & does not let him deflower her. In the morning, the man she has in mind happens by & gives her a ride home.

The False Lover Won Back (Child 218). Man who has gotten a woman in trouble announces that he is deserting her, as usual. She follows him and persists in her entreaties. He tries for a while to buy her off with gifts, but at length realizes that he has been behaving badly, professes his love for her, and turns his horse around. (A Child ballad without a single felony! MacColl & Seeger sing it beautifully.)

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: The distinction between qualitative and quantitative differences is one of degree. :||

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 11:10 PM

Bonnie, In Lord Thomas & Lady Margaret, she comments as Lord Thomas is saying: I"m weary, Lady Margaret, He said,I'm weary drinking with thee, and so was I Lady Margaret said, when you hunted your hounds after me. But, I'll bury you Lord Thomas She said, just as if you were one of my own, and when my good lord comes home, I'll claim you were my sister's son.

Last two verses, so I guess she waits till he's dead to bury him. I wonder what he did to get banished, even by the aristocracy.

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: GUEST,Julia
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 11:41 PM

My favorite of these is the "Maid on the shore"
last verse goes
And yonder she stands all alone on the sand
A-waving her handkerchief fair-o
Saying "you are the Captain who plows the salt sea
And I'm still the maid on the shore (oh shore)
I'm still the maid on the shore

And how about "Sauvey" where the girl dresses as a robber and tests her lover by trying to rob him of the ring she has given him?

The Gardner Child is another where she tells him to take his paidle and....

Great stuff
Julia

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: Tootler
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 06:59 AM

"The Highwayman Outwitted"

Girl on the way home from market is held up by a highwayman. He gets her to hold his horse which she promptly jumps on and rides home to find that not only she has she escaped, but she has acquired a substantial fortune in his saddlebags.

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 07:31 AM

In "The Dreadful Ghost" she is driven to suicide but her ghost gets him in the end...

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 07:50 AM

ooooo, painful...

Subject: RE: songs where the woman comes out on top
From: GUEST,Kenny B Sans Kuki
Date: 11 Jun 06 - 02:50 PM

Jock o Hazeldean
Monongaheela Sal