Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket

05 Jan 13 - 11:26 AM (#3461717)
Subject: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: RangerSteve

I found a great song on Youtube by Frank Crumit called "Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket". It's apparently a British song, along the lines of "Streets of Laredo", This time about a dying soldier. The soldier keeps referring to himself as a "buffer" as in the line from the chorus "Wrap me up in my tarpaulin jacket, and say a poor buffer lies low". My question is, what's a buffer in this context? You folks haven't let me down yet, so I'm waiting for an answer and thanks in advance.

---

05 Jan 13 - 11:37 AM (#3461724)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: Leadfingers

A buffer in this context is a person mate ! Simple as that

---

05 Jan 13 - 11:51 AM (#3461731)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: GUEST,999

RangerSteve, it's great to see you posting again.

---

05 Jan 13 - 12:09 PM (#3461742)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: RangerSteve

Leadfingers, so it's like a bloke or a guy, right? Thanks for a quick reply. I want to learn the song, but I want to know what I'm singing about. 999, Thanks. I didn't know I was missed. I've been in the hospital for 11 months, and didn't always have a laptop with me. I'll be visiting here more often, now.

---

05 Jan 13 - 12:25 PM (#3461747)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: GUEST,999

There was a thread a while back asking after you. Indeed you were missed by lots of us, Steve. Kinda had us worried.

---

05 Jan 13 - 12:26 PM (#3461748)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: dick greenhaus

Hi Steve-
Hope you're doing better. We've missed you.
Words and attributions for Tarpaulin Jacket (and at least one of the thousand or so parodies of it) are in the Digital Tradition. Fine song.

---

05 Jan 13 - 01:02 PM (#3461771)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: GUEST,Lighter

A "buffer" is kind of "duffer" or "poor fool."

The words were allegedly written by the English novelist George Whyte-Melville (1821-1878), tune by Charles Coote, but I haven't found proof of this.

The words were in print by 1873. The song was popular throughout the English-speaking world. It inspired all sorts of parodies.

---

05 Jan 13 - 01:05 PM (#3461773)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: GUEST

Possibly also inspired John Conolly's "Fiddler's Green"?

There are certainly resemblances, particularly at the start of the chorus.

---

05 Jan 13 - 01:08 PM (#3461775)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman

More likely he's a sailor. In the RN, the Chief Bosun's Mate is known by the naval slang term "The Buffer". In the times of Nelson's navy, rather than make a timber coffin which (a) would float, and (b) was a waste of valuable timber, sailors buried at sea were sewn up in tarpaulin, with the last stitch being made through the toe or nose.

---

05 Jan 13 - 01:25 PM (#3461785)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: GUEST,Lighter

"Old buffer" in a general sense goes back to the 18th century.

In the 1873 version, the earliest discovered, the "old buffer" is a soldier who calls for "six stalwart lancers" to carry him.

The fabulous Traditional Ballad Index refers to a text from 1826, but that's a longer and more elaborate song, related to both "Tarpaulin Jacket" and "Rosin the Bow." (And published when Whyte-Melville was only four or five years old!)

---

05 Jan 13 - 01:27 PM (#3461788)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman

I stand corrected (maybe).

---

05 Jan 13 - 01:52 PM (#3461804)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: RangerSteve

Dick, thanks. I miss all of the New Jersey gang and hope to see you all soon. And thanks to everyone else who replied. This is really interesting and enjoyable.

---

05 Jan 13 - 02:05 PM (#3461813)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: GUEST,Lighter

Interestingly enough, the 1826 song (about a sailor) contains the line, "Wrap me up in my tarpawling jacket," tarpaulin jackets being associated with sailors.

Later versions of the more familiar song (or spin-off) often have "my old stable jacket," which is more appropriate to a lancer.

A check of several extensive data bases fails to reveal any connection to Whyte-Melville other than an attribution in the "Scottish Students' Song Book" more than a dozen years after his death. Though credited   to Charles Coote, the air is nearly identical to that of the anonymous "Rosin the Bow."

The British Library has sheet music of "Wrap Me up in my Tarpaulin Jacket" published by Hopwood & Crew, London, in 1884. I have no access to this. When Hopwood printed a "New Edition" with banjo accompaniment in or before 1892, the only names to appear were those of the arrangers, E. J. Symons (piano) and R. H. Davies (banjo).

