Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune

25 Sep 02 - 10:51 AM (#790988)
Subject: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: Albatross

In the 1960's, and earlier, Topic records (Tony Engle, Reg Hall and others) made some valuable recordings of East Anglian hammer dulcimer, melodeon & fiddle players. One of their tunes is called 'Redwing' and played later by the Old Hat Band who have done a lot of good work in this area. In the old recording of 'Redwing' you can hear some old boy singing something about the "sun shines brightly in the Dardenelles". Anybody know the history of this song and the lyrics? Many thanks, Albatross

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25 Sep 02 - 12:02 PM (#791053)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: Joe Offer

Albatross, is it the stame tune and structure as the Red Wing (click) we have in the Digital Tradition?
-Joe Offer-

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25 Sep 02 - 12:19 PM (#791064)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: IanC

Yes, the tune's the same "Redwing" polka. I think Albatross is just trying to find out if anyone else has heard or knows those particular words.

I've heard the band play "Redwing" but I have to say I've never really listened to what was being sung in the background.

:-)

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25 Sep 02 - 02:31 PM (#791165)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: GUEST

O, the moon shines bright on Charlie Chaplin,
His shoes are cracking
For want of blacking,
And his little baggy trousers they need mending
Before they send him
To the Dardanelles.

A parody c.1915 of the song Little Redwing

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25 Sep 02 - 02:44 PM (#791179)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: wysiwyg

Guest-- source?

~S~

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25 Sep 02 - 03:18 PM (#791197)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: GUEST

Damn!! Message partly lost in cyberspace!!

What I meant to say was that:

Reg Hall quoted these lyrics (without giving a source; he probably thought that it was a well known ditty) in his notes to the tune Redwing on the Topic 1976 LP English Country Music: Topic 12T296, where the tune is played by:-
Walter Bulwer - Fiddle
Billy Cooper - Hammer Dulcimer
Daisy Bulwer - Piano
Reg Hall - Melodeon
Mervyn Plunkett - snare drum
Russell Wortley - Pipe-and-tabor

The LP, which influenced many English musicians, just as an earlier (very) limited edition of 99 copies had when released in 1965, was based on recordings made in the Bulwer's cottage in Shipdam, Norfolk in August 1962.

Topic recently reissued the recordings on CD as 'English Country Music' TSCD607 together with some additional material also recorded by Mervyn Plunkett from the Bulwers in 1960 and 1959, and with Scan Tester added playing concertina from 1966. Well worth listening to!

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25 Sep 02 - 03:28 PM (#791203)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: wysiwyg

Thanks, Guest, well done!

~Susan

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25 Sep 02 - 07:20 PM (#791346)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: Snuffy

O, the moon shines bright on Charlie Chaplin,
His boots are cracking
For want of blacking,
And his old fusty coat is needing mending
Before we send him
To the Dardanelles.

My dad (b 1922) used to sing this. He said he learnt it when he was a boy. Is "fusty" a corruption of fustian?

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25 Sep 02 - 07:32 PM (#791349)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: GUEST,greg stephens

Original tune and song (Redwing, not the Charlie Chaplin parody) written by the great Kerrry Mills, who also wrote Whistling Rufus,( beloved by melodeon players and also a big hit for the Chris Barber Jazz Band) and "At a Georgia Camp Meeting, also a big early jazz number.

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25 Sep 02 - 08:10 PM (#791382)
Subject: Lyr Add: CHARLIE CHAPLIN (from Oldham Tinkers)
From: Stewie

I recall the parody from an old 'Oldham Tinkers' album. Fuller lyrics than the stanza posted above have been posted to the rec.music.folk newsgroup. The Oldham Tinkers sang most of these - in a children's songs medley, I think:

CHARLIE CHAPLIN

And the moon shines bright on Charlie Chaplin
His boots are cracking for t' want of blacking
And his old fusty coat is wanting mending
Until they send him to the Dardanelles

Charlie Chaplin, meek and mild, swiped a sausage from a child
When the child began to cry, Charlie socked him in the eye

Charlie Chaplin had no sense, he bought a fiddle for eighteen pence
And the only tune that he could play was Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay

Charlie Chaplin went to France to teach the ladies how to dance
First your heel and then your toe; lift up your skirts and 'round you go

Charlie, Charlie, chook, chook, chook, went to bed with three white ducks
One died, Charlie cried, Charlie, Charlie, chook, chook, chook

One, two, three, O'leary, I saw my Auntie Sary
Standing in the door, O'leary, kissing Charlie Chaplin
--Stewie.

