Sammy's Bar

It's hard to know what to say about Cyril Tawney, every new thing that I find out about him makes him seem all the more incredible. In my most recent performances I have been touching closely on the subject of honesty in folk song; honesty in song, in performance and in subject. It may seem obvious, trite or naive to say that, without a sense of honesty, folk music cannot survive but I feel it is an often overlooked subject in the many debates happening about folk music and its current state.

Whenever I listen to Cyril's voice and his music I understand that he really lived the events of which he sung, his travels around the globe aboard ship and the subsequent experiences have lead to songs that come across as raw and beautifully true despite them being fictional tales.

This song is a prime example of that; Sammy's bar was a real place, Cyril was involved in a car crash, the call of 'Hey, the last boat's a-leaving' and 'Haul away the daighsoe' reflect the final call for shipmates to get back to the ship at the end of a night ashore, failure to do so would mean either deserting or finding a far more expensive way back to the craft. The presentation of this song as a shanty, a work song, seems to be contradictory to a man who is simply giving up after his heart's broken first by a girl and then by her death and counterpoints his delusion in the need to work, to afford the fast car and impress the girls and further emphasises the overall effect.

This recording came just after Rosie Upton had told me that Cyril had actually drunk in The Star Inn in the 70's in between travelling to gigs as part of a Bath-wide pub crawl. I was so taken aback by the fact that this man had drunk (and been drunk) in the pub that our session takes place that I felt moved to sing this song in response. 

Tim

I went down to Sammy's Bar 
Hey, the last boat's a'leavin
By the shore at Pieta
Haul away the daighsoe

And my real love, she was there
There was sand all in her hair

How did sand get in your hair
Darling Johnny put it there

He's a better man by far
Because he's got a Yankee car

I went out from Sammy's Bar
To hire a Yankee car

Fourteen days I drank no wine
Saving for that love of mine

Then one day in Paula square
At a paper I did stare

Johnny tried a hairpin bend
For my love, it was the end

Going back to Sammy's Bar
I don't need no Yankee car

The Final Trawl & British Man O' War

The Final Trawl.

This first song is sung by Dave Stenton who came all the way from Oxford to join us:

"This song was written by Archie Fisher in 1979, after the Cod Wars with Iceland virtually completed the decimation of the British fishing industry. Shona MacMillan, in the notes to her compilation 'People and Songs of the Sea" [Greentrax CDTRAX 338, 2009], says: "In 1904, 143 boats, mostly herring drifters, were registered to Port Seton [on the Firth of Forth] and fishwives sold fish at the harbour. Today, about a dozen boats are locally owned and … fishing for prawns.'

I got the song from Roy Palmer’s "Boxing the Compass", pp. 306-307. Here are the words I sing: the "folk process" seems to have changed them a little! The only additional information I’ve got (also from Palmer) is that the Skerry Rock which Archie had in mind is the one that lies offshore between Peterhead and Aberdeen, and that a cran is 28st (392lb): so not the largest catch in the world."

Dave

It’s been three long years since we made her pay
sing Haul Away My Laddie O
and we can’t get by on the subsidy
and sing Haul Away My Laddie O.

So let’s heave away for the final trawl
it’s an easy pull for the catch is small.

Then we’ll stow the gear lads and batten down
and I’ll take the wheel lads and turn her round.

And she’ll join the "Venture" and the "Morning Star"
riding high and empty beyond the bar.

For I’d rather beach her on the Skerry Rock
than to see her torched in the breaker’s dock.

And it’s when I die you can stow me down
in her rusty old hold where the breakers sound.

Then we’ll find the Haven and the Fiddler’s Green
where the grub is good and the bunks are clean.

Well, I’ve worked the fishing now, boy and man
but the final trawl scarcely makes a cran.

British Man O' War


To celebrate 3 years of the session running I decided to start a new folk night in Bath at the St James Wine Vaults called Up in the Gallery. Held on the third Wednesday of each month it's aim is to bring some of the best young and emerging talent performing under the banner of folk today. Our first night was last Wednesday with the excellent James Findlay. He gave a cracking performance and ended with this song which is available on his first album 'As I Carelessly did Stray' from which this recording is taken.

Tim

It was down in yonder valley I carelessly did stray;
There I beheld a fair young damsel and a sailor gay.
He said, "My lovely Susan, I'm soon to leave the shore,
I'm sailing off to China a British man of war."

Ch: A Bristish man of war, a British man of war
I'm sailing off to China on a British man of war

Susan fell a weeping. "Oh sailor," she did say,
"How can you be so venturesome to throw your life away!
For it's when that I am twenty-one I shall receive my store;
Stay at home, don't venture on a British man of war."

Ch

"Oh, Susan, lovely Susan, the truth to you I'll tell,
The Chinese have insulted us, old England knows it well.
I may be crowned with laurels, so like a jolly tar,
I'll face the walls of China on a British man of war."

Ch

"Oh how can you be so venturesome as to face the proud Chinese,
For they will prove as treacherous as any Portuguese,
And by some deadly dagger you shall receive a scar,
So stay at home don't venture on a British man of war."