The 1892 ed. has "Tarpaulin Jacket" in the title, but offers "old stable jacket" as an alternative in the lyrics, which concern a "lancer."

---

05 Jan 13 - 04:30 PM (#3461867)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: Stanron

Could there be a connection with buffing or polishing. At times the army has had a reputation for encouraging 'spit and polish' so one who buffs could be called a buffer.

---

05 Jan 13 - 05:16 PM (#3461889)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: MGM·Lion

Dictionaries seem to agree that a 'buffer' is a silly or bumbling old man [the word is generally preceded by 'old']. To me it always carries an overtone of one who is constantly nostalgically praising the old ways at the expense of the new, as old buffers like me are prone to do.

I mean, dash it all!, fancy all you young people not knowing that, what what! Don't know what education is coming to. Now when I was...

Harrummppphhh!

~M~

---

05 Jan 13 - 06:01 PM (#3461905)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: GUEST,Lighter

Americans prefer "old duffer."

---

05 Jan 13 - 07:20 PM (#3461937)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: The Sandman

old duffer , sounds like someone who eats plum duff

---

05 Jan 13 - 07:53 PM (#3461947)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: GUEST,Lighter

"Plum duff," you say? Is that anything like a hot dog?

---

05 Jan 13 - 09:19 PM (#3461965)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

He was plum duff- clueless.

---

06 Jan 13 - 01:25 AM (#3461997)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: GUEST,Backwoodsvman

A silly bumbling old man is a 'Duffer' in my part of The Lincolnshire Backwoods (as in "He's a daft old duffer!"). Never heard of 'buffer' used in that context, but then we're 150 miles away from The Hub Of The Universe, Landon, where they awl talk propah, wiv a purfick English accent, so mebbe we no' nuffink aht 'ere in the cuds, innit? :-)   :-)

---

06 Jan 13 - 01:57 AM (#3462000)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: GUEST,Kampervan cookie gone

BW'sman - You were right about the meaning of buffer with respect to naval slang- the following is quoted from Wikipedia -

Buffer is the colloquial title for the senior seaman sailor in a Commonwealth of Nations Navy ship. The formal title is Chief Boatswain's Mate.

This person is typically a Chief Petty Officer in frigates or destroyers, and in larger ships may be a Warrant Officer. In smaller ships, such as a patrol boat, the Buffer may be a Petty Officer.

The Buffer reports to the Deck Officer, and has a wide-ranging roving commission to supervise seamanship evolutions (activities) and issue directions to seamen as required, and advise "part of ship" Officers and Petty Officers on their activities. As such, directions and orders come with the 'line' authority of the Deck Officer.

The Buffer will supervise major ship activities, such as: berthing alongside and taking on equipment in harbour; anchoring, mooring and weighing; rigging for refuelling or stores transfer at sea; sending away and recovering a sea-boat.

The Commanding Officer may occasionally call for advice from the Buffer with the Deck Officer and Executive Officer in attendance, so that there is wide agreement and understanding between the senior seamanship staff.

The equivalent position in the United States Navy would be that of a Command Master Chief Petty Officer in the Boatswain's Mate rating.

But in this particular context which involves a soldier, then buffer probably means an out of date/behind the times/ old person.

---

06 Jan 13 - 02:03 AM (#3462001)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: MGM·Lion

'That evening's work made us more or less content to leave next morning. And an old buffer was pleased to describe us as "young heroes."' (3.82) Erich Maria Remarque: All Quiet On The Western Front 1929

'Believe me my dear, your future lies with David and not with a silly old buffer like me' Dr Who, long-running BBC tv series

~M~

---

06 Jan 13 - 02:21 AM (#3462004)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman

Thanks Kampervan, I was sure of my ground on that because my dad was a PO in frigates, and frequently referred to 'The Buffer' when reminiscing about his navy days.

However, having read the lyrics of the song in question, I have to agree that the buffer in the song is probably a soldier. Ah we'll, can't win em all!   :-)

---

06 Jan 13 - 02:39 AM (#3462006)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: MGM·Lion

The epitome of 'old bufferdom' is of course an old soldier ~~ Colonel Blimp, originally created as an archetype of the buffer by cartoonist David Low for the [London] Evening Standard in the 1930s, but soon becoming antonomasiacally proverbial.

