My father had been in his youth a keen singer, and before the decades of pipe smoking began taking its toll I think he’d had a good voice. As a schoolboy he’d once won a place at the Canturbury Catherdral Choir school, which he’d been unable to accept because of his family’s move to Jamaica shortly after.
I know that in his early married life, he’d been involved in putting on amateur musicals and the like. Somewhere I have his notebook of lyrics. These are mostly popular music of the day–one I remember was an old western swing tune, Al Dexter’s Pistil Packin’ Mama.
But I never heard him sing any of these songs. By the time I came along, he’d stopped singing almost entirely.
I do remember, however, him singing a few song to my sister and I when we were small–these took the place of a bedtime story.
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So I’ve been trying to recall them. They’re not proper ‘folk’ songs either, but rather tin pan alley novelty songs, and the like.
I can only think of four:
Percy French’s Abdulla bulbul Amir
Lewis Carroll’s untitled poem, which beginsWill you walk a little faster?" Said the whiting to the snail. He sang this to the melody of a hymn tune–The Church’s one Foundation. I gather there’s a more ‘official’ melody out there some where, but that’s not what he sang. He claimed to have matched the words to this tune himself.
A song based on a poem by Henry Newbolt, Drake’s Drum. Sadly, I only remember scraps of the melody, and don’t know where the tune he sang came from.
DRAKE he’s in his hammock an’ a thousand mile away,
(Capten, art tha sleepin’ there below?)
Slung atween the round shot in Nombre Dios Bay,
An’ dreamin’ arl the time o’ Plymouth Hoe.
Yarnder lumes the island, yarnder lie the ships,
Wi’ sailor lads a-dancin’ heel-an’-toe,
An’ the shore-lights flashin’, an’ the night-tide dashin’
He sees et arl so plainly as he saw et long ago.Drake he was a Devon man, an’ ruled the Devon seas,
(Capten, art tha sleepin’ there below?),
Rovin’ tho’ his death fell, he went wi’ heart at ease,
An’ dreamin’ arl the time o’ Plymouth Hoe,
“Take my drum to England, hang et by the shore,
Strike et when your powder’s runnin’ low;
If the Dons sight Devon, I’ll quit the port o’ Heaven,
An’ drum them up the Channel as we drummed them long ago.”Drake he’s in his hammock till the great Armadas come,
(Capten, art tha sleepin’ there below?),
Slung atween the round shot, listenin’ for the drum,
An’ dreamin’ arl the time o’ Plymouth Hoe.
Call him on the deep sea, call him up the Sound,
Call him when ye sail to meet the foe;
Where the old trade’s plyin’ an’ the old flag flyin’,
They shall find him, ware an’ wakin’, as they found him long ago.
And the last was what I take to be an old music hall song, The Pig and the Inebriate
'Twas an evening in October, I’ll confess I wasn’t sober,
I was carting home a load with manly pride,
When my feet began to stutter and I fell into the gutter,
And a pig came up and lay down by my side.
Then I lay there in the gutter and my heart was all a-flutter,
Till a lady, passing by, did chance to say:
“You can tell a man that boozes by the company he chooses,”
He didn’t sing all the verses cited in the link.
This at least has a tenuous claim to being folk to the extent that Cathal McConnell sang it on one of the Boys of the Lough’s LPs.
And that’s it. He must have had a larger repertoire, but if he didn’t I don’t recall any of it.
Then the pig got up and slowly walked away. [etc][/quote]
