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Dick Darby the Cobbler: songs with same tune

22 Mar 12 - 05:28 PM (#3327297)
Subject: Dick Darby the Cobbler: same tune
From: GUEST

On reading over recent entries to the favourite Irish Song thread I saw that MtheGM listed this as one of his favourites and as it was to look up the words and origins of this I came into the Cat tonight I thought I might ask how many songs do we know which are basically sung to this tune and of them all which, if any is the original.

My daughter and I sang Les barker's any news of the iceberg to this the other night and she said to me " That's Billy Connoly's" My granny was a cripple in Nashville"

I am thinking of going to a local singaround and only singing songs with the same tune and would appreciate any suggestions
Ta
Robert


22 Mar 12 - 07:42 PM (#3327362)
Subject: RE: Dick Darby the Cobbler: same tune
From: Steve Gardham

Botany Bay/Too-ra-li-too-ra-li-addy
Brian Borhu
Tread on the Tail of me coat/Mush mush
Champion he was a dandy

All of Irish origin.

It's a brave man who will posit the original of a tune, even if you had a Tardis.


22 Mar 12 - 07:44 PM (#3327365)
Subject: RE: Dick Darby the Cobbler: same tune
From: Richard Bridge

What Steve said - although I think Botany Bay differs slightly.


22 Mar 12 - 11:38 PM (#3327473)
Subject: RE: Dick Darby the Cobbler: same tune
From: Seamus Kennedy

Tramps & Hawkers, Homes of Donegal, My Little Son.


22 Mar 12 - 11:51 PM (#3327477)
Subject: RE: Dick Darby the Cobbler: same tune
From: PHJim

The Old Ragadoo, The Old Soldier With The Wooden Leg, The Little Beggerman are songs with the same tune. The same tune played as an instrumental also goes under The Red Haired Boy or Gilderoy (which is a Anglicized version of the Irish for Red Haired Boy)

Baa Baa Black Sheep, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, A B C D E F G ...

The Wild Side Of Life, It Wasn't God Who Made Honkeytonk Angels, Great Speckled Bird


23 Mar 12 - 03:52 AM (#3327517)
Subject: RE: Dick Darby the Cobbler: same tune
From: Jim Carroll

"It's a brave man who will posit the original of a tune,"
Or the "original" of a text.
Jim Carroll


23 Mar 12 - 06:54 AM (#3327561)
Subject: RE: Dick Darby the Cobbler: same tune
From: MGM·Lion

I should say, the Tramps & Hawkers & Little Beggarman families are only tenuously/distantly related, to my ear. Botany Bay & its relations a bit nearer.

~Michael~


23 Mar 12 - 03:44 PM (#3327845)
Subject: RE: Dick Darby the Cobbler: same tune
From: Steve Gardham

Touche, Jim, but a text is at least far less ephemeral and often contains many clues to its origins.


24 Mar 12 - 08:27 PM (#3328392)
Subject: Dick Darby; other songs same tune.
From: RobbieWilson

I thought I had asked this a couple of Days ago but cannot find any trace of a thread.

Do you know of other songs which use this tune? If so is Dick Darby the Cobbler the original. I sing Matt McGinn's Big Sammy and Les Barkers Any News of The Iceberg, but I am sure I have heard others.
Thanks
Robert


25 Mar 12 - 01:42 AM (#3328494)
Subject: RE: Dick Darby the Cobbler: same tune
From: MGM·Lion

refresh


25 Mar 12 - 01:44 AM (#3328495)
Subject: RE: Dick Darby; other songs same tune.
From: MGM·Lion

Found & refreshed the other by doing a 3-day refresh above. It should now be adjacent to this one.

~M~


25 Mar 12 - 04:33 AM (#3328521)
Subject: ADD Version: Haben a Boo an' a Banner
From: Joe Offer

There's an alternate version of "Haben a Boo an' a Banner" here (click):
    Haben a Boo an' a Banner
    Transcription & Notes by JL


    Oh, my faither was hanged for sheep stealin'
    My mither was brunt as a witch
    Oh, my sister's a bawdy-hoose keeper
    An' mysel, I'm a son o' a bitch
    Wi' a haben a boo and a bannar
    An' a haben a boo an a bay
    Wi' ma haben a boo an a bannar
    Misha toodle aye oodle aye a

    Oh my grannie she farted a fyken [see below]
    Will I ha' a feast or a fash
    Oh my sister's come doon the stairs drapen [see below]
    May the deil sen' a cork up her airse
    Wi' a &c.

    Fan I was a cobbler in London
    And lived in the Royal Exchange
    [Oh, I shaved my wifey's condition]??
    [Then I entered her rosey behint]??

    Fan I was a drapper in London
    A lady came into my shop
    O she asked me for three yairds of linen
    And I gave her three yairds of my .
    Wi' a &c

    Fan I was a young man in London
    And lived at the back of the Bucks [the Palace, maybe?]
    Oh I earned five shillings every morning
    To learn young ladies to .
    Wi' a &c.

    Fan I was a hedger and ditcher
    An' up to my knees amang snaw
    Oh the deil took a haud o' ma ballocks
    And he swore he waud rug 'em awa'
    Wi' a &c.


    Notes:   farted a fyken - I thought I'd seen that phrase before somewhere. I can't gloss that except the verb fyk/fyke/fike to figit/do meaningless work. "She farted while figiting around?" Not very good, really.

    drapen - Legman gives for Jeannie's singing, "drettin'" - shitting

    Lyrica Erotica
This looks a lot like the material in the Immortalia Website, but I can't tell for sure if that's where it came from.


