Lyr Req: Steelos (John Tams) - about steel rolling

Subject: Lyr Req: John Tams Song about Steel Rolling
From: The Walrus
Date: 14 Oct 06 - 09:56 PM

Hi,

I don't know if anyone caught the BBC programme on the Cambridge Festival on Saturday, but there was a John Tams song about hot rolling of steel.
Unfortunately, the tune is still running through my head, but I can't recall much of the lyric.

The only bit which has stuck is:

Going down to *********,
Get myself a start,
Dinna let her cobble, she'll tear the place apart,
Catch 'er as she   ************** (travels?)
Throw the bugger back
Keep you tongs upon the metal
And your eyes upon the track.

Does anyone have the full lyric please?

Any help appreciated.

Many Thanks.

Walrus

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: John Tams Song about Steel Rolling
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 14 Oct 06 - 10:34 PM

Can't help you but do you k now the one about rolling steel how do you feel as in the chuck you spin..if you felt like me you would roll right out and never roll back in (not sure if words are exact.) But it is a great song. mg

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: John Tams Song about Steel Rolling
From: Little Robyn
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 04:51 AM

That's not Factory Lad that The Walrus is quoting above.
It sounds more like Pete Seeger's Union Miner song.
Robyn

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: John Tams Song about Steel Rolling
From: Peace
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 05:09 AM

I fell in love with his "You Don't Know Me Anymore". http://homepage.ntlworld.com/paul.thorp/ There are many of his lyrics available there, but alas, those you seek seem not to be amongst them.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: John Tams Song about Steel Rolling
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 05:35 AM

He sang this one at Fylde, its on the new radio ballards cd, can't remember the title but he wrote it especially for the project.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: John Tams Song about Steel Rolling
From: ragdall
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 07:43 AM

STEELOS by JOHN TAMS

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: John Tams Song about Steel Rolling
From: BanjoRay
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 02:20 PM

I think Steelo's was the local name for Steel, Peach and Tozer (sp) - a huge steelworks between Sheffield and Rotherham.
Ray

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: John Tams Song about Steel Rolling
From: Peace
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 02:26 PM

I think it may be on "The Radio Ballads: The Song of Steel".

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: John Tams Song about Steel Rolling
From: oggie
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 04:39 PM

Available to listen to on Radio 2's website under the New Radio Ballads link from the folk page.

All the best

oggie

PS also gives the background etc to the song

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: John Tams Song about Steel Rolling
From: ragdall
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 09:46 PM

Doesn't my link work?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: John Tams Song about Steel Rolling
From: Anglo
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 02:24 AM

Ragdall - yes your link works fine. But people contributing to threads here don't always read what has come before.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: John Tams Song about Steel Rolling
From: ragdall
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 03:20 AM

Anglo,
Thanks for explaining. I thought I must be doing something wrong and that the link only works on my own computer.

rags

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: John Tams Song about Steel Rolling
From: The Walrus
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 05:29 AM

Thanks to all who contributed to this thread (esp. to ragdall for the link).

Walrus

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: John Tams Song about Steel Rolling
From: oggie
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 05:45 AM

Sorry ragdall, my link station had 'fallen over' so only current links worked, hence youe blue clickie didn't when I tried it.

oggie

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: John Tams Song about Steel Rolling
From: Peace
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 09:23 AM

I was unable to access the link, Rags. Sorry. Might have to do with firewalls, etc. But thank you.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: John Tams Song about Steel Rolling
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 09:44 AM

Going down to Steelo's, get mesen a start
Dunna let it cobble, it'll tear the place apart
Catch it as it's comin', throw the bugger back
Keep your tongs upon the metal and your eyes upon the track

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: John Tams Song about Steel Rolling
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 09:58 AM

This thread reads like a game of consequences in which each subsequent poster, blithely unaware of what the previous comment has been, is adamant not to let it impinge upon what they have to say, however off-topic.

