Lyr Req: Ship in Distress (Martin Carthy)

Subject: Ship in Distress: Martin Carthy version
From: Garry Gillard
Date: 04 Nov 06 - 02:00 AM

I've transcribed what Martin Carthy sings as Ship in Distress on the CD Straws in the Wind - and all the other songs. But one line defeats me. Martin Carthy points out in the notes that all the songs but one are taken from the Penguin Book of English Folk Songs, but in this song one line is different from the one in the book. Where the Penguin version has "For fourteen days, heartsore and hungry,/Seeing but wild water and bitter sky", MC sings something that sounds to me like "For fourteen days heartsore and hungry/There are no backdoors you can run and hide" which doesn't seem very likely to be correct. I'd be very grateful for any suggestion.

Subject: RE: Ship in Distress: Martin Carthy version
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 04 Nov 06 - 02:39 AM

He has fallen in to a little known East Yorkshire dialect. I would go with the Penguin, so to speak!

Subject: RE: Ship in Distress: Martin Carthy version
From: GUEST,Peter Taylor
Date: 04 Nov 06 - 05:31 AM

Carthy also recorded it on 'But two came by' in 1968, and there he definitely sings the Penguin version. It's also on 'Sailors' Songs and Shanties', sung by Ewan MacColl. Isla St Clair's book 'The Song and the Story' has the same version, but Roy Palmer's book 'Boxing the Compass' has a different, longer(6 verse), more explanatory version, which doesn't have those two lines at all. However, v.1 ends with: Through bitter storms in the height of battle,
          Now mark you well what I do say,
          Where thund'ring cannons loudly rattle
          There's no back door to run away.

Subject: RE: Ship in Distress: Martin Carthy version
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 04 Nov 06 - 05:33 PM

The Penguin text was a collation; partly from the traditional sources named, partly from a broadside, and with some touches from Cecil Sharp's redaction and a fair few from Bert Lloyd himself. The "backdoors" line appears in most sets found in oral currency (including the Copper Family version), as on the broadside from which they all seem to derive: Lloyd replaced it with a poetic flourish that was, so far as I can tell, entirely of his own invention.

For more background, see thread  Penguin: The Ship In Distress.

The set printed by Roy Palmer is copied in DT file  SHIP IN DISTRESS. Unfortunately, the source is not credited: the tune was noted by George Butterworth from Mr H Akhurst at Lower Beeding, Sussex, June 1907; while the text was, according to Butterworth, "noted in Shropshire" (Journal of the Folk-Song Society, IV (17) 1913, 320-321; he gave no further details).

Penguin is now available in a revised and expanded form, as Classic English Folk Songs. It can be ordered from the publishers, The English Folk Dance and Song Society.

There is also a small suite of web pages providing additional materials; these include what I think is the only full transcription of the broadside available anywhere online:

Classic English Folk Songs: Supplementary Material.

A few small details of your transcription are probably mis-hearings; other changes are presumably down to Martin's memory. I'll know when I hear the recording.

Subject: RE: Ship in Distress: Martin Carthy version
From: Garry Gillard
Date: 14 Nov 06 - 03:29 AM

Thanks Malcolm (and Peter) for explaining where Martin Carthy got his backdoors. I'll be grateful as always for corrections to my 'mis-hearings', tho I'm disappointed you think they're 'probable' (without hearing the recording) given that I've provided hundreds of such transcriptions over nearly ten years. This may well be the last one, however.

Subject: RE: Ship in Distress: Martin Carthy version
From: GUEST,www.myspace.com/carthyonline
Date: 22 Aug 07 - 04:53 PM

Garry, I can't add any more to the discussion of where the "backdoors" line originates, but I do know that it's a relatively new addition on Martin's part. I have a recording of a gig I attended in 1988 when Carthy & Swarb first reformed their partnership and he sings the Penguin "wild water and bitter sky" line here. I've seen the duo on numerous occasions in the intervening years and haven't heard them sing this particular song since (and I've checked my various recordings), until the "Straws In The Wind" CD/tour in 2006 when Martin sings the "backdoors" line...

Not sure what this proves.

Probably nothing!

Subject: RE: Ship in Distress: Martin Carthy version
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 22 Aug 07 - 05:07 PM

I seem to remember Fred Jordan doing this one.

I have hia album. but its up in the loft as we are trying to sell our house. Does anyone remember Fred's version?

Subject: RE: Ship in Distress: Martin Carthy version
From: EBarnacle
Date: 22 Aug 07 - 05:32 PM

Could it have been a quick cover for a senior moment?

Subject: RE: Ship in Distress: Martin Carthy version
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 22 Aug 07 - 08:26 PM

yeh, I get a lot of them senior moments these days.

it might have been someone else, although fred was sort of memorable.

sorry, back in your own beds!