Lyr Req: Sheriff of Midsomer Norton (The Wurzels)

11 Jun 10 - 06:49 PM (#2925814)
Subject: Lyr Req: Sherriff of Midsomer Norton
From: JeffB

Does anyone know how The Sherriff of Midsomer Norton goes? I can only say that it was written by the (still lamented) Adge Cutler and recorded by him and The Wurzels in 1967.

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12 Jun 10 - 10:42 PM (#2926547)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sherriff of Midsomer Norton
From: Jim Dixon

I found this one verse quoted in another forum:

(To the tune of HOME ON THE RANGE:)

O, give me a home
Where the Zider be grown,
And the wenches are there for the courtin'.
Over Mendip I'll ride,
With six guns at me side.
I'm the sheriff of Midsomer Norton.

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14 Jun 10 - 11:16 AM (#2927559)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sherriff of Midsomer Norton
From: JeffB

Thanks very much Jim, that's a start!

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30 Jun 10 - 06:31 PM (#2937545)
Subject: Lyr Add: SHERIFF OF MIDSOMER NORTON (The Wurzels)
From: GUEST

I loved cowboy movies when I were a lad
Singing yippee I yaddle I yaddle??????????
And now when I see them again on TV
I long to be back in the saddle
From Farrington Gurney to Radstock and Frome
Are the patches I deal with at leisure
I'm quick on the draw, just shot maw and paw
And me grandmother just for good measure

Chorus

I practice lassoing on my grey-haired wife
That's why she's dowdy and dumpy
She'd up and she'd out, if 'tweren't for her gout
And inordinate passion for scrumpy

Chorus

This morning a cowboy disputed my claim
That on six guns there's nobody quicker
But me aim went awry, so who wants to buy
Three dead pheasants, two hens and the vicar
So now here I languish in old Horfield jailhouse
Deprived of my conjugal rights
I just asked the sarge
Aye what be the charge
He said parking a horse without lights

Chorus


That's what I can hear on my live album I have, glad to help.

Shaneba3skate.

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30 Jun 10 - 06:39 PM (#2937551)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sheriff of Midsomer Norton
From: GUEST

also the chorus written above is correct apart from lines 4 and 5 are the wrong way round,

six guns at me zide
o'er mendip i ride

is the way adge sings it on my version.

shaneba3skate.

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01 Jul 10 - 05:13 PM (#2938112)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sheriff of Midsomer Norton
From: JeffB

Guest, that's really great. Thanks a million.

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09 Jul 10 - 08:41 PM (#2942708)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sheriff of Midsomer Norton
From: Jim Dixon

Do I understand correctly that the 6 lines I posted back on 12 Jun 10 are actually the chorus?

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10 Jul 10 - 09:11 PM (#2943239)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sheriff of Midsomer Norton
From: GUEST,Bardford

I cannot tell you what a thrill it is to hear (well, read) the birthplace (Radstock) of my grandfather immortalized in a country&western song. I wonder if this town shows up in any others...

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06 Mar 11 - 04:10 AM (#3107938)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sheriff of Midsomer Norton
From: GUEST,Oliver Dickinson

shaneba3skate's version is near-perfect (and thanks to him for reminding me of last verse, also the correct placenames), but in the first verse I think it goes Yippee-i-addy-i-addle, and line 6 is definitely "*Apaches* I deal with at leisure". I think, in the last verse, it might be "Oy, what be the charge?"

I don't recall Radstock appearing in any other Adge Cutler songs. We had at least one LP out at the British School of Archaeology in Athens in the old days (late 1960s), and played them quite frequently.

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22 May 11 - 02:21 AM (#3158530)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sheriff of Midsomer Norton (The Wurzels)
From: GUEST,Plingsby

A working colleague of mine was the son of the vicar of Midsomer Norton. He wrote to Adge Cutler, asking for his father back.

"But me aim went awry, so who wants to buy
Three dead pheasants, two hens and the vicar"

He got a very amusing letter back offering lifetime membership of the fan club. Sadly, Adge Cutler was dead just a few weeks later.

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22 May 11 - 04:19 PM (#3158826)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sheriff of Midsomer Norton (The Wurzels)
From: GUEST,Dave in Michigan

Bardford wrote: "I wonder if [Radstock] shows up in any others" ...

I don't know any other scrumpy-and-western songs mentioning it,
but there's this in the Fiddler's Companion [part only, for brevity]:

RADSTOCK JIG, THE. English, Country Dance Tune (cut time). C Major/A Dorian. Standard tuning. AB. The English collector Cecil Sharp noted this tune from one James Higgins (1819-c. 1910), a fiddle player who was living at the time in Shepton Mallett Union, a workhouse. It was originally simply called "Radstock" (the 'jig' in the title denoting not metre but rather simply a tune for dancing). Higgins was a native of the village of Shepton Mallet, Somerset, where he was a clerk in the local Co-operative Society, and Radstock was a nearby mining town. There is some thought, although no evidence, that the tune may have been in the repertoire of the Radstock Band, an old village band. However, the melody appears to be a close relation of the relatively common Irish hornpipe "Poll Ha'penny." Maude Karpeles, another English collector, published the tune in a book of tunes to accompany Northwest morris dances.

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