Lyr Req: Willy 'Ole Lad

17 Mar 02 - 12:46 PM (#670765)
Subject: Willy 'ole lad
From: Harvey

I've heard this song from time to time at various singarounds & I want to learn it. However, it's not on DigiTrad. This may be becaise it's a 20th century song and still in copyright.

The chorus is:

Well I dare say he's young now, and handsome And his eyes are a fine smiling blue, But he's clogs, and he'll always be clogs, lass, Yon willy 'ole lad's not for you.

A "willy hole lad" was the lowest paid job in a cotton mill, involving crawling into the willy hole of a power loom to retrieve cotton waste.

Does anyone know all the words?

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17 Mar 02 - 12:52 PM (#670768)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Willy 'ole lad
From: Sorcha

Didn't find any lyrics, but a bunch of albums for sale, see this Google page. Warning--the Fellside site won't let you escape.

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17 Mar 02 - 01:23 PM (#670779)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Willy 'ole lad
From: phil h

Keith Marsden (of Cockersdale fame) wrote the song, the words to Keith's songs were been published after he died in a book called "picking sooty blackberries". don't know where you'd find them on the web though. Phil

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17 Mar 02 - 03:24 PM (#670840)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Willy 'ole lad
From: Willa

Prospect Providence EFDSS ESCA001 Prospect Providence I Remember Morley Billy Armitage Willy'Ole Lad City Lament Funeral Song Old Peculier St Aubin sur Mer The Vampire Hessle Road Bring us a Barrel

£8.00 / $12.00 Found this on the Cockersdale website , Harvey

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17 Mar 02 - 03:29 PM (#670842)
Subject: Lyr Add: WILLY-'OLE LAD
From: Willa

This is from a previous thread. Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Clogs
From: bill\sables
Date: 02-Aug-00 - 06:55 AM
WILLY-'OLE LAD--------Keith Marsden

Oh, Mary, lass, what's this you're doing, and what's this you're getting into?
We're respectable folk and we're Chapel, so yon city lad will not do.
Your mother was always a mender. Your grandma before her was, too.
I started off low but I'm head spinner now, so a Willy-'Ole lad's not for you.

CHORUS: And I dare say he's young now and handsome,
And his eyes are a fine smiling blue,
But he's clogs and he'll always be clogs, lass.
Yon Willy-'Ole lad's not for you.

He'll never have seat to his trousers; he'll never have jam for your bread.
No five pound a week house like ours is, but a back-to-back midden instead.
And one kid a year till you're thirty, then a worn out old woman you'll rue
That you shook your soft head when your old father said, "Yon Willy-'Ole lad's not for you".

When he's forty and fat with the boozing and the women he's had turn away,
When his money on horses he's losing while you've still the rent man to pay,
When it's always your fault with the nagging and the beer makes him nasty and bad,
When you lie there and dread that he'll want you in bed, will you still love your Willy-'Ole lad?

So if you want my consent to wed him, lass, I fear you'll be wanting a while.
If it's him that you meet at the altar, then it won't be my arm down the aisle.
Just cherish your grace for a while, lass, and dream silly dreams while you can.
When you've spent all your youth, you'll have long years for truth, with your lad still a Willy-'Ole man.

I'm sure you'll follow your own earlier advice and buy the CD *BG*

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17 Mar 02 - 05:27 PM (#670931)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Willy 'ole lad
From: Noreen

Lyr Req: Clogs has the formatted words, and Keith Marsden's introduction to the song- very interesting.

Noreen

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25 Jul 11 - 08:30 AM (#3194844)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Willy 'ole lad
From: GUEST,11692

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