Good Wikipedia entry on him.

~M~

---

06 Jan 13 - 03:04 AM (#3462007)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: open mike

wow 11 months...hope you are better now!

---

06 Jan 13 - 05:48 AM (#3462034)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: MGM·Lion

For those who hadn't come across the phrase ~~ definition of 'plum duff' from Farlex Free Online Dictionary~~

plum duff - a stiff flour pudding steamed or boiled usually and containing e.g. currants and raisins and citron.
--duff pudding - any of various soft sweet desserts thickened usually with flour and baked or boiled or steamed

Often aka 'spotted dick'. Xmas Pudding a specialist form of it.

Lovers of Stevenson's Treasure Island will recall that Captain Smollet disapproved of Squire Trelawney's spoiling of the Hispaniola's crew by such indulgences as ensuring that they were served duff if he chanced to hear that it was any seaman's birthday.

~M~

---

06 Jan 13 - 05:52 AM (#3462035)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: MGM·Lion

The word 'plum', note, is used in the old-fashioned sense of a currant or raisin or sultana, rather than for the actual fruit which bears that name. It would have been one of these that Little Jack Horner was so self-satisfied at having extracted from his Xmas pie.

---

06 Jan 13 - 06:31 AM (#3462044)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: GUEST,999

"BUFFER
THE (CHIEF) BUFFER
Naval nickname for the Chief Bo'sun's Mate. As he is the First Lieutenant's
right-hand man and the one by whom he passes orders to the Captain of Tops,
he is considered to be the buffer between officer and ratings."

from

http://www.hmsrichmond.org/dict_b.htm

---

06 Jan 13 - 07:36 AM (#3462053)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: kendall

I have a recording by Burl Ives. He sang Duffer. Isn't that a term also used to describe a golfer who doesn't play well?
I've heard that many times as a boy, someone talking about an old man, "He's an old Duffer."

Tarpaulin jacket tells me the man is a sailor. "Wrap me up in me tarpaulin jacket and say a poor Duffers laid low, get six salty seamen to carry me with steps mournful, solemn and slow.

Then let them send for two Holy Stones, place them at my head and my toe, and on them write this inscription, "Here lies a poor Duffer below."
And send for six jolly foretopmen and let them all staggering go, etc...
"Holy stones" were used to scrub the decks of sailing ships.

---

06 Jan 13 - 08:11 AM (#3462057)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: MartinRyan

An earlier posting:
In the RN, the Chief Bosun's Mate is known by the naval slang term "The Buffer".

Partridge's Dictionary of Historical Slang has, among several other meanings:

6. A boatswain's mate: naval : mid-C.19-20.

That seems the likely explanation here.

Regards

---

06 Jan 13 - 10:02 AM (#3462093)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: GUEST,Lighter

> That seems the likely explanation here.

Why?

Nineteenth-century sailor/soldier songs aren't noted for their use of contemporaneous slang. My impression is that even Kipling used more Anglo-Indian phrases than outright barracks slang.

Partridge also lists the far longer-established "old fool" sense.

However, each to his personal folk interpretation.

---

06 Jan 13 - 10:20 AM (#3462101)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: GUEST,Lighter

A look at the Round indexes and the Traditional Ballad Index shows that early collectors rarely bothered with this song - possibly because the existence of sheet music and the attribution to Whyte-Melville and Coote led them to believe it was pure pop.

Another possibility is that its popularity came after their elderly informants had stopped learning new songs.

Hear Cyril Phillips (1911-1990) sing the "stable jacket" version in 1966:

http://sounds.bl.uk/World-and-traditional-music/Traditional-music-in-England/025M-C0903X0153XX-0300V0

Phillips adds the repeated "lies low" bits that were once commonly songm though the Hopwood sheet music doesn't call for them. Though Phillips's performance is sober, the addition of the "lies low," often sung in falsetto, suggests a drift toward the parodic.

The next step was out-and-out ironic/cynical/bawdy parodies like "The Dying Aviator" and "The Dying Harlot."

Does anyone know versions of these not in the DT?

PS: Poor golfers are frequently called "duffers" in the US, regardless of age.

