Lyr Req: A Wee Bird Cam' Tae My Apron

Subject: Lyr Req: A wee bird cam tae ma apron
From: CET
Date: 26 Oct 06 - 09:09 PM

I learned this song this summer, but the lyrics didn't stick in my head and now I can't find the written version. Can anybody help. Nothing in the DT or Google.

Thanks

Edmund

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A wee bird cam tae ma apron
From: IvanB
Date: 26 Oct 06 - 10:29 PM

Actually, it is in DT, Edmund. Check under "wee."

I know this only because that's where my copy came from.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A wee bird cam tae ma apron
From: IvanB
Date: 26 Oct 06 - 10:31 PM

I guess I should note that, if you learned it in Goderich, I believe the DT words are quite different.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A wee bird cam tae ma apron
From: JedMarum
Date: 26 Oct 06 - 11:07 PM

I love the song. In Goderich?? Did you learn it from Brian McNeill?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A wee bird cam tae ma apron
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 26 Oct 06 - 11:08 PM

Song titles are often spelled in different ways, especially when they are Scottish. Always try alternative spellings when using search engines.

See, for example, the DT file:

A WEE BIRD CAM' TAE MY APRON - the words are copied from the album insert of Jean Redpath's Lowlands. Source information, unfortunately, is omitted. Jean got the verses from George Ritchie Kinloch's Ballad Book (1827) but the tune and chorus (and presumably the title; there is no "wee bird" in Kinloch's text) were learned from Gordeanna McCulloch, who got it from The Rymour Club; as noted by Alan Reid from Bruce Home of Edinurgh in 1906; he had apparently learned it there in the 1840s.

The song has turned up in various forms in both Scottish and English tradition (it is number 899 in the Roud Folksong Index); if the DT text is not the one you heard, then perhaps it may have been the one that Gordeanna sings.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A wee bird cam tae ma apron
From: Joe Offer
Date: 27 Oct 06 - 02:17 PM

The Traditional Ballad Index entry isn't particularly impressive:

Gathering Rushes in the Month of May (Underneath Her Apron)

DESCRIPTION: Girl gathers rushes and bears a child, wrapping it in her apron. The baby cries; her father asks who the father was and where it was conceived, vowing to burn the place. The father was a sailor; she conceived "by yonder spring, where the small birds sing"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1937
KEYWORDS: pride sex accusation questions childbirth pregnancy baby father lover sailor clothes
FOUND IN: Britain(England(North,South))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
DT, UNDRAPRN*
Roud #899
RECORDINGS:
Anne Briggs, "Gathering Rushes in the Month of May" (on BirdBush1, Birdbush2, Briggs3)
Jack Elliott, "Was It In the Kitchen?" (on Elliotts01)
Notes: The Elliott version has the young man as a miner, not a sailor; it is mixed with "Never Let a Sailor Get an Inch Above Your Knee"; see "Rosemary Lane" for discussion of *that* mess. - PJS
File: DTundrap

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Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Instructions

The Ballad Index Copyright 2006 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.

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Roud, on the other hand, has 48 citations.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A wee bird cam tae ma apron
From: IvanB
Date: 27 Oct 06 - 06:29 PM

Jed, if memory serves me right, it was Brian's class that did this song. I heard it during the student showcase on Friday. I didn't take Brian's Scots Song class this year but took Archie Fisher's instead, having taken Brian's class in 2005.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A wee bird cam tae ma apron
From: CET
Date: 28 Oct 06 - 07:12 AM

I did indeed learn the song from Brian. I liked his version - a lot of defiance along with the bawdy. Thanks for the links.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A wee bird cam tae ma apron
From: JedMarum
Date: 01 Nov 06 - 12:07 PM

There is a great version of this song on SCOTS WOMEN a two CD collection of live performances from a show of the same name - produced by Brian. This is a terrific album, one the very best among my CDs, and an overall favorite.

Subject: Lyr Req: A Wee Bird Cam' Tae My Apron
From: CeltArctic
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 02:39 AM

My father used to sing a version of this song, and I quite liked it as a child, even though I was too young to understand what it was about. I just recently heard a version of this by the Scots Women which reminded me of my father's version.

The version in the DT is Jean Redpath's, and her lyrics are slightly different then what the Scots Women sang. Does someone have the lyrics sung by them?

Also, I remember a verse in my father's version which I haven't been able to find. I have been searching in vain the past few days. I have no idea who my father learned it from. His verse goes:

When I was single, I had a blue coat;
But noo that I'm married, I haven't got a groat (?)
Noo that I'm married, I haven't got a groat,
Sin' the wee bird cam' tae my apron.

Any ideas out there?

Moira

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A Wee Bird Cam' Tae My Apron
From: CeltArctic
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 10:47 AM

Refresh. I still haven't found a version of this song with the verse about the blue coat. Is my memory mixing songs up? Has anyone come across that verse before in another song?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A Wee Bird Cam' Tae My Apron
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 08:00 PM

The puzzling lines may have wandered in from another song; perhaps 'Still I love him' or something like that. The apron is sometimes blue in Scottish forms of the song, so that may be a factor as well.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A Wee Bird Cam' Tae My Apron
From: Jim McLean
Date: 06 Apr 07 - 04:33 AM

There's the song which ends ' It's better tae be single than tae be a married wife' and has various lines similar to the above.
The woman is complaining about the woes of married life and of her children ' Wan cries Mammy, help me oot ma bed, The ither cries mammy, scratch ma widden leg' etc..

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A Wee Bird Cam' Tae My Apron
From: CeltArctic
Date: 06 Apr 07 - 12:49 PM

Jim, you've peaked my interest - can you recall the title of the song you mention?

I thought of the song "Still I love him", but the verse my father sang isn't in it (at least, not the version I've heard before.) Does anyone know other versions of that one?

It could very well be that either my father, or whoever he learned the song from, added the married verse just to clean it up a little; that is, in a 'moral' sense.

Moira

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A Wee Bird Cam' Tae My Apron
From: Jim McLean
Date: 06 Apr 07 - 02:35 PM

It's a Glasgow street song which I think most People from the West of Scotland know.
I'll remember the title later but the odd verse:

When I was single I used a powder puff,
Noo that I'm married I cannae afford the stuff,
It's a life, a life, a weary, weary life,
It's better tae be single than tae be a married wife.

For wan shouts 'Mammy, gie me a piece an' jam'
The ither shouts 'Mammy Help me oot ma pram'
It's a life...