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25 Sep 02 - 08:17 PM (#791385)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: Malcolm Douglas

I think they got that additional material from Iona and Peter Opie; it certainly wasn't part of the original parody (or, I think, sung to the same tune), which seems to have been very widely known in the 1920s and '30s.

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25 Sep 02 - 10:08 PM (#791434)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: Sandy Paton

Oh, the moon shines bright on Charlie Chaplin,
His boots are crackin'
For want o' blacknin'.
And his little baggy trousers needin' mendin'
Before we send him
Tae the Dardanelles.

That's how I learned it from Jeannie Robertson in Aberdeen, Scotland (1958). I included it on my 1959 Elektra record, in a medley with other kids' songs.

Sandy

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26 Sep 02 - 05:08 AM (#791555)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: IanC

Snuffy - "Fusty" means mouldy :-)

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30 Sep 02 - 12:15 PM (#794034)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: Albatross

Many thanks, to the contributions on this Redwing song.

It seems a lot of Victorian, Music hall (eg Jenny Lind) and war time songs entered the folk tradition without having such a long antiquity but still having an equal contribution.

As seems to be commonly the case with folk tradition there is Scottish, Australian, American, Irish, various regional English variations,etc.

There is an old thread on the Wild Rover song originally noted down in Norfolk by Cecil Sharp which may have just been sung all over.

I think we all have a natural tendency to want to claim ownership to traditions and lay claim to their sources. Of course songs,tunes,dances must have started somewhere but does it really matter anyway.

I like to think there is a complex network of interconnections caused by many areas rich in tradition and by many travellers carrying stuff around and changing its form.

As always though we should respect people's traditions and not undermine their claims of ownership if only for the fact they are helping to keep them thriving.

Albatross (whoops getting a bit philosophical)

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30 Sep 02 - 12:22 PM (#794037)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: IanC

The interesting thing about Redwing is that it's the tune which seems to have got into the traditional repertoire ... probably, in East Anglia, because it fits nicely with the East Anglian obsession with good polkas. The words were most likely known (there's a good parody of the song used as a rugby song - words not on the web as far as I can tell) but never really all that popular, at least around here (here being East Anglia). I remember it from my childhood so I think it must have been very popular around the 50s and 60s.

:-)
Ian

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05 Dec 03 - 07:37 PM (#1066409)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: Snuffy

Do you mean this one, Ian?

Oh the moon shines bright on Nellie Cartwright
She couldn't fart right
Her arse was airtight
...??????

I've been looking for the rest of that for ages

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06 Dec 03 - 10:45 AM (#1066689)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: fishhead50

My Mother's version

The moon shines bright on pretty Redwing
The night is dying the leaves sighing
And the little boys trousers they need patching
Where he's been scratching
Mosquito bites.

Mom was a Miami native (b. 1922) and she would sing the chorus to my brother and I as a lullabye.

Hugh Davis

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06 Dec 03 - 01:10 PM (#1066780)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: Ebbie

Where can I find a link to Kerry Mills having written Red Wing? It doesn't seem like his usual ragtime and jazzy tunes.

