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Lyr Req: Balladmaker's Apprentice (Ray Hearne) Related threads: Lyr Req: Ordinary Copper (Ray Hearne) (10) Superb new album from Ray Hearne (1) Info: Ray Hearne - Song Writer (16) Lyr Req: Thurnscoe Rain (Ray Hearne) (3) Ray Hearne and Ciaran Boyle at Kiveton (3) Lyr Req: Rother Sing a Don Song (Ray Hearne) (6) Lyr Req/Add: Song for David (Ray Hearne) (3) Ray Hearne's Broad Street Ballads (2) |
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Subject: Ballad Maker's Apprentice From: GUEST,Gerry Date: 30 Oct 07 - 08:00 PM I'm trying to learn Ballad Maker's Apprentice, written by Ray Hearne, off a recording by Roy Bailey. There's one place where I think I've got the words wrong, and another place where I don't get a reference. The sixth stanza sounds to me like Mid-winter whitening windy ridge The deep and under cinder bridge Where unrequited lovers groan I made them all my own I made them all my own. Well, that second line makes no sense to me so I've probably hung a mondegreen. Does anyone here know what it's supposed to be? Then in the fifth stanza there's a line, "The goddess that was greasy Joan." I know there's a reference to "greasy Joan" in Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost, I think), but she isn't a goddess. Anybody here know what this line in the song is about? Thanks. |
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Subject: RE: Ballad Maker's Apprentice From: gnomad Date: 31 Oct 07 - 02:04 AM "Winter" Wm Shakespeare When icicles hang by the wall, And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail, When blood is nipp'd and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl - To-who; Tu-whit, Tu-who, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. When all aloud the wind doth blow, And coughing drowns the parson's saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw, When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl - To-who; Tu-whit, Tu-who, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. I don't know the song, so cannot offer any great enlightenment, sorry. |
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Subject: RE: Ballad Maker's Apprentice From: Stewie Date: 31 Oct 07 - 02:47 AM Gerry, that's what it sounds like to me too. It may be a matter of punctuation: Winter whitening, windy ridge, The deep, and under cinder bridge Where unrequited lovers groan I made them all my own I made them all my own Just a thought. --Stewie. |
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Subject: RE: info req: Ballad Maker's Apprentice (Ray Hearne) From: Joe Offer Date: 31 Oct 07 - 02:57 AM Sounds like an interesting song. Can somebody post the full lyrics? Thanks. -Joe- |
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Subject: Lyr Add: BALLADMAKER'S APPRENTICE (Ray Hearne) From: GUEST,gazza2 Date: 31 Oct 07 - 04:14 PM THE BALLADMAKER'S APPRENTICE ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Beneath a ballad-maker's moon Singing me her sweetest tunes She whispered, "take them all on loan And make them all your own". ...I made them all my own. The melody, the live-long theme, The everyday note in the dream, An underlying overtone, I made them all my own. The silver tongues, the hearts of gold, The new directions in the old, The lips that kissed the Blarney-Stone, ...I made them all my own. The dead king Coal, unspinning wheels, Women of iron, brass and steel, Who worked their fingers to the bone, ...I made them all my own. You Mathers and your Planxty man, Battalions of the also-ran, The goddess that was Greasy Joan, ...I made them all my own. Mid-winter whitening Windy Ridge, The deep end under Cinder Bridge, Where unrequited lovers groan, ...I made them all my own. The sacrifices worth the price, The poet's earthly paradise, Whose unimagined words have flown, ...I made them all my own. The mirror weeping all alone, The voices on the answerphone, Everywhichway the wind has blown, ...I made them all my own. Apprenticed to the ballad trade, Seeking no greater accolade, I leave you these few things on loan, I made them all my own... ...now make them all your own. Beneath some ballad-maker's moon, You make them all your own. ********************************************************************* The song is on Ray's Broad Street Ballads (No Masters NMCD17). Well worth a listen! |
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Subject: RE: info req: Ballad Maker's Apprentice (Ray Hearne) From: GUEST,Gerry Date: 31 Oct 07 - 07:55 PM Thanks, gazza2. I guess I misheard a couple of other things on the Roy Bailey recording, so now I have even more questions.... When RB sings it, he repeats the "I made them all my own" at the end of each verse (except the first and last verses), but you haven't written it that way. Does RH repeat the line? Who or what are Mathers? |
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Subject: RE: info req: Ballad Maker's Apprentice (Ray Hearne) From: GUEST,Georgina Boyes Date: 01 Nov 07 - 08:55 AM Joseph Mather was a broadside ballad writer who lived in Sheffield in the late 18th-early 19th century. His songs were Anti-establishment and much loved - one at least was still in oral tradition when I was collecting songs in the late 1960's. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Balladmaker's Apprentice (Ray Hearne) From: GUEST Date: 27 Nov 07 - 07:21 AM hello Gerry Georgina Boyes sent me your enquiry about 'The Balladmaker's Apprentice' it was a few weeks back - I'm sorry my computer has been in the operating theatre for a fortnight having its viruses removed. You've almost got the line but it's 'deep end under Cinder Bridge' - 'deep end' as in water or swimming, or i suppose , trying not to drown - Cinder Bridge is a place in Greasborough near Rotherham, South Yorkshire where I used to play as a kid and i liked the musical chime with 'Windy Ridge' which is the name that I gave to Greasborough Tops which can be seen from Cinder Bridge - the Ridgeway or 'Rig Dyke' is an old Anglo Saxon fortification which passes along the route of the Tops - they're all places I played as a kid or wandered heart-sloughed as an adolescent so to sing them in a song is like playing old dream time chords or claiming back a bit of lost history as personal and community history - when no one else mentions such places we have to chant them and make them our own And you're right about Greasy Joan too - I think it's 'Love's Labours Lost' but for me she was a goddess or as much a goddess as anyone else - a working class kitchen lass slaving on the better off - one of history's most common refrains - our town and village were full of Joans, as was Odysseus's Ithaca and Hamlet's Elsinore - turning the spit and scrubbing the pots while the heroes pranced about and kept the attention of the poets and singers - I thought she deserved a mention and I also remembered that when the goddess revealed herself over and above her work muck, you have to avert your eyes at the dazzlement! Mnay thanks for singing the song - that's why we write them - and don't forget to make it all your own - Joan and Windy Ridge etc might mean something entirely different to you - in your own tuning - that's great - look forward to hearing some day all the best Ray Hearne |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Balladmaker's Apprentice (Ray Hearne) From: GUEST,Gerry Date: 27 Nov 07 - 05:55 PM Many thanks, Ray. I sang the song as a floor spot at Sandra-in-Sydney's folk club last weekend. I think I did make it my own, by accidentally leaving out a verse, or maybe I took two lines from one verse and the third line from another. The song was well-received - that is to say, nobody threw anything at me - and the assembled multitude was happy to join in on "I made them all my own" at the end of each verse. What I found most difficult was resisting the urge to write a parody.... |
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