---

06 Jan 13 - 12:41 PM (#3462156)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: MGM·Lion

"Duffer" here in UK can mean an inefficient person [one who is 'duff' = sort of not-fit-for-purpose - a word which can also be used of inanimate objects, as in, eg, "You'll have to find another light-bulb, the one you put in was duff"]: like a poor golfer or whatever. But it is also defined by Partridge as meaning a dolt, or stupid person, which seems to be the more common meaning here; which is not shared with 'buffer' which means more a pompous old creature, except perhaps regionally, as in Lincolnshire according to Backwoodsman's claim 10 or so posts back that it is the local equivalent of 'buffer'.

Oh dear me, how all very confusing. Think I'll go back to bed...

~M~

---

06 Jan 13 - 12:49 PM (#3462162)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: GUEST,Lighter

The only sort of "Duff" I can think of in the USA is the name of Homer Simpson's favorite brand of beer.

The song doesn't even vaguely suggest that the speaker is "pompous." Calling himself a "poor old buffer" is self-deprecating (unless one thinks of him as a naval petty officer).

In outspoken circles "buffer" may easily have been replaced by something stronger and more generic.

---

06 Jan 13 - 01:48 PM (#3462194)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: kendall

Dead seamen were commonly wrapped in a canvas shroud made of old sails, with a weight at their feet.

---

06 Jan 13 - 01:55 PM (#3462195)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman

At the end of th day, who gives a fuck? We can argue, debate and put up conflicting 'proofs' until we're all blue in the face, but no-one' life is changed one iota. Just another pointless Mudcat argument for argument's sake about bugger-all, each one trying to prove he knows more about bugger-all than everyone else. Complete waste of effort.

I'm off to clean my walking boots, far more important and productive, IMHO. :-)   :-)

---

06 Jan 13 - 04:12 PM (#3462273)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: John Minear

Over the hill and far away....perhaps. ;-/

---

06 Jan 13 - 04:30 PM (#3462278)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: Marc Bernier

Lynn Noel sang a brilliant interpretation of this yesterday at the Seaport.

---

06 Jan 13 - 05:02 PM (#3462290)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: Steve Gardham

Backwoodsman,
The members discussing here amicably obviously give a fuck.

One man's meat, and all that. Lighten up!

---

07 Jan 13 - 04:23 AM (#3462492)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: GUEST,BobL

The first verse describes the subject as a "tall stalwart lancer", and
the later reference to "two little white tombstones" would seem to rule out burial at sea. Sounds like the old soldier to be buried coffinless in a tarpaulin shroud: was that ever normal practise?

---

07 Jan 13 - 07:57 AM (#3462559)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: GUEST,Lighter

Presumably the dying man expected to be dressed in his trusty jacket and buried in an ordinary coffin .

As collected, versions with "tarpaulin jacket" omit the stanza about the tombstones, but not all sailors die at sea.


Several broadside printers turned out earlier realted songs. Here are the two earliest antecedents, both of which contain the "tarpaulin jacket" line and the funeral with sailor pallbearers. One or the other seems to have inspired the better-known song:

Bodleian, Harding B25 (1594), printed by Angus, Newcastle, "between 1774 and 1825." The reference to wishing the wars over implies a date of 1815 or earlier.

                     A New Song, Called
                     THE RAKISH YOUNG FELLOW

I am a rakish young fellow,
Never took care in my life,
I rambled the country all over,
In every town I had a fresh wife.
Give me the Girl that will love me,
And bless me through this happy life,
That will dance to me a dutch caper,
A country girl for a wife.

I have sail'd in stormy bad weather,
I have sail'd in both hot and cold,
I have sail'd the ocean all over
I ventured my life for gold.
I wish the wars were all over
And myself safe on the shore,
And God bless me for ever and ever,
If I go to sea any more.

I will send for my friends and relations
I will send for them every one,
All for to make them quite welcome
I will send for a cask of good rum.
I will send for a cask fo [sic] the best geneva,
And two or three barrels of beer,
For to welcome the ladies
That meet me on Sunderland pier.

When I am dead and buried
There was an end of my life,
Do not be sighing nor sobbing
But do a good turn for my wife.
Do not be sobbing nor sighing,
But one single favour I crave,
[Do wrap?] me in my Tarpawling jacket,
And fiddle and dance to my grave.