25 Mar 12 - 04:59 PM (#3328767)
Subject: RE: Dick Darby the Cobbler: songs with same tune
From: RobbieWilson

Thank you for all contributions so far. To Jim and Steve, I never had any thought of a definitive original, I just take like to see the path that songs have taken.


25 Mar 12 - 05:19 PM (#3328778)
Subject: RE: Dick Darby the Cobbler: songs with same tune
From: RobbieWilson

I've half remembered another; Hamish Imlach used to sing one about coppers who found a corpse on their beat but I can't remember what it was called.


25 Mar 12 - 06:47 PM (#3328838)
Subject: RE: Dick Darby the Cobbler: songs with same tune
From: Steve Gardham

Robbie,
Me too, but mine's more text related. Ignore the bits from me and Jim. It's just a bit of sparring we indulge in occasionally.


26 Mar 12 - 08:57 AM (#3329061)
Subject: RE: Dick Darby the Cobbler: songs with same tune
From: Scabby Douglas

The song Hamish sang can be found here

thread.cfm?threadid=19894

And it starts:
"It was doon in auld Invertotty
Ra Gestapo were oot on their beat
Lookin' fur murder and arson
An' drunks as they stoat doon the street"... or a variant thereof


29 Mar 12 - 04:53 PM (#3330777)
Subject: RE: Dick Darby the Cobbler: songs with same tune
From: GUEST

Yes that's the one,fine stuff.


29 Mar 12 - 09:06 PM (#3330879)
Subject: RE: Dick Darby the Cobbler: songs with same tune
From: Tattie Bogle

Star of the County Down
Gallant Poachers (aka van Diemen's Land)
Crooked Jack
All of above 3 have same tune.

Dainty Davie
Rantin' Rovin' Robin
The Gairdner wi' his Paidle
All Robert Burns and all same tune

Nicky Tams - can't think of the others off-hand but several others to same tune

Soor Milk Cairt - likewise

Mechanical Switch - same tune as the Hamish Imlach song above - more or less

Matt McGinn song - The little soldiers to tune of The red-haired boy mentioned above by PHJim.


30 Mar 12 - 06:19 PM (#3331329)
Subject: RE: Dick Darby the Cobbler: songs with same tune
From: RobbieWilson

Thank you all again for all the suggestions, especially those of you who gave what I asked for i.e. songs with the same tune as Dick Darby. I must look up mechanical switch, as I had always taken that to be a euphemism for son of a bitch.


31 Mar 12 - 01:27 PM (#3331645)
Subject: RE: Dick Darby the Cobbler: songs with same tune
From: dick greenhaus

Wheels of the World also shares the tune.


03 Apr 12 - 11:57 AM (#3333109)
Subject: RE: Dick Darby the Cobbler: songs with same tune
From: Tattie Bogle

Aha! Robbie, the mechanical switch song IS Dick Darby! - sorry! It's in the DT.


12 Apr 12 - 04:44 AM (#3337101)
Subject: RE: Dick Darby the Cobbler: songs with same tune
From: MGM·Lion

Nobody seems to have observed thus far that another familiar & distinguished member of same tune family is My Bonny Lies Over The Ocean: and that one of its most familiar travesties, the student version with the chorus of "My god how the money rolls in" is predicated on the same convention of denunciation of the singer's family's iniquities as the 2nd, 'My father was hung', stanza of Dick Darby: e.g. -

My brother's a slum missionary
A-saving young women from sin:
He'll save you a blonde for a shilling -
My god how the money rolls in!

~M~


12 Apr 12 - 01:26 PM (#3337317)
Subject: RE: Dick Darby the Cobbler: songs with same tune
From: Tattie Bogle

And Matt McGinn's "Skin" is to the tune of My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean!


28 Aug 14 - 08:49 PM (#3654772)
Subject: RE: Dick Darby the Cobbler: songs with same tune
From: Abby Sale

A little glossing fer yiz. (This may be in related thread.) I did some work on it though.

I've had "Haben Aboo and a Banner" on Argo's Wee Thread o' Blue" for years and once heard him sing it. The above is about as close as you'd get by ear alone but... and with good help from Murray Shoolbraid

2.        O ma granny she fartit a fytin, will I hae a feast or a fish,
        O ma sister's came doon the stair draytthin, may the deil set a cork up her erse.

fartit a fytin = farted a whiting
draytthin; Drite = shit

3. Fan I was a cobbler in London
An' lived in the Royal Exchange
O I shaved my wifie's commission
Tae mak birse to ma rosity ends.

Murray gives : "I shave my wife's commission to make bristles for my rosened threads. 'Commission' has to be a nonce-word for "pubic hair"

That made good sense to me in 2005 until an hour ago. I'm reading "Musa Pedestris" Three Centuries of Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes, [1536-1896] by John S Farmer; 1896. (But I just found it a Project Gutenberg as well.) On page 7 it defines commission as 'shirt'. I suppose it's the same word as 'camisole'. I never woulda thought of that. Farmer's 1896 research is excellent and I accept it.

I've already found several other phrases from currently sung songs that go back to early 17th c. English beggers' cant.

BTW, Per James Dick in "Burns," Old Hewson the Cobbler was a real person and was actually knighted c.1650.


07 Sep 14 - 04:02 AM (#3658015)
Subject: RE: Dick Darby the Cobbler: songs with same tune
From: MGM·Lion

refresh


07 Sep 14 - 03:45 PM (#3658197)
Subject: RE: Dick Darby the Cobbler: songs with same tune
From: Lighter

> Farmer's 1896 research is excellent and I accept it.

No need to when context suggests so strongly otherwise in the case at hand.

Ever try shaving a shirt for its "birse" (bristles)?