Origins: Tramps and Hawkers

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: BobKnight
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 06:54 AM

First off, I'm surpised nobody has mentioned Bob Dylans "I Pity The Poor Immigrant," from the John Wesley Hardin album. It's a straight lift.

Secondly, the verse about the "Clyde" was written by the late Jim Reid, who is famous for writing "Norland Winds/Wild Geese. The last line about the county of Angus, where Jim lived, is a dead giveaway.

"Bla" as far as I've always understood it was the wool left by sheep on fences, etc which was gathered up and sold. It's not a word used a lot these days, but if I remember, I'll ask some of my older relatives. I've also heard this line sang as, "gie yer airs a bla." Many travellers played the bagpipes, and "airs" are tunes.

Jimmy McBeath may have lived in Ireland for a time, but it's well known in Scottish folk circles that he was given his version of "Tramps and Hawkers" by George Robertson Stewart, a settled traveller and businessman from Huntly in Aberdeenshire. He(Big Geordie)always said HE wrote it.

Finally, for our American and English cousins, the name McKay, is pronounced Mac-Eye, not Mac-kay.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 03:14 AM

The Irish "Rocks of Bawn" has a related melody. And there are dozens of other Irish songs with the T&H melody... Glen Swilly, Sweet Newport Town etc etc

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 04:30 AM

In the notes to the Alan Lomax recording of Davie Stewart's fine rendering (Davie Stewart - Go On, Sing Another Song, The Alan Lomax Collection, Rounder 2002) Blaw is given as oatmeal.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Sep 08 - 10:29 PM

Someone earlier in the thread was on the right track. Bla' is Scots for the bits of wool left on fences/trees by sheep rubbing against them. A poor wanderer could gather bits of bla' and then sell it once he has gathered enough.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Teribus
Date: 22 Jul 08 - 06:52 AM

GUEST,Ewan McVicar, the occupations mentioned in MacColls verse:

"I've done my share o' humpin' wi' the dockers on the Clyde.
I've helpit Buckie trawlers pu' their herrin' ower the side,
I've helped tae build yon michty brig that spans the busy Forth,
And wi' mony an Angus fairmer trig, I've plooed the bonnie earth."

Were all casual labour in the latter part of the 19th Century, nothing necessarily "settled" about it.

Having recorded the "short" MacColl version it takes a thumping 6 minutes, considering the tempo, great song though it undoubtedly is, I can't see anybody finding it entertaining for 14 odd verses unless of course it is somebody singing it to themselves as they wander about the countryside.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Susan of DT
Date: 22 Jul 08 - 06:38 AM

A search of the DT for tunefile PADWEST gives this list:
PADDY WEST
CANADIAN TRAVELER
TRAMPS AND HAWKERS
THE YOUNG MAN FROM CANADA
THE LOSS OF THE ALBION
TALL MEN RIDING
SANTA CLAUS IN THE BUSH
JAUNTING CAR
DURHAM LOCKOUT
DRIVING SAW LOGS ON THE PLOVER
DAVY FAA
CAPTAIN WEDDERBURN'S COURTSHIP
BRITAIN'S MOTORWAYS

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: kendall
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 01:55 PM

That's it Tom, thanks.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Leadfingers
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 12:58 PM

Thanks Gents - I dont sing many 'foreign ' songs !! LOL

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: curmudgeon
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 11:20 AM

I've done my share o' humpin' wi' the dockers on the Clyde.
I've helpit Buckie trawlers pu' their herrin' ower the side,
I've helped tae build yon michty brig that spans the busy Forth,
And wi' mony an Angus fairmer trig, I've plooed the bonnie earth.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Effsee
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 10:09 AM

Terry..."Buckie trawlers"!

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Leadfingers
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 09:27 AM

Ooopps !! dropped 'helped'

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Leadfingers
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 09:26 AM

Good point Kendall - Second line is :-

I've the buckey trawlers pull the herring over the side

And without raking through a pile of Vinyl I cant remember the rest

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: kendall
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 06:48 AM

I heard another verse that goes, "I've done me share o' humpin' wi' ye dockers on the Clyde...damn, the rest escapes me...

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Big Tim
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 06:35 AM

Shane MacGowan also used the tune for his 'Song with no Name'.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Leadfingers
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 06:30 AM

Though perhps i should have clamed a 100th before posting that comment! LOL

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Leadfingers
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 06:29 AM

What is the connection with the tune 'Winding Banks Of Erne' and T & H ?
I have a recollection that this was supposed to be the original melody .

