Lyr Add: The Mouse's Song

To Thread - Forum Home

The Mudcat Café ^TM
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=48411
14 messages

Lyr Add: The Mouse's Song

09 Jun 02 - 03:36 PM (#726661)
Subject: Lyr/Tune Add: THE MOUSE'S SONG
From: DMcG

I promised to sing this for bratling on Paltalk and then I couldn't get the mike to work:

X:1 T:The Mouse's SOng

Away she lep and away she run
Unto the good cow and there she come
Cow give me milk, I'll give cat milk
Cat'll give me me old tail again

(spoken) Indeed I will not, said the cow
Unless you go to the stack and get me some hay

Away she lep and away she run
Unto the good stack and there she come
Stack give me hay, I'll give cow hay
Cow give me milk, I'll give cat milk
Cat'll give me me old tail again

(spoken) Indeed I will not, said the stack
Unless you go to the barn and get me some sticks

Away she lep and away she run
Unto the good barn and there she come
Barn give me sticks, I'll give stack sticks
Stack give me hay, I'll give cow hay
Cow give me milk, I'll give cat milk
Cat'll give me me old tail again

And so on until:

Away she lep and away she run
Unto the good crow and there she come
Crow give me a feather, I'll give sea a feather
Sea'll give me coals, I'll give smith coals
Smith'll give me a lock, I'll give barn a lock
Barn give me sticks, I'll give stack sticks
Stack give me hay, I'll give cow hay
Cow give me milk, I'll give cat milk
Cat'll give me me old tail again

09 Jun 02 - 03:39 PM (#726667)
Subject: RE: The Mouse's Song - For Bratling
From: Amos

Wow!! Great song! The endless things to be learned on the 'Cat nver cease to surprise me.

09 Jun 02 - 03:43 PM (#726672)
Subject: Tune Add: THE MOUSE'S SONG
From: DMcG

I remembered line breasks on the song, but not the ABC. Here it is again

X:1
T:The Mouse's Song

09 Jun 02 - 03:44 PM (#726674)
Subject: RE: The Mouse's Song - For Bratling
From: Liz the Squeak

Thanks, it took a while to land here, but it's lovely... what's the tune like?

LTS

09 Jun 02 - 03:52 PM (#726682)
Subject: RE: The Mouse's Song - For Bratling
From: DMcG

If you can't translate the ABC, I'll send you a midi. PM me your real email address.

09 Jun 02 - 06:45 PM (#726765)
Subject: RE: The Mouse's Song - For Bratling
From: CapriUni

So I take it the crow gave her the feather?

I do so love Crows!

10 Jun 02 - 08:28 AM (#726948)
Subject: RE: The Mouse's Song - For Bratling
From: DMcG

Dunno. Maybe the mouse just said "To hell with it! I'll use a bit of string!" And I have never been able to think of a plausible reason why the sea should want a feather either.

The book it came from had a page of acknowlegements giving the sources of the other songs , but there is no origin given for this one. The notes say the "lep" is an old form of "leapt" thus hinting that the song *was* taken from elsewhere.

10 Jun 02 - 11:09 PM (#727242)
Subject: RE: The Mouse's Song - For Bratling
From: CapriUni

There's a "Mother Goose" rhyme very much like this, about a woman trying to get a pig home from market, but my mother goose books are out of reach at the mo'... I'll post tomorrow.

I also wonder why the sea would have coals... seems like the last place you'd go for such a request. Perhaps this song was translated into from another language, and it went funky somewhere along the way [That's how Cinderella's slippers went from being made out of squirrel skin to being glass]

10 Jun 02 - 11:39 PM (#727265)
Subject: RE: The Mouse's Song - For Bratling
From: GUEST,ozmacca

Sea coal was occasionally found on the shore near my old home town on the Forth. Apparently the very start of the local coal industry was back in the middle ages when local monks would forage for sea coal along the riverside. I believe that it may have been the result of a seam of coal along the riverbed being exposed, and the coal breaking up and washing ashore. Local folk believed that "Sea Coal" was a far superior fuel to the usual stuff - probably because it was free!

11 Jun 02 - 04:10 PM (#727818)
Subject: RE: The Mouse's Song - For Bratling
From: NightWing

DMcG,

I have a memory of this song having a first verse about the cat catching the mouse and taking her tail. Long ago memory, so I can't come up with the verse. Do you have it?

BB,
NightWing

11 Jun 02 - 04:23 PM (#727823)
Subject: RE: The Mouse's Song - For Bratling
From: MMario

Sea coal also gives those lovely colours as it burns. Obviously better.

11 Jun 02 - 04:30 PM (#727828)
Subject: RE: The Mouse's Song - For Bratling
From: DMcG

Its not in the book I have. However, I have now found a proper reference for it - I was looking at the copyright pages before, rather than the list of sources, fool that I am.

"From the manuscript of John Bell (born 1783):Collection of the local tunes as played in Northumberland, published by G. M. Polworth, Folk Songs of Northumberland, University of Newcastle Adult Education Department 1966, p 33"

The complete list of songs is pretty good for such a small book. Back in 1971 it cost me 48p - round about 75c!

Room for Company
The tyre fitter
The frog and the mouse
The Eynsham poaching Song
The lads of Thorney Moor Woods
Four and twenty tailors
The tailor and the louse
Who's the fool now?
Tarry Wool
The Shepherd's Song
The barley mow
The new bell wake
Tinker's Song
The Lee Bridge cocking
The mallard
Pace egging song
The soldier's farewell
Sing ivy
Sir Roger is dead
Jordan
Richat and Robet (sic)
I'll sing you three-O
Captain Nipper
Weyhill Fair
The jovial hunter of Bromsgrove
The mouse's song
The wonderful crocodile
The farmer's curst wife
Dumb, dumb, dumb
The twenty-forth of February
As we were a-sailing
The merchant ship
The crafty ploughboy; or the highwayman outwitted
Bold Robinson
The Loppington bear
In Ollerton Town
Hal an Tow
The Gower Wassail

This was published in 1971 and, I seem to recall, was the source book for a series of BBC Schools Music programmes. There was certainly an LP produced at the same time of all of these songs and I think the main vocals were by Sue Harris, with school children for the chorus and some of the songs - my memory fades at that distance, I'm afraid.

11 Jun 02 - 04:48 PM (#727837)
Subject: RE: The Mouse's Song - For Bratling
From: GUEST

"Tarry Woo" in the above list seems to be the only one with a text in D. I. Harker's 'Songs from the Manuscript Collection of John Bell', Surtees Society, 1985, where 269 songs and fragments are given from Bell's manuscripts.

11 Jun 02 - 06:17 PM (#727914)
Subject: RE: The Mouse's Song - For Bratling
From: DMcG

Sorry, its my fault for misleading you - only "The Mouse's Song" was claimed to be from John Bell's manuscripts. The version of Tarry Wool, for example, is the version collected by Vaughn Williams from John Mason.