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07 Jan 06 - 08:49 PM (#1643759) Subject: Tune Req: The Free Mason's Song From: GUEST,Phyl Lobl Seeking tune originally paired with Robbie Burns' "A Masonic Song", as in Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany for an imminent presentation on trade songs. Many thanks Phyl Lobl |
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07 Jan 06 - 08:59 PM (#1643766) Subject: RE: Tune Req: The Free Mason's Song From: Peace Is that the song you are talking about? Masonic Song "Shawn-boy," or "Over the water to Charlie" Robert Burns, 1786 Ye sons of old Killie, assembled by Willie, 2. Ye powers who preside o'er the wind, and the tide, |
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07 Jan 06 - 10:12 PM (#1643829) Subject: RE: Tune Req: The Free Mason's Song From: Bob Bolton G'day Peace, I've been looking for the tune Phyl needs ... and she said it is the tune to Burns' "bawdy" A Masonic Song ... found as item #89 in my The Merry Muses (Ed. Eric Lemuel Randall, Luxor Press, London, 1966). The structure of the song on your link seems quite diferent ... so this seems to be the "non-bawdy" Burns Masonic Song, which isn't set to the tune Phyl needs! I'll hop back on the blower and suggest to Phyl that she sign up for the Mudcat ... and she can explain just what she's after - or answer calls in a thread, just above this one, chasing her tune for another of her songs. Regards, Bob Regards, Bob |
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07 Jan 06 - 10:53 PM (#1643895) Subject: RE: Tune Req: The Free Mason's Song From: Bronzewing Phyl here,thanks Bob,and thanks Peace the tune 'Over the Water ' doesn't doesn't seem to fit there must be another for the words I have. I can create one but I'm trying to be authentic. |
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07 Jan 06 - 10:59 PM (#1643902) Subject: RE: Tune Req: The Free Mason's Song From: Peace Bronzewing: Could you quote maybe the first stanza of the song? That might make a tune search easier. BTW, welcome to the 'cat. Any friend of Bob's is a friend of mine. |
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08 Jan 06 - 10:39 AM (#1644105) Subject: RE: Tune Req: The Free Mason's Song From: nutty There's a Free Mason's Anthem on a broadside in the Bodleian Museum HERE Printer: Catnach, J. (London) Date: between 1813 and 1838 |
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09 Jan 06 - 09:39 AM (#1644881) Subject: RE: Tune Req: The Free Mason's Song From: GUEST,Jack Campin The tune for this one is not at all obvious, and it is NOT "Free and Accepted Mason" (the most familiar Masonic tune). Bruce Olson wrote about it shortly before he died, he thought he'd figured it out. Look in the archive of his stuff on this site. |
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09 Jan 06 - 07:59 PM (#1645326) Subject: RE: Tune Req: The Free Mason's Song From: Q (Frank Staplin) Several Lyrics have been called the Freemason's Song. Need some lyrics to identify. One is: In the year of eighteen hundred and three I tok a notion a Freemason to be. Our goats being ready... |
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10 Jan 06 - 06:10 AM (#1645526) Subject: RE: Tune Req: The Free Mason's Song From: Bronzewing No luck so far. Thanks to all who tried. The words start: "It happened on a winter's night and early in the season, Somebody said my bonny lad was gone to be a mason, Fal de ral etc." That 'etc' could be a thousand things. Bronzewing. |
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10 Jan 06 - 06:29 AM (#1645538) Subject: RE: Tune Req: The Free Mason's Song From: Lanfranc The James Barke edition of "The Complete Poems and Songs of Robert Burns" only contains "Masonic Song" as posted by Peace, and the index of first lines has nothing resembling "It happened on a winter's night.... ". I have numerous Masonic books in my collection but none of the songbooks contains the song you are looking for. It may be a song about Masons rather than of Masons, if you see what I mean! I'm intrigued, so will continue research. Alan |