Ch

"Oh, Susan, lovely Susan, the time will quickly pass,
You come down to the ferryhouse to take a parting glass;
For my shipmates they are waiting to sail me far from the shore,
I'm sailing off to China on a British man of war."

Ch

The sailor took his handkerchief and tore it fair in two,
You keep half of me my love and I'll keep half of you
For when I am in battle, the cannons loudly roar,
I'll fight for fame and Susan in a British man of war."

Ch

It was down in yonder valley I carelessly did stray;
There I beheld a fair young damsel and a sailor gay.
He said, "My lovely Susan, I'm soon to leave the shore,
I'm sailing off to China a British man of war."

Ch

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Townhouse Girl

This week's song is an unreleased track by Ali George:

"The concept of Townhouse Girl developed from a lyric that had been in my mind for a week or so (the first line of the song). I knew I wanted to expand the work and as soon as a melody emerged I got to work writing the rest... I also knew the narrator wasn't me, I found it interesting writing from someone else's perspective and that's a style of writing I've continued over the past year."

Ali

Townhouse Girl
Won't you treat me like a friend
I feel like a fool, I gave all my heart to you
Got nothing back

Townhouse Girl
Won't you open up the door
Out in the cold, with nowhere to go
Townhouse Girl

November wind,
won't you ease off again
It cuts straight through my coat
now I'm cold as a ghost
She's locked up safe inside
With her fire burning bright
I'm down here on the street
And you're blowing my heart apart

November wind,
Won't you ease off again
It cuts straight through my coat
Now I'm cold as a ghost
She's locked up safe inside
With her fire burning bright
I'm down here on the street
And you're blowing my heart apart

Townhouse Girl
Won't you treat me like a friend
I feel like a fool, I gave all my heart to you
Got nothing back

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The Butcher Boy

This week's song is from Rosie Upton who came to her first session a couple of weeks ago::

"I've always loved ballads, hearing the story unfold often in a horrific almost cinematic form, this is especially so in murder ballads. I've wondered what the truth might be behind these stories. Asking myself whether the story is based on a myth or legend carried down over the centuries or based on more recent historical fact. Are they the oral tradition's equivalent of a crime or historical novel that is simply 'a good read' or merely a cautionary tale? It has always fascinated and appalled me that women come off particularly badly in ballads, nearly always the victim in a man's world, but regrettably that has been the reality for the greater part of history. Something feminism sought to redress and I am saddened that many young people today have disregarded and misunderstood the intention of the women's movement. I think that is why ballads, and more especially murder ballads, strike such a chord with me. Even from an early age I loved telling stories, as a teenager I enjoyed reading the Nordic sagas and I loved the theatricality of the ballad tradition long before I became a singer.

I already sang two similar songs within the same group of ballads - The Oxford Girl and Joseph Taylor's Worcester City - when I first heard the late Isabel Sutherland sing The Butcher Boy at a Sidmouth Festival back in the 1970s. The power of the song really hit me and the way she sang it really brought the story to life - so with some trepidation I asked her if she would mind if I sang it and she agreed. I've been singing it for more than 30 years and I still find it chilling. It is a powerful song which tells everything about the abusive power that a man can wield over a woman. As with most ballads it doesn't actually say why he killed her, she like so many in similar situations, has no voice. It is left for the listener to imagine. Did he rape her, was she pregnant, was it revenge, or was he simply a psychopath? We don't know but it ends with some redemption and retribution with the murderer hanged. Personally, I would have preferred him to be imprisoned in solitary confinement for the remainder of his miserable life. There is little justice for the murdered woman of whom we learn so little. The story has been copied so many times in detective fiction from Agatha Christie's crime novels to Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse and the dozens of television series they have spawned. Why do we relish such appalling stories.......? I really don't know the answer."

Rosie

My parents gave me learning, good learning they gave to me
For they sent me to a butcher's shop a butcher boy to be

It's there I met sweet Mary Ann with the dark and the rovin' eye
And I promised I would marry her in the month of sweet July

I went down to her mother's house 'tween the hours of eight and nine
And I asked her for to walk with him down by the foaming brine

Down by the foaming brine we'll go, down by the foaming brine
Now that won't be a pleasant walk, down by the foaming brine

We walked it east and we walked west and we walked it all alone
Till he took a knife from out me breast and he stabbed her to the ground

She fell down on her bended knee and for mercy she did cry
"Oh Willie dear, don't murder me, I'm not prepared to die"

I took her by her lily-white hands and I dragged her to the brim
And with a mighty downward push I pushed her fair body in

I went back to his mother's house 'tween the hours of twelve and one
And little, little did she think what her own poor son had done

I asked her for a handkerchief to tie around my hair
And I asked her for some candlelight to to light me up the stairs

No rest, no rest did the young man get, no rest he could not find
For he thought he saw the gates of hell approaching his bedside

And that murder it was soon found out and the gallows were his doom
For the murdering of sweet Mary Ann who lies where the roses bloom

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