Lyr Req/Add: He Hey! Why Do We Pay? (J J Niles)

Subject: Lyr Req: He Hey! He Hey! Why Do We Have To Pay?
From: Severn
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 01:23 PM

Need some lyrics and tune to a capstan shanty of Brittish origin with a chorus of:

He Hey, He Hey! Why do we have to pay
For something that we can not carry away?


Thanks in advance!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: He Hey! He Hey! Why Do We Have To Pay?
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 12:43 PM

Written by John Jacob Niles (though claimed to be "traditional") published in 1929. Will try to dig out lyrics.

Subject: Lyr Add: HE HEY, WHY DO WE PAY (John Jacob Niles)
From: Lighter
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 12:43 PM

HE HEY, WHY DO WE PAY

(from John Jacob Niles, Douglas S. Moore, & A. A. Walgren, Songs My Mother Never Taught Me [N.Y.: Macacauley, 1929], pp. 121-22)

When I was a youngster my father said Boy,
You're the kind of a fellow the girls will annoy.

CHORUS:

He, Hey, why do we pay,
For something that we can't carry away, away, away.

When I sailed over the briny sea,
I left three hundred bar maids a weepin' for me.

When the anchor came up, the girls of the town,
Said the money I left would sure go around.

The keeper of the Sailors' Rest,
Locked up his daughter 'cause he knew best.

Sailor men love where love is found,
And often tread over a landlubber's ground.

When I sailed into Tasmerki,
The king locked the queen up to keep her from me.


My own take on this is that some of the lyrics may have been inspired by individual stanzas of "Haul Away, Joe," "Rio Grande," and perhaps "The Hogeye Man." The editors observe that "Tasmerki" is "probably a hatched-up name to rhyme with 'me.'"

In case anybody's wondering, I once asked Stan Hugill about this song and his reply was that he'd never encountered anything that resembled it. It was recorded at least once, by The Four Sergeants on "Bawdy Barracks Ballads" (ABC 245), 1958.

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: He Hey! He Hey! Why Do We Have To Pay
From: Paul Burke
Date: 26 Sep 06 - 11:35 AM

"Tasmerki" could be Tasma quay... but the only two Tasmas known to Live Local are in decidedly elevated parts of the Andes. Maybe the sea level was different in 1929.

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: He Hey! He Hey! Why Do We Have To Pay?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 27 Sep 06 - 08:32 PM

Tasman Quay is in New Zealand, near Mt Maunganui.

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: He Hey! He Hey! Why Do We Have To Pay?
From: Severn
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 02:53 AM

Thanks!

So what I have a partial memory of having heard was a made up rather than cleaned up song, and a typical matter of an "in-de-Niles" creation attributed to some non-existant colorful rustic. I recently found a copy of "The John Jacob Niles Ballad Book" dealing in Child ballad variants used for cheap a while ago, and have seen what the threads last year were talking about with his "sources".

"Venezuela", "I Wonder As I Wander" and a few others were pretty widely recorded and have been absorbed into common knowledge.

Does this use a recognizable existing tune, or one of his own making?

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: He Hey! He Hey! Why Do We Have To Pay?
From: Lighter
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 06:12 PM

The tune sounds like a Niles job. Very slow and romantic.