Boys of Bedlam

This week's song is sung by Matt Bragg:

Versions of “Boys of Bedlam” have been around since at least the Sixteenth Century. The lyrics refer to “Tom O’Bedlam”, an expression used to describe mentally ill beggars: “Bedlam” being a reference to Bethlem Royal Hospital in London, the world's first and oldest institution to specialise in mental illnesses (a hospital bearing the name still treats mental health patients to this day). Indeed the character “Mad Maudlin” refers to Mary Magdalene Hospital, then the corresponding institution for female patients. The version I perform is actually more of an “answer song” to the original poem (variously “Mad Maudlin’s Search” or “Bedlam Boys”), although there are, typically, no “definitive” renderings and the various versions all blur into one another.

I first came across the song, a vivid evocation of madness, from seeing the great Maddy Prior perform it in support of her album “Year” (1993)http://spoti.fi/RSVemy . This then led me back to the Martin Carthy-led version that appears on the second Steeleye Span album “Please to See the King” (1971) http://spoti.fi/OFuzVM . I basically kept their lyrics and melody which are taken from the multi-volume “Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy” by Thomas d'Urfey (published between 1698 and 1720), the earliest printed version of the song. I worked the guitar arrangement up from this in DADGAD tuning, the key shifting between D minor and D major.

Boys of Bedlam

For to see Mad Tom of Bedlam,
Ten thousand miles I've traveled.
Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes,
For to save her shoes from gravel

Still I sing bonny boys, bonny mad boys
Bedlam boys are bonny
For they all go bare and they live by the air
And they want no drink or money

I went down to Satan's kitchen
To get me food one morning
And there I got souls piping hot
All on the spit a-turning.

Still I sing… etc

My staff has murdered giants
My bag a long knife carries
To cut mince pies from children's thighs
For which to feed the fairies.

Still I sing… etc


And when that I have murdered
The man in the moon to a powder
His staff I'll break and his dog I'll shake
And there'll howl no demon louder

Still I sing… etc

For to see Mad Tom of Bedlam,
Ten thousand years I've traveled.
Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes,
For to save her shoes from gravel

Still I sing… etc


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