Get six bold sailors to carry me,
And let them be all very drunk,
[As?] they are reeling along let them
All tumble down with my trunk.
Let them be dancing and capering,
Like men just [going?] mad,
And drink a glass [illegible] my [illegible],
[Saying here?][Illegible].


Bodleian Harding B25 (1883), published by Pitts, Seven Dials, "between 1819 and 1844":

                     TARPAULING JACKET

I am a young jolly brisk sailor,
Delights in all manner of sport,
When I'm in liquor I'm mellow,
The girls I then merrily court.
But love is surrounded with trouble,
And put such strange thoughts in my head,
Is is [sic] not a terrible story,
That love it should strike me stone dead.

Have not I been in stormy weather,
Have not I been in heat and in cold,
Have not I been with many a brave fellow
That has ventur'd his honour for gold.
But now the wars are all over,
And I am safe landed on shore,
The devil shall have me forever,
If ever I enter any more.

Some where is the girl that will love me,
And lay with me this very night,
Come jig it away with the fiddle,
A country dance or hornpipe.
Let the weakest not go with the strongest,
But let them be equally yok'd,
For the strongest will last out the longest,
The jacket ne'er values the stroke.

Here's health to my friends and acquaintances
When death for me it doth come
And let them behave in their station,
And send me a cask of good rum.
Let it be good royal stingo,
With three barrels of beer,
To make my friends the more welcome,
When they meet me at derry down fair.

Let there be six sailors to carry me,
Let them be damndable drunk,
And as they are going to bury me,
Let them fall down with my trunk.
Let there be no sighing or sobbing,
But one single favor I crave,
Take me up in a tarpauling jacket,
And fiddle and dance to my grave.

The line, "The jacket ne'er values [i.e., cares about] the stroke [of the lash]" sounds like either a real or a would-be proverb.

The earliest version of "Wrap Me up in my ... Jacket" would thus seem to have been about a sailor, with the soldiers' version coming later.

Baseless conjecture: Herman Melville was thinking of one of these songs when he wrote "White-Jacket" (1850), though the connection - the unusual preciousness of the jacket to the hero - is tenuous at best.

The Bodleian appears to have no broadside text of "Wrap Me up in my Tarpaulin/ Old-Stable Jacket." How about the Madden Collection?

[Joe, you might combine this one with the earlier "Tarpaulin Jacket" thread]

---

07 Jan 13 - 09:15 AM (#3462592)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: GUEST

"Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 06 Jan 13 - 05:02 PM

Backwoodsman,
The members discussing here amicably obviously give a fuck.

One man's meat, and all that. Lighten up!"

Two smileys at the end of my post Steve - I was 'aving a larff!
Perhaps you need to lighten up? :-) :-)

---

07 Jan 13 - 01:09 PM (#3462721)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: Steve Gardham

Apologies, Backwoodsman. I'm new to these little images, but neat! I like them. :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)

---

07 Jan 13 - 01:42 PM (#3462732)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman

No problem Steve, my wife tells me I'm a weirdo with a very strange SOH, so I'm not surprised I was misinterpreted!   :-) :-)

---

04 Jan 16 - 12:38 AM (#3762700)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: GUEST,Jay

Apologies for reopening an old thread, but has anyone suggested that the "buffer" reference is to a soldier of the former British Army regiment known as "the Buffs" (the Royal East Kent Regiment)? This makes a lot of sense to me given the song's origins and that it's pretty clearly about a soldier dying.

---

04 Jan 16 - 04:13 AM (#3762733)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: MGM·Lion

Good point indeed, Guest Jay.

'Forward The Buffs!'

≈M≈

---

04 Jan 16 - 08:35 AM (#3762781)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: Lighter

> given the song's origins

But what are the origins that support that interpretation?

"Buffer" (fellow) appeared in the 18th century and was well known; but the suggested "Buffer" (member of the Buffs) seems not to be traceable anywhere.

If a specialized meaning of "buffer" is desired (though it's certainly not required) I'd suggest the naval "boatswain's mate," recorded in the 1870s.

---

04 Jan 16 - 09:55 AM (#3762799)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: Lighter

The presumed Kentish "Buffer" does not appear in Partridge, the OED, or Google Books, for example.