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06 Dec 03 - 01:30 PM (#1066801)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: Malcolm Douglas

At the Lester Levy Sheet Music Collection, for example:

Red Wing. An Indian Intermezzo: Words by Thurland Chattaway. Music by Kerry Mills. New York: F.A. Mills, 32 West 29th St., 1907. Box: 149 Item: 055

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07 Dec 03 - 08:29 AM (#1067175)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: GUEST

Well here we are agin,
Yu cun git the muusic und the words togither if yu goo to Traditionalmusic.co.uk but im blessed if I know if that's what we play 'cos I kent read muusic. Know doubt that we probably all play it different anyhow. The Bumpstead Boys, Katie Howsons band and her pupils the Button Bashers ull all play it. Good point Ian about the polka obsession, rounds an evening nicely, git the awdeunce polkerin around a village hall.
As Sundies me day orf i could write a lot more, but typical ent it, I ent got no more tu say, apart frum cherio.

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07 Dec 03 - 09:31 AM (#1067202)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: a gud ole bwoy

Well wud yer credit it me buscuit got vapourized

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07 Dec 03 - 02:01 PM (#1067329)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: Ebbie

Thanks, Malcolm Douglas.

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08 Dec 03 - 10:36 AM (#1067786)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: trayton

hi,
i thought the line was:

"And his old fustian coat is needing mending"

fustian from the OED = a napped fabric of a mixture of linen and cotton or wool.

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08 Dec 03 - 11:24 AM (#1067813)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: GUEST,JOHN FRO

Peggy Seeger made a recording of a song, the chorus being,
"You can`t scare me I`m sticking to the Union" to the tune of both verse and chorus of "Redwing". I recall the song starts:-
"There once was a Union maid
Who never was afraid
Of goons and ginks and company finks
And sheriff that made the raid.
One night at the Union hall........."
CH.
"You can`t scare me I`m sticking to the Union.
I`m sticking to the Union
I`m sticking to the Union
Oh you can`t scare me I`m sticking to the Union
I`m sticking to the Union
Till the day I die"

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13 Aug 10 - 08:10 PM (#2964751)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: GUEST

My Mom used to sing a song about a tin Lizzie and it was to the tune of Let Me Call you Sweetheart.   The song ended something like this....   Let me call you Lizzie, I'm in love with you, let me hear you rattle like old Ford cars do, let me call you Lizzie, I still for you.
Does anyone know the lyrics to this cute song?
Thanks

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Please see this thread (click).
thanks.
-Joe Offer, Forum Moderator-

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19 Aug 10 - 08:50 PM (#2969012)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: Jim Dixon

A couple more versions found in old books:

Oh, the moon shines bright on Mrs. Porter,
And on her daughter,
A regular snorter;
She has washed her neck in dirty water,
She didn't oughter,
The dirty cat

O the moon shines bright on Mrs. Porter
And on the daughter
Of Mrs. Porter.
They wash their feet in soda water
And so they oughter
To keep them clean.

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20 Aug 10 - 02:44 AM (#2969152)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: Jack Campin

That one was quoted by T.S. Eliot in "The Waste Land".

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28 Jan 12 - 02:07 PM (#3297976)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: GUEST

there once was a indian maid
who wasn't aabit afraid
she laid on her back
in an indian shack
and let the cowboyw stick it up her crack

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29 Jan 12 - 12:41 PM (#3298518)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: Bert

Learned in school in the early fifties
(but not in the classroom)


There once was an Indian Maid
and she was so afraid
that some Buckaroo would
Shove her up a few
while she was lying in the shade

Now some Buckaroo got wise
a twinkle in his eyes
a bloody great prick
just like a walking stick
he shoved it up her thighs

She said I'm not your wife
whipped out her Bowie knife
and with one mighty pass
cut his balls from his ass
His shagging days are over

Oh the moon shines so bright on Pretty Redwing
as she lays yawning
from night 'till morning
those Redskins balls are hanging as a warning
now they're adorning
her wigwam door.

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29 Jan 12 - 12:54 PM (#3298528)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: The Sandman

it is no more an east anglian song and tune in its origins than colonel bogey.

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30 Jan 12 - 03:38 AM (#3298848)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: Rusty Dobro

That thet ent, GSS, but thass still wholly poplar in th'owd pub what Oi goes tew. Blarst, some good owd boy'l sing thet most toimes - just yew try a-stopping of 'un!

