Origins: guy guy guy

Subject: Origins: guy guy guy
From: Fay
Date: 11 Jun 06 - 11:02 AM

I'm looking for backgound on a version of this bonfire night song. we got it from Martyn Wyndham Reed's Maypoles to Mistletoe album but don't have the details. Anyone able to help?
Fay xx

Subject: RE: Origins: guy guy guy
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 11 Jun 06 - 12:03 PM

See Bob Copper, 'A Song for Every Season', Heinenmann, 1971, pp 171-2, for a text from Lewes which contains the lines

Holler, boys holler, boys, make the bells ring,
Holler, boys, holler, boys, God save the King.

Chanted rather than sung in this case. The text is quoted (twice, with various typos, the final line omitted and the book wrongly named) in an old discussion here:

Up the long ladder.

Forms of the lines were also used in Bonfire Night luck-visits and celebrations elsewhere in Sussex and doubtless also further afield. A quick web search reveals many sites which quote them (including the House of Commons Information Office), though very few credit any source. A lot of Bonfire Societies seem to use them.

The song or chant can be traced to the 19th century broadside press. See Bodleian: Johnson Ballads 446 (W S Fortey, London, between 1858 and 1885), Harding B 11(2683) (D Batchelar, London) and Johnson Ballads 1267 (J Ford & Son, London).

Subject: Lyr Add: GUY, GUY, GUY (from Arky's Toast)
From: GUEST,Jim Ward
Date: 11 Jun 06 - 12:24 PM

This is the song sung by Arky's Toast in the original production of Maypoles to Mistletoe. It was put together by the group, based on traditional 'bonfire prayers' recited by bonfire societies around Sussex, Kent and elsewhere.

Guy! Guy! Guy! Stick him up on high!
Stick him on a lamp-post and there let him die!

A ha'penny poke to feed the pope
A pennyworth's cheese to make him choke
A pint of beer to wash his sins
And a good old fire to roast him.

Guy! Guy! Guy! Stick him up on high!
Stick him on a lamp-post and there let him die!
Hollah Boys! Hollah Boys! God Save the King!
Hollah Boys! Hollah Boys! God Save the King!
Hollah Boys! Hollah Boys! God Save the King!
Hollah Boys! Hollah Boys! God Save the King!

We'll burn his body and burn his head
And then we'll say Guy Fawkes is dead
They say he had a hearty try
To blow Westminster hall sky-high.

As I was marching across the fields
I met a beggar blacking his heels
I asked him if he could fight
His face and beard as black as night.

Now give the old Guy a penny
For we know he ain't got many
If you ain't got a penny, an ha'penny will do
If you ain't got an ha'penny, God Bless You

Subject: RE: Origins: guy guy guy
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 11 Jun 06 - 12:25 PM

I should add that the above is the same message (though with the Mudcat reference added, since we are here) that I posted to the TradSong list in answer to Fay's enquiry there, where she quoted the lines

Holler boys holler boys God save the King,
Holler boys, holler boys God save the King.

I didn't immediately notice that they weren't quoted in the question here.

I may as well add a link to the broadside prints at  Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads:

Speeches for the Fifth of November

This includes another edition I missed earlier: Johnson Ballads 2066 (J K Green, Walworth).

Subject: RE: Origins: guy guy guy
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 11 Jun 06 - 12:31 PM

The "Arky's Toast" collation is also posted in thread  Guy Fawkes - arky's toast, though apparently with some mis-hearings.

Subject: RE: Origins: guy guy guy
From: Fay
Date: 11 Jun 06 - 02:10 PM

smashing, thanks very much - fay xx

Subject: RE: Origins: guy guy guy
From: Artful Codger
Date: 11 Jun 06 - 06:13 PM

And there's Martin Mull's song "Men, men, men":

...Men, men, men,
It's a ship all filled with men.
We never have to lift a seat;
There's no one here but men!