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Big Tim
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 06:13 AM

I usually took 'places ill tae ken' to mean places that didn't exactly make the tramps and hawkers welcome. Chambers Scottish dictionary gives 11 different definitions but they are all very similar: evil, unwholesome, harsh, severe, troublesome, unfriendly, etc.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: van lingle
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 09:01 PM

Right Tattie, I should have included IMO.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 08:54 PM

It's "places ilk tae ken".
ilk = like = similar

Ross

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 04:42 PM

Van Lingle, T & H by OBD...........a matter of opinion! IMHO the funky version they've come up with is not to my hunble taste at all, having come up with Alex Campbell's rendition.
TB

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 05:18 AM

I've always suspected that the 'work' verse was Ewan MacColl adding to the too short version he had, [as people quoted above have added verses] since the rest of the song is not about 'settled' employment. In Alan Lomax's interviews with Jimmy MacBeath, Jimmy talks about spells of employment on farms etc, but Jimmy was of 'settled' stock. Can't think of Scottish travellers talking about being ploughmen or bridgebuilders.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: van lingle
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 05:00 AM

Patrick Street used this melody for "Patrick Street" and Nic Jones used it for "Barrack Street" two similar songs, the former set in Ireland the latter in England.
BTW, Old Blind Dogs do a great version of T&H on Old Blind Dogs Live
(2005?)

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 02:12 AM

' Places ill tae ken ' simply means places strange to see.

eric

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: GUEST,Pete Campbell
Date: 19 Jul 08 - 11:31 PM

Listen to "Huck's Tune" by Bob Dylan, from the soundtrack of "Lucky You" and there it is again - the Tramps and Hawkers melody. And there is a nod to Jim Ringers lyrics in one line: Dylan has "I'm blinded to what might have been" and Jim Ringer starts with "I choose not to see the things that be..."

Such a great tune.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: quokka
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 08:03 AM

Thanks, guest MC Fat...I think I have about 14 verses now!There are significant differences between the DT version and the Battlefield's one. If anyone has any others please post. We could be heading for the world's longest folk song - hey, maybe that could be a new thread!

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: GUEST,MC Fat
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 07:33 AM

I sing a verse which was written by somone who's name I forget who lived locally to me in the Vale of Leven, Dumbartonshire it goes

I have seen Dumbartons castle Rock
and it's black against the sky
but I've yet to see such beauty as
Loch Lomond to the eye
For her islands are shining emerald green
and her waters cold and deep
and sky turns red oer the craggy hills
as the sun goes doon tae sleep

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Midchuck
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 07:21 AM

I don't think I've ever heard the original "Tramps and Hawkers" sung, but I've heard "Peter Amberly," Lakes of Ponchartain," and the Jim Ringer "Tramps and Hawkers," all sung to the same melody, so I kind of assume that's the "right" one. But the versions of "Lily of the West" that I've heard have a different tune.

The confusion on the title of the Jim Ringer song is due to the fact that, as indicated above, Tom Russell and Ian Tyson wrote an entirely different song entitled "The Rose of the San Joaquin." Then Tom put out an album entitled "The Rose of the San Joaquin," on which he did, inter alia, a cover of the Jim Ringer song.

Peter

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Moleskin Joe
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 07:07 AM

I have always believed "bla" was either bog cotton or the strands of sheep's wool that are quite common where sheep have been. However I can't remember where I got this from. I don't think oatmeal is something you would "gather".

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 12:05 AM

Isn't T & H also the tune for The Homes Of Donegal?

And if you listen really closely, you'll find the the Lakes of Pontchartrain is 'Where The Blarney Roses Grow" played slowly.

Seamus

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: quokka
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 11:55 PM

the version I have from the Battlefield Band has two extra verses that don't appear on the DT version. The first is at the beginning of the song:

I dreamed a dream the other night, a dream of long ago
I saw yen o' the travelling folk, along the open road
His step was light, his head held high
tae catch the scent o' spring
and his voice rang roun' the countryside, and he began tae sing

Then the song continues more or less like the DT version, but at the end there is this verse:

When I'd awoken from my dream, the dawn song had begun
The birds sang out their old old song, to greet the rising sun
I lay along the shadows and I thought of days long gone
And those wand'ring tramps and hawkin' lads
Whose days are surely done

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Big Tim
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 01:00 AM

Fascinating stuff. Thanks Molly.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: GUEST,Molly
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 12:02 PM

Hi Tim Yes that's the Fella Richard McKay or MacKay whatever you prefer I've seen our name spelt about five different ways but it's the same McKay. Richard lived to the grand old age of 97 when he died in Bankfoot Perthshire. He and his family emigrated to Scotland during the Famine about 1846 Molly

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: GUEST,Hector Gilchrist
Date: 28 Feb 07 - 03:52 PM

I heard this song from Jimmy McBeath when regularly at the Aberdeen Club.The tune has always been in my mind,as a version of the Donegal song Glen Swilly,which I got from an Irish worker at the Mauchline creamery in 1959 in my student days.Jimmy used to sing "broon's a toad" but it could have been Tod.or fox,anyway he had his own unique orally transmitted versions and probably made a few phrases up along the way!