And all that's needed is to google 'radio ballads' and read the first hit.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: John Tams Song about Steel Rolling
From: Michael
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 04:28 PM

ragdall's link takes you to the BBc site where the words should be correct BUT I don't think John Tams suggested you should 'keep your TONGUES upon the metal' that would be a bit nasty.
Try TONGS

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: John Tams Song about Steel Rolling
From: oggie
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 07:58 PM

On the Cambridge clip shown on the web, they segued two songs together, the second was Steelos, the first was 'Vulcan and Lucifer' which you can find from ragdall's clickie by clicking the 'songs' link on that page.

oggie

Subject: Lyr Add: STEELOS (John Tams)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 11:38 PM

Copied from the BBC Radio 2 web site, but changing "tongues" to "tongs":

"It enriched my thinking by seeing their hands and the way they walked and their faces ... which I kind of missed when we were working directly from tape ..."
- John Tams

STEELOS
John Tams

I 'ad no choice, and if I 'ad, I'd still 'av chosen steel.
They can do their worst agenst us. They'll not change the way we feel.
Me father's father did it and I know it's all but gone.
There were a 100,000 of us along the Rother and the Don.

CHORUS: Goin' down to Steelo's, get mesen a start.
Dunna ler it cobble. It'll tear the place apart.
Catch it as it's comin', throw the bugger back,
Keep your tongs upon the metal and your eyes upon the track.

I got a start at Steelo's. Me dad put in a word.
His dad 'ad done the same for 'im. That's how the work got shared.
The mill roared like a dragon's den. The Tongmen prove their power
Catchin' white-hot metal comin' 40 mile an hour. CHORUS

Publishing: Topic Records

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Steelos (John Tams) - about steel rolling
From: GUEST,Rob Henderson
Date: 30 Dec 06 - 08:09 AM

Anyone got the chords for this?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Steelos (John Tams) - about steel rolling
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 06:36 PM

Goin' down to Steelo's, get me sen a start,
Dunnae let it cobble, it'll tear the place apart,
Catch it as it's comin', throw the bugger back,
Keep yer tongs upon the metal, an' yer eyes upon the track.

I had no choice, and, if I had, I'd still've chosen steel
They can do their worst against us, they'll not change the way we feel.
Me father's father did it, and I know it's all but gone,
There were a 'undred thousand of us along the Rother and the Don.

[chorus]

I got a start at Steelo's, me dad put in a word,
His dad had done the same for him, that's how the word got shared (only rhymes in Yorkshire)
The mill roared like a dragon's den, the tongmen proved their power,
Catchin' red-hot metal coming fourty mile an hour,

[chorus]

Steelo's was a steel factory where pretty much everyone from around worked. When a piece of metal "cobbles", it catches on something when it's going at about fourty and bounces around the whole factory 'til kingdom come, basically destroying anything and anyone it hits. There are no chords: it's a-capella.
For anyone confused by the Rother and Don, they're rivers.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Steelos (John Tams) - about steel rolling
From: Newport Boy
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 01:44 PM

Very evocative words. My father worked in the rolling mill at GKN Cardiff, and I visited on many occasions. I was fascinated by all the processes.

The tongs went out of use in most works during the 1960s, when automatic repeaters became the norm. I watched the old method at Whiteheads in Newport around 1956. The tongmen stood on a steel semi-circular tray, wearing heavy ankle-length leather aprons and stout boots. As the red-hot bar came out of the one stand of rolls onto the tray, they picked it up in the tongs, hauled it round 180 degrees and fed it into the next stand. They couldn't delay - the rest of the red-hot bar kept coming, and if you ran out of room on the tray it could fly in the air. Towards the end of the rolling the bar might be 300 feet long and moving at 40mph or more.

These days it happens without human intervention.

Phil

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Steelos (John Tams) - about steel rolling
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Oct 10 - 05:14 AM

this song is still played at Magna ( the old steel mill in Rotherham) you can visit this steel mill and learn about all the old ways of making steel.

Thanks Rob

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Steelos (John Tams) - about steel rolling
From: theleveller
Date: 18 Oct 10 - 06:28 AM

For more Yorkshire steel songs, listen to Ray Hearne's CDs. Ray, like John Tams, is a member of the No Masters Co-operative. Excellent stuff!

No Masters