"Wrap Me Up in My Tarpaulin Jacket" is credited to George J. Whyte-Melville and Charles Coote.

A related, anonymous broadside, called "Tarpaulin Jacket" (beginning "I'm a rambling and roving young fellow") may have supplied the inspiration. It is explicitly a naval song, printed by Pitt between 1819 and 1844.

This thread contains further discussion:

thread.cfm?threadid=16016#reply

---

04 Jan 16 - 05:08 PM (#3762904)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: kendall

Curiosity is the foundation of knowledge.

---

21 Apr 20 - 12:52 PM (#4047436)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: GUEST,Tony

Buffewr - nothing to do with "duffer".

Think of the buffers on the front a a train; there to withstand the first impact of a collision.

Front-line soldiers are in much the same position; there to take the first enemy bullets, and give some protection to the fellows behind them.

---

21 Apr 20 - 07:07 PM (#4047520)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: GUEST

Here's a version collected by Peter Kennedy in 1957.

http://glostrad.com/wrap-old-stable-jacket/?fwp_search_browse=wrap+me+up

Tradsinger

---

17 May 22 - 06:03 PM (#4141963)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: GeoffLawes

Various recordings on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Wrap+Me+Up+in+My+Tarpaulin+Jacket

---

06 Mar 23 - 09:13 PM (#4167074)
Subject: RE: Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket
From: Lighter

The earliest reference to the song I've found anywhere, in R. Mounteney Jephson's novel "Tom Bullekeley [sic] of Lissington" (London: Richard Bentley & Son, 1873):

"Wrap me up in my tarpaulin jacket;
And say a poor buffer lies low:
And six stalwart Lancers shall carry me
With steps mournful, solemn, and slow!"


The song appears in 1882 in Frank B. Kellogg & Thomas G. Shepard's "Yale Songs" unattributed, with the familiar tune:

                        “Tarpaulin Jacket

“Wrap me up in my tarpaulin jacket,
    And say a poor duffer lies low;
Bid six jolly seamen to carry me
    With steps mournful, measured and slow.

“And then get six jolly foretopmen,
    And let them a-rollicking go,
And drink down a six-gallon measure
    To the health of the duffer below.
                               CHO. Wrap me up, etc.

“And then bring me two white holystones,
    And place them at head and at toe,
Engrave on them this superscription,
    ‘Here lies a poor duffer below.’
                               CHO. Wrap me up, etc.”


In 1883, U.S. Admiral S.B. Luce's "Naval Songs" (N.Y.: Wm. Pond) substitutes this opening stanza but is otherwise essentially the same. The song is attributed to "W.P.B.":

Oh! had I the wings of a turtle-dove, turtle-dove,
So high on my pinions I'd fly,
Slap! bang! into the heart of my Polly love, Polly love,
And in her dear arms I would die.

The full title of the 1884 London sheet music publication is "“Wrap me up in my Tarpaulin Jacket. Words revised by F. Bowyer. Music arranged by E.J. Symons." No mention of Whyte-Melville or Coote.

I still haven't seen that text, but one given in 1887 in "The University of Toronto Song Book" (Toronto: I. Suckling & Sons) may reflect Bowyer's revisions.


A tall stalwart Lancer lay dying,
And as on his deathbed he lay,
To his friends who around him were sighing,
These last dying words he did say.

Chorus.
Wrap me up in my tarpaulin jacket, jacket,
And say a poor buffer lies low, lies low,
And six stalwart Lancers shall carry me, carry me,
With steps solemn, mournful, and slow.

Had I the wings of a little dove,
Far, far away would I fly,
Straight to the arms of my true love,
There would I lay me and die.
Chorus-- Wrap me up, etc.

Then get you two little white tombstones,
Put them one at my head and my toe,
And get you a pen-knife and scratch there
"Here lies a poor buffer below"
Chorus -- Wrap me up, etc.

And get you six brandies and sodas,
And lay them all out in a row,
And get you six jolly good fellows,
To drink to this buffer below.
Chorus -- Wrap me up, etc.

And then in the calm of the twilight,
When the soft winds whispering blow,
And the darkening shadows are falling,
Sometimes think of this buffer below.
Chorus – Wrap me up, etc.

---