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10 Jan 06 - 08:01 AM (#1645582) Subject: Lyric Add: The Free Mason's Song (bawdy Burns) From: Bob Bolton G'day ... ... since we seem to be beset with those who only read / know /accept the "Naice, polite" Burns - here is the full text of the entry to which Phyl refers (from The Merry Muses (Ed. Eric Lemuel Randall, Luxor Press, London, 1966 ... as I noted above). This is not the "polite" Masonic Song, as Phyl has made clear (to me ... ay least ...): 89. A MASONIC SONG [TUNE: The Free Mason's Song (see Ramsay's Tea- Table Miscellany) This song, like the preceding one, appeared for the first time, as part of a Merry Muses collection, in Legman's 1965 edition. It is taken from a manuscript collection of Scottish Burlesque and Jocular Songs made by George Kinloch, a contemporary of Cunningham's. That anthology was 'smuggled' to America and is still housed in the Harvard Library. The Kinloch MS collection ends with two songs of which this is one and THE PATRIARCH, which follows this (No. 90), therein called A WICKED SONG, is the other. The story behind A MASONIC SONG, Kinloch says, is that 'Bums was called on for a song at a Mason Lodge, and wrote the following extempore and sang it. A friend asked for a copy next day, when he sent A MASONIC SONG, by Robert Burns.' The word 'extempore' may he taken with a grain of salt, for it is known that Bums, in sending fair copies of poems to friends, commonly pretended they were spontaneous effusions when in reality they had been subjected to much painstaking revision. Note, first of all, that once again Burns writes from the woman's point of view. In this case the poem's most remarkable feature, however, is the ingenious way in which he invests references to the characteristics of masonic insignia with symbolic sexual significance. The 'singer', identifying himself as a woman relating an erotic experience, refers to the secret pleasures of sexual union as the arcana of masonic mystique, and describes how her lover, in leading her to the climax of sensual delight, by a special 'dispensation' initiated her as a fellow mason. It happened on a winter night And early in the season, Somebody said my bonny lad Was gone to be a Mason. Fal de ral, etc.... I cried and wailed, but nought availed: He put a forward face on And did avow that he was now A free accepted Mason. Fal de ral, etc. ... Still doubting if the fact was true, He gave me demonstration: For out he drew before my view The jewels of a Mason. Fal de ral, etc. ... The Jewels all, baith¹ great and small, I viewed with admiration; When he set his siege and drew his gauge I wondered at my Mason. Fal de ral, etc. ... His compass stride he laid it wide - I thought I guessed the reason But his mallet shaft it put me daft²: I longed to be a Mason. Fal de ral, etc. ... Good plummets strong he downward hung A noble jolly brace on, And off aslant his broacher sent And drove it like a Mason. Fal de ral, etc. ... But the tempered steel began to fail, Too soft for the occasion: It melted plain, he drove so keen, My gallant noble Mason. Fal de ral, etc. ... So pleased was I to see him ply The tools of his vocation, I begg'd for once he would dispense And make a maid a Mason. Fal de ral, etc. ... Then round and round in mystic ground He took the middle station, And with halting pace he reached the place Where I was made a Mason. Fal de ral, etc. ... Then more and more the light did pour With bright illumination; But when the grip he did me slip, I gloried in my Mason. Fal de ral, etc. ... What further passed is here locked fast: I'm under obligation; But fill to him, up to the brim, Can³ make a maid a Mason! Fal de ral, etc. ... 1 both. 2 drove me crazy, thrilled me. 3=Who can. Regards, Bob |
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10 Jan 06 - 04:52 PM (#1645785) Subject: RE: Tune Req: The Free Mason's Song From: Bob Bolton G'day again, I suppose I should remark that this particular song shows how, sometimes, searching back to the oldest reference you have can be counter-productive! When Phyl first asked me about this song, I looked at my old, worn and travel-weary copy of Merry Muses of Caledonia ... and couldn't find any reference. Fortunately, I had picked up a newer edition, in the '70s or early '80s, which proved to be the same as the one from which Phyl was working. The two songs by Burns (err - not Bums ... the well-known OCR scanning error that seems to have slipped through my bleary, hot steamy midnight, proof-read!) referred to in the text, above, had only been located and anthologised by Legman a decade before. Who knows what else is still lurking in some dusty bundle of manuscript papers (probably in the vast research collection of an American University Library)? Regards, Bob |