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Wheatman
Date: 28 Feb 07 - 02:59 PM

MacColl used the tune for a radio ballad called "Come, me little son" a lullaby which tells the tale of an absent father who was working on motorway construction. It is included in the Ewan Macoll and Peggy Seeger song book published in 1963. I rather like Bob Davenport's rendition of Tramps and Hawkers

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Big Tim
Date: 28 Feb 07 - 08:23 AM

Thanks Molly. According to Colm O Lochlainn, 'Sweet Carnlough Bay', which is very similar to 'Road and Miles to Dundee' was written by 'the poet Mackay, well known character around the Glens of Antrim'. O Lochlainn learned 'Carnlough' from Cathal O Byrne in 1913.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Lighter
Date: 28 Feb 07 - 07:43 AM

"Gatherers of a'" makes enough sense for me.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: GUEST,Molly
Date: 28 Feb 07 - 06:09 AM

Tim A few years back I was to record my Uncle who was in his 90s telling me about Richard but he died three days before we got round to it. He was going to tell me other songs that Richard was reposible for; Tramps being one of them. He was born about five years after Richard died. So unfortunately as far as Tramps and Hawkers is concerned it's still legend. But the words are almost a record of his life; with the exception of the verse about shipbuilding which I learned many years after. The Road and the Miles to Dundee became more or less proved when I bought an Irish Song book in Tralee and his name was above the song Sweet Carnlough Bay which then became the Scots version Road and the Miles to Dundee. So I'm still inclined to believe Richard was the writer of the two songs.   molly

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 07:34 PM

I have Tramps and Hawkers on an LP of Alex Campbell's, the first folk LP I ever bought back in the 60s. Now I have a CD by Old Blind Dogs where they've really funked it up (yes, that was an n in the middle there!) Sorry, but I prefer the older version!
I also had a "discussion" with someone re the tune for "Lake(s) of Ponchartrain" being the same as the one used for "Flora, the Lily of the West": it IS the same tune on the Chieftains' "The Long Black Veil" CD, as sung by Mark Knopfler: the other person was adamant that I was wrong! But I do also remember the other tune for "Flora" on a Joan Baez LP.
But I agree with Scrump: not the same tune as the usual one for T & H.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Big Tim
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 11:10 AM

Very interesting Molly. This is the only other claim to authorship other than Brechin Jimmy Henderson that I have ever seen. Anything stronger than 'family legend' to go on?                                 

But why not mention the Clyde since all the other geographical references in the song (except for 'Paddy's land!)are in Scotland?

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 06:20 AM

Ewan McColl also used the T&H tune for a song called Englands Motorways, about navvies.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: GUEST,ib48
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 06:12 AM

isnt this a clothes shop in hartlepool?

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Jim I
Date: 26 Feb 07 - 08:17 AM

Dave Hunt said "and always sang *places ilk y'ken* as in 'other places you know"

I always thought it was "places ilka ken" as in "places everyone (i.e. each person)knows"

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 25 Feb 07 - 09:34 AM

Very interesting Molly, not surprised he ended up in Blairgowrie as there's a fine tradition of travellers round that way.
Giok

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: GUEST, Molly Mck
Date: 25 Feb 07 - 09:06 AM

Just thought I'd get my tuppence worth in here. I come from a family of Irish immigrant Travellers and family legend goes that Richard McKay from Armagh; 1800- 1897; who happens to be one of my ancestors wrote this travellers' song! The version the family knows, does not have the verse pertaining to shipbuilding on the Clyde! Some of the words used in the song are I think Cant words
He is also given credit for writing the Irish song Sweet Carnlough Bay which then became The Road and the Miles to Dundee when Richard made his home in Blairgowrie where he was also buried. Many of his descendants made their home in Dundee and are still there to this day. Just thought this would interest some of you   Molly

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 07:22 PM

Well, the tune that seems to have gottenitself atached to Lakes (yes, it's the plural in all the early collected versions) was supplied by Mike Waterson, and it's a rather noce reworking of Tramps and Hawkers (Paddy West, etc.) The earlier tune was something completely different.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: akenaton
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 06:58 PM

"Getherers o' blaw" were tinkers and travellers who carried a leather pouch which was used to carry "blaw" a mixture of oatmeal and animal fat.."Dripping". This mixture was begged or "cadged" door to door.

I got this from sleeve notes on an old Jimmy Mcbeath EP many years ago.

I also remember braxy sheep.
Braxy caused the sheeps stomach to swell and sometimes burst.
Some said it was a bacterial infection, others that a rapid change of feeding affected the animals.
The mutton from a "Braxy" sheep was perfectly edible, and many small farmers survived on it....Ake

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Tootler
Date: 15 Feb 07 - 08:22 PM

I sang it at a local club last week. There was a suggestion that a new verse is needed featuring wind turbines and pylons :-)

Anyone game?

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Deskjet
Date: 15 Feb 07 - 11:08 AM

Not to mention Bert Jansch's great version of the song.

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: Scrump
Date: 15 Feb 07 - 11:00 AM

Yes, it is confusing! I'm now wondering if I've been singing "Tramps & Hawkers" and "Ponchartrain" to the wrong tunes all these years!

Subject: RE: tramps and hawkers
From: bubblyrat
Date: 15 Feb 07 - 10:58 AM

Well, after all that,I"m still confused !! I have two tunes that I know well----One is the "Tramps & Hawkers/ Paddy West " that I have heard various artists do over the years, & the other one is for "The Lakes of Ponchartrain" and excuse me, but they are quite different !!
Yes ,I grant you that the words to the songs are probably interchangeable, but that doesn"t alter the fact that it AINT the same tune !!