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Lyr Add: Rise Up Jock (Bob Pegg)

05 Oct 00 - 09:37 PM (#313207)
Subject: Lyr Add: RISE UP JOCK (Bob Pegg)
From: Malcolm Douglas

The current threads on adding tunes for songs that are already on the DT with lyrics only, reminded me of this one; I noticed some time ago that it was not credited to its maker, the English folklorist and musician Bob Pegg, but only just now realised how much the text had been altered between its first recording, on He Came from the Mountains (Bob and Carole Pegg, Trailer LER 3016, 1971) and the version transcribed in the DT, from Nowell Sing We Clear, recorded in 1975.  Whether Roberts and Barrand or Pegg himself made these alterations (I suspect the former), it occurred to me to compare the two, to see what kind of changes can creep into a newly-made song over a fairly short space of time.  For the sake of argument, I am assuming that the changes were not intentional.  Pegg's original text is on the left; the DT transcription is on the right, with altered words in red.

RISE UP JOCK

(© Bob Pegg,  published by Leading Note, 1971)

As I walked out one evening to take the pleasant air, 
The birds sang in the bushes and the weather it was fair;
I sat for a while to rest my back against a shady oak,    
When by there came a band of men with faces black as smoke.

 As I went out one morning for to take the pleasant air
 The birds were singing in the trees and the weather it was fair
 I sat for a while to rest my back at the foot of a shady oak
 When by there came a band of men with their faces black as smoke

Chorus:

And it's rise up Jock and sing a song,
For the summer is short and the winter's long;
Then all join hands and form a chain,
While the leaves of springtime bloom again.

Chorus:

 And its rise up jock and sing your song
 For the summer is short and the winter long
 Let's all join hands and join a chain
 Till the leaves of springtime bloom again

Oh the first come was a soldier, with his rifle in his hand;
He'd just returned from fighting wars in many a distant land.
He'd left his regiment sleeping at the foot of a foreign hill,
And he'd come back to old England to kill and to be killed.

 Now the first to come in was a soldier with his rifle in his hand
 He'd just returned from fighting wars in many's the distant land
 And he'd left his regiment sleeping at the foot of a foreign hill
 And he's returned to England for to kill or to be killed

And the next come was a sailor, he'd just returned from sea; 
He'd sailed the world for seven years, before he was set free.
That evening as the sun went down, he anchored by the shore
And he'd come back to old England to fight one battle more.

 And the next to come in was a sailor, he'd just returned from the sea
 He'd sailed away for seven long years, till at last he was set free
 That evening as the sun went down, he'd anchored by the shore
 And he's returned to England for to fight one battle more

In the middle of the forest the blackbird it did sing
As the soldier and the sailor took their place inside a ring.
And when the battle started, they went at it blow by blow;
When the battle ended, down their backs the blood did flow.

 In the middle of the forest where the blackbirds sweet did sing
 The soldier and the sailor took their place inside a ring
 And when the battle started they went at it blow by blow
 And when the battle ended, down their backs the blood did flow

Oh a doctor and a chimneysweep came walking arm in arm,
And when they saw the bodies there, they showed no alarm;
For the doctor had been traveling in Italy and Spain,
And he had in his bag a tiny flask to ease any ache or pain.

 Now a chimneysweep and a doctor come a walkin arm in arm
 And when they saw the bodies there, they showed no alarm
 For the doctor he'd been traveling thru Italy, France, and Spain
 And he had in his bag a tiny flask for to ease the ache and pain

Now he gave a drink to the soldier who was lying on the ground,
And he jumped up and sang a song and passed the bottle round;
Then the sailor leapt up from the ground, as sure as he was born,
And the soldier, the sailor, the sweep and the doctor danced into the dawn.		  He gave a drink to the soldier who rose up from the ground
 And he began to sing his song as he passed the bottle round
 And the sailor, the same up from the ground, as sure as he was born
 And the soldier, the sailor, the doctor, and the sweep, they danced into the dawn


Most of the changes are minor (though the substitution of "and" for "or" in verse 2 line 4 completely removes the meaning of that line!); there seems to be a tendency to substitute "folky" clichés for Pegg's more considered expressions, and the last line has become confused to the extent that the rhythm would have to be substantially altered in order to force the tune to fit it.  An illustration, perhaps, of how the "folk process", like genetic mutation, does not always result in improvement.  A midi of Pegg's tune goes to Alan's Mudcat Midi pages.

Malcolm

06 Oct 00 - 03:12 PM (#313680)
Subject: RE: Add: Rise Up Jock: original version
From: GUEST,Phil Cooper

Dear Malcolm,

As a big Bob Pegg fan, thanks for the thread. We got in trouble recently at a coffeehouse gig where we sang Bob's song, "Fiddler's Cross." Some fundamentalist youth took exception. They asked if we knew any trad or trad based songs about God, so we sang "The Bitter Withy." They were not amused and left shortly thereafter. I found that we had trouble making "Rise Up Jock" go over with audiences we sing for, so we haven't done it for years. Maybe it's time to dust it off, to see if we can pull it off now.

Phil

06 Oct 00 - 07:26 PM (#313825)
Subject: RE: Add: Rise Up Jock: original version
From: Susan of DT

Malcolm - Do you know that the words in the DT are what John and Tony sang, or merely what I heard? I started writing these songs down WAY before the digital tradition started (35 years ago or so)when my ears were a lot less educated and copyright was of no interest to me in my then private collection of lyrics. My apologies to Bob Pegg. We will add the attribution. I found my Nowell Sing We Clear and will have to listen to it again. Thanx for pointing out the discrepancies. Folk process is fun to trace.