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10 Jan 06 - 05:57 PM (#1645820) Subject: RE: Tune Req: The Free Mason's Song From: Peace If one Googles A Masonic Song or Masonic Poetry one will be taken to two sites that have those words. However, no indication is given on either site as to the melody. |
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10 Jan 06 - 06:22 PM (#1645837) Subject: RE: Tune Req: The Free Mason's Song From: Bob Bolton G'day Peace, Yes ... this is where we do need the ancient text (Ramsay's Tea- Table Miscellany), which is 1780s - if I remember aright ... or some modern reprint. In Burns's time, there seems to have been no confusion about which "Masonic Song"/tune was needed ... but there are now more contenders. I should address the query to Malcolm Douglas, who is great on the English sources ... and, we hope, on those to the north of the Cheviot Hills! Regards, Bob |
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10 Jan 06 - 06:32 PM (#1645848) Subject: RE: Tune Req: The Free Mason's Song From: GUEST,Murray on Saltspring In Claude M. Simpson's great book "The British Broadside Ballad & its Music" (1966) there's a good bit of info about "The Freemason's Song", with the tune, which turns out to be in 6/4 time, fitting the rhythm "Come let us prepare, we brothers that are" - not the same as the bawdy Burns words, which would seem to ask for something in 4/4 time. All the same, one could straighten the tune out and make it fit, I suppose. Has anyone tracked down Bruce Olson's remarks? |
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10 Jan 06 - 10:05 PM (#1645994) Subject: RE: Tune Req: The Free Mason's Song From: Bob Bolton G'day Murray, Presumably, the Leghorn book only just appeared when Simpson's book was well on the way to being printed (given lead times for major book publishing back before the introduction of digital publishing techniques a few decades later). I just went back and ran the Burns bawdy Masonic Song through my mind and I do hear it as a duble time ... but one that could quite easily be 6/4 = e.g.: crotchet quaver, crotchet quaver (½ ¼, (½ ¼) ... a basic "single jig". However, the words you quote seem to run more like: quaver quaver quaver, quaver quaver rest (¼ ¼ ¼, ¼ ¼ x) ... definitely a "double jig" pattern. I did call up some of the Bruce Olson material in my searches ... but I couldn't see any reference to this tune (and I'm not sufficiently familiar with his site layout, so my failure dosn't mean it's not there!). Regards, Bob |
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16 Jan 06 - 11:11 PM (#1649967) Subject: RE: Tune Req: The Free Mason's Song From: Malcolm Douglas According to Simpson the tune was cited in Ramsay, but not quoted. The two main references to Mason songs at Bruce Olson's website are as follows: "The Free and Accepted Mason; JGMS4 #75 "(JGMS: James Gillispie Violin MS, 1768. NLS MS 808. Contents from Emerson. Tunes are stressed note and scale degree incip[i]t coded in Rabson and Van Winkle Keller's National Tune Index, 1980." [see EASMES, below] "Many tunes given in SITM" [Fleischmann, Sources of Irish Traditional Music].) "Come let us prepare [BBBM]; DPY 24: Tune to the Free-Masons Song; VOP 54: Come let us prepare; BWD2 4: Tune to the Freemasons Song; CMD 25: Come let us prepare; DPY 24: Come, let us prepare; DPZ 11: Free-Mason Tune; LTY 2: Free Masons Tune; LOR 13" The latter reference is mainly to instances appearing in ballad operas; the tune is the one quoted by Simpson. As Murray has already mentioned, the metre is wrong for the Burns text. Neither entry seems to refer to the song under consideration here, but there were a lot of songs and tunes relating to freemasonry, and more than one called 'The Free Mason's Song' (See http://www.colonialdancing.org/Easmes/). There may be other Olson references that I've missed, of course. Jack Campin would be the best man to take the question further, really. I can have a look at Ramsay at some point, but it may not be soon; and that text may in any case offer no useful clues. Meanwhile, for what it's worth (and as I've already mentioned to Bob) it will sing to Corn Rigs; the opening lines are a little reminiscent of that song, but that is probably just coincidence. |
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