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30 Jan 12 - 03:56 AM (#3298851)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: Big Al Whittle

like this guy, segues into redwing from let me call you sweetheart and seems to know a middle eight

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPF2XyVIXYM

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30 Jan 12 - 04:23 AM (#3298867)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: MGM·Lion

The 'soda-water- version is also quoted in Ernest Raymond's WWi novel "Tell England" [1922]

~M~

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30 Jan 12 - 04:33 AM (#3298869)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: Will Fly

The bit in between the two main "Redwing" themes that he plays is not part of the original tune - certainly not a middle eight 'cos "Redwing: just has two themes to it. I reckon it's another tune sandwiched in between to break it up a bit.

I can see why "Redwing" would be popular at a tunes sessions - the A theme twice through then the B theme twice through. The original sheet music has a quartet section to be sung if required!

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15 Mar 12 - 07:17 PM (#3323340)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: GUEST,Boone

My grandfather had a version like this:

Oh you can't scare me I'm in the union
What kind of union? -The Western Union!
oh you can't scare me I'm in the union
I'm in the union, until I die.

Now the moon shines bright on Charlie Chaplin
His shoes are crackin'
-They need a blacknin'
And these pretty lil pants -they need a patchin'
where he was scratchin'
Mosquito bites

   (very fast) -Now I had a little monkey took him to the country
                     Fed him on Gingerbread,
    Along came asshole-basshole kicked 'em in the asshole
                   now my monkey's DEAD

Oh you can't scare me I'm in the Union
What kind of union? -The Western Union!
Oh you can't scare me I'm in the union
I'm in the union
Until I die!!!!!!

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07 Aug 12 - 02:54 PM (#3387272)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: GUEST,David Shulman

Origins: Redwing 1907 by Thurland Chattaway and music by Kerri Mills who adapted tune from " The Merry Peasant" by Robert Schumann 1848 Opus 68. number 16. See also (unrelated?)) Native American silent film star Redwing (Lily St. Cyr) and associated films with heroic Native American themes.

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28 Nov 12 - 11:19 AM (#3443716)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: GUEST,Phil Crifase

This is the version we sang in the depression thirties. I believe Blacking* was the name of a black-like-paste that would harden when applied to fill a hole in the sole of ones shoe


Oh the sun shines bright on Charlie Chaplin
His shoes are cracking, they're needing blacking*
And his old grey pants are needing patching
Where he was scratching' mosquito bites.

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28 Nov 12 - 11:49 AM (#3443733)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick

Blacking used to be a familiar term for shoe polish.

I know the last line as "Until they send him to the Dardanelles".

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28 Nov 12 - 02:12 PM (#3443818)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: GUEST,Henry piper

The reference to the dardanelles refers to the fact that Chaplin was a concientious objector and refused to serve in the first world war, a stance that did serious damage to his career at the time, .

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11 Jan 14 - 09:16 PM (#3591184)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: GUEST,Jim Lackey---My Daddy's version:

Oh it's so sad now for Charlie Chaplin
His shoes are crackin
For lack of blackin.
And his little brown britches then heed patching
Where he's been scratchin
Mosquito bites.

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12 Jan 14 - 06:05 AM (#3591254)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: GUEST,c.g.

His old grey ulster it needs mendin'
Before they send 'im
To the Dardanelles.

An ulster is a type of overcoat, and mendin' send 'im is almost a rhyme.

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12 Jan 14 - 07:10 AM (#3591269)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: bubblyrat

I was surprised to hear it in , I seem to recall ,a John Wayne film , "Chisum" I think it was ; he also referred to things as being "all bollocksed up" ; I thought that "bollocks" didn't feature in the American lexicon , but hey !!

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12 Jan 14 - 01:48 PM (#3591391)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Redwing - East Anglian Song and Tune
From: Bert

Re; From: Stewie - PM
Date: 25 Sep 02 - 08:10 PM

One, two, three O'lairy
My ball's down the airey
don't forget to give it to Mary
Not to Charlie Chaplin.

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