06 Oct 00 - 10:43 PM (#313884)
Subject: RE: Add: Rise Up Jock: original version
From: Malcolm Douglas

Susan: I've no idea at all if it was your transcription or Roberts & Barrands';  They get referred to a lot on the DT, but I've never heard any of their recordings, and I'm usually more familiar with other peoples' versions (from which I've tended to assume, probably quite unfairly, that they learnt theirs).  I'm just guessing, really, from what I have heard.  It certainly is an interesting process; I don't intend any criticism of anyone, but the way this particular song has apparantly changed in a fairly short space of time seems to make some useful points about the way aural transmission operates.  Sandy Paton pointed me to some of their sleeve notes (particularly useful in that discussion we had some time ago about The Wife of Usher's Well) but detailed references to Nowell Sing We Clear don't seem to be available just now.   I met Bob Pegg's ex-wife, Carol, earlier this year, and was thrilled when she borrowed my fiddle to play a couple of songs, which she doesn't do very often nowadays.  Have you heard any of the recordings they made together as "Mr. Fox"?  Wonderful stuff...

Malcolm

06 Oct 00 - 11:58 PM (#313922)
Subject: RE: Add: Rise Up Jock: original version
From: Anglo

For the record, Nowell Sing We Clear learned this from Steve Woodruff, former member of the band, who learned it in England on a Morris Dance Tour. So it was probably already folk processed by the time he picked it up.

07 Oct 00 - 06:56 AM (#314027)
Subject: RE: Add: Rise Up Jock: original version
From: Susan of DT

My transcription in the DT is pretty accurate. I just listened to the record again.

Malcolm -I had never heard of Bob Pegg, but first heard John Roberts and Tony Barrand in 1970. They were my first exposure to British harmony singing, which lead me to Young Tradition, Watersons and then Coppers. At least some of their older recordings are still around and some are fairly recent. I definately recommend them. You can get Dark Ships in the Forest (supernatural songs) from Folk Legacy and others from Camsco.

Modest, aren't you, Anglo. Thanks for the definitive answer on that version.

07 Oct 00 - 07:19 AM (#314033)
Subject: RE: Add: Rise Up Jock: original version
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)

I agree with Anglo (why are you modest? Are you Somebody I probably have heard of?) that the Roberts/Barrand version sounds more like the folk process, or memory at work, than a deliberate attempt to make it sound more "folky". I first heard them do this in 1976 in the Hanover, NH Christmas Revels. I loved it then and love it now. But I don't teach it at my school- these kids are too damn sophisticated and getting them to sing "rise up jock" without a smirk or worse would be more than I would care to attempt.

07 Oct 00 - 11:41 AM (#314125)
Subject: RE: Add: Rise Up Jock: original version
From: Jeri

Just to get my $.02 in, Susan of DT, we've had similar experiences. John and Tony were the first English harmony singers I ever heard, and their recording "Spencer the Rover" is the reason I came to love that type of music. So when you hear me attempting to sing like that, it's their fault!

Frankly, I've heard a lot of performers frequently change the words to their own songs. Yes, a specific song may have been recorded and/or written down and copyrighted, but the darned things don't hold still if they're out of the glass case.

07 Oct 00 - 09:15 PM (#314429)
Subject: RE: Add: Rise Up Jock: original version
From: Malcolm Douglas

Thanks for that information, Anglo.  It's interesting to see how even two or three removes can result in noticeable changes, many of which are typically oral-formulaic in nature ("for to take", "many's the", "the doctor he", and so on).  I don't know if He Came From The Mountains was ever released in America, and it's been unavailable here for years (courtesy of the infamous "Celtic Music") so comparison with the original would have been difficult; indeed, many people seem to think that the song is traditional.  Incidentally, did Roberts and Barrand know that it was a recently-made song, or did their source tell them that it was traditional?

Malcolm

06 Dec 08 - 02:04 PM (#2509388)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Rise Up Jock: original version
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)

refresh, even though Nowell Sing We Clear don't have this on their program this year!

29 Nov 10 - 08:37 AM (#3042683)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Rise Up Jock: original version
From: mikesamwild

I sang it yesterday in Sheffield and I find the words are more or less what Bob wrote , but I took the words from the record in 1971.

Sad to read Malcolm's posthumous words. He still has a lot to teach us as he always did! RIP

29 Nov 10 - 05:07 PM (#3043080)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Rise Up Jock: original version
From: Wheatman

We (Wype Doles) use the following variant after the beheading in our 1,2 & 3 dance called Saxon, (again a variation) of North Skelton. It just seems to be right. Thanks to Bob Pegg for giving us the lead. Ho hum the folk process(?) at work again

"Rise up Jack and sing your song
For the summer's short and the winter's long
All join hands and form a ring
And we'll see that springtime blooms again."

22 May 16 - 09:33 AM (#3791520)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Rise Up Jock (Bob Pegg)
From: GUEST,Orca the cat

just found this song going through my head, and looked it up. I heard it done by Magic Lantern at the first folk festival I ever went to in 1971 at Bromyard. Great memories! I'll try to sing Bob's original words......

10 Mar 18 - 01:37 AM (#3910309)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Rise Up Jock (Bob Pegg)
From: GUEST,celticblues5

Anyone have chording for this song? TIA

11 Mar 18 - 02:11 PM (#3910525)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Rise Up Jock (Bob Pegg)
From: GUEST,Alan Wood

I've been singing it for years...no problems.

Try singing his 'Dancing Song' at a post Morris session or sing around.......ouch ! .......a little too close to reality for some.

Always loved his songs...Starchild always goes well.

Check him out if the name is new to you......great songs with a bit 'o grit.