From: Abby.Sale@animece.oau.org (Abby Sale)
Date: 07 Oct 94 08:44:01 -0500
Subject: Vanessa
Message-Id: <bdb_9410091621@animece.oau.org>Organization: Anime Central BBS
To: alfred!ucf-cs!bcf.usc.edu!cray
Status: RO
X-Status: 


 Uu> Thank you for "Vanessa" and for your kind instructions -- which I
 Uu> needed.  Do you think this is another of the English music hall songs,

With regret, I never learned anything of the song's background.  I
learned it in 1967 from the singing of Jenny Aguter (not the actress)
who was then president of the Edinburgh University Folksong Society.  I
was the treasurer.  Although bawdry was always welcome, this was the
actual annual dirty song night. "Vanessa Picklegin" was new to Scotland.

Internal evidence implies (but certainly doesn't dictate) the song is
Irish:  "One night for a jar..."  being the common Irish term for a mug
of beer. Occasionally heard in chic London.  Also the level of grammar &
non-slang points to Irish.  Such a song, if London, would likely throw
in some Cockney words or phrases.  "The stand in hand," tho, struck me
as very unusual.  Never otherwise head it.  "a hard" is common
throughout British Isles.

If you don't have it, I'd be happy to send a tape of my pride-and-joy
record, Ewan MacColl's _Songs from the Merry Muses of..._  It was a
semi-under-the-counter production in 1962, with full notes and words.
(My major interest is the English & especially Scottish ballad.  To me,
MacColl, although English, is the perfect singer.)

I have Dick's complete Burns, with tunes.  Sadly, although he included
many Burns things that appeared both in _MM_ and elsewhere, and refers
often to _MM_ songs, he left out specifically _MM_ material.
Re-publications of the _MM_ never seem to include tunes.  Almost none of
Burn's poems _except_ the bawdy ones ever went into tradition.  Maybe
because they were mostly just a re-working of songs that had been in
tradition in the first place.