PRATIE PLACE

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Saturday, October 21, 2023

Animated music video for Hallowe'en: Lucy Wan

Lucy Wan is Child ballad 51 (read about it here) and one of the grimmest we've ever done. We put it on our cd "We Did It! Songs of people behaving badly." I used my cigar box fiddle, which I bought in 2008, only once, to record this song. Ever since it's hung on my window. 

It was a puzzle, how to make a video that wasn't overtly grisly while still conveying the darkness of the song.

Tuesday, October 10, 2023

Animated music video: "What a Shocking World This Is for Scandal" (I Never Says Nothing to Nobody)

Sixteen years ago Bob Vasile and I recorded a Pratie Heads cd called "We Did It! Songs of people behaving badly."

We got the idea from Clarke Thacher, head of the local folk song society, who said every proper British Isles traditional band should have a collection of murder ballads. We expanded the remit to include the other seven deadly sins and this was the opening song, as true today as it was back then. I found it decades ago in a tiny folk song collection, the collector averred it was written in 1818. Now, sixteen years later, I've made an animated music video for it.

That was long before the internet. Now I can look it up and see it's usually called "I Never Says Nothing to Nobody," and that it was first published in 1826. And further, that Thomas Hudson himself performed it in "the singing taverns and supper clubs that influenced early Music Hall." And yet further, that Hudson published 13 collections between 1818 and 1832. I'm going to see if there are other delights within. Supposedly the tune was heard from Henry King in Hampshire in 1906 by the collector George Gardiner.

What a Shocking World This Is for Scandal

What a shocking world this is for scandal
The people get worse ev'ry day, when ev'rything serves for a handle
To take folks' good names away.
In backbiting vile each so labors
The sad faults of others to show body
I could tell such a tale if I liked
But I never says nothing to nobody, fallerollolliday.

The butcher, so greasy and fat,
When out, he does nothing but boast
He struts as he cocks on his hat
As if he supreme ruled the roast
Of his wealth and his riches he'll prate
Determined to seem such a fine body
He's been pulled up three times for short weight
But I never says nothing to nobody, fallerollolliday.

Tis a snug little house I reside in
And the people who're living next door
Are smothered completely such pride in
As I never have met with before
But outside their door they don't roam
A large sum of money they owe body
When folks call they can't find them at home
But I never says nothing to nobody, fallerollolliday.

The publican, thriving in trade
With sorrow is now looking down
His sweet little pretty barmaid
Has a little one just brought to town
He's not to be seen much about
His wife is a deuce of a shrew body
The gossips are on the lookout
But I never says nothing to nobody, fallerollolliday.

The new married couple, so happy,
Seem quite the quintessence of love
He calls her, before every chappy,
"My darling," "My Duck," and "My Dove."
In private there's nothing but strife
Quarrelling, fighting o'erflow body
In short, quite a cat and dog life
But I never says nothing to nobody, fallerollolliday.

I could tell if I liked such a tale
Of neighbors all round, great and small
That surely, I think, without fail,
Would really astonish you all.
But here now my short ditty ends
As I don't want to hurt high or low body
I wish to stay in with my friends
So I never says nothing to nobody, fallerollolliday.

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