A Folk Song A Day

Jon reveals “My favourite version of this is Pete Coe’s, although I do like Jim Moray’s piano version too. It has a beautiful melody and I like the underlying stoicism – similar to ‘Arris Mill. Good natured complaining basically.”

Another  reminder that before there was ever a ‘squeezed middle’ there was just poverty. There still is. My regular drinking partner refutes this, or otherwise seems to think it’s all the fault of the people in poverty who have no excuse. I don’t. It can get feisty. The moral is probably that politics and beer are not happy bedfellows, unless of course you are going to sing about one or the other, or both. A good tune to soothe the savage breast. I’ll will still qualify Jon’s good “natured comment ,” with the thought that for most there was simply no choice but to accept it and get by, or give up and die. You may like a look at Mainly Norfolk for this one to see that Pete Coe accredits this to Tommy Daniel and from what I can glean he seems to be the conduit for this, possibly having rewritten much of it. As always, it’s difficult to sort out the truth behind the origins. The longer Mudcat thread seems to make it clear that some people remember it independently of Tommy, but he still remains the source of all of the versions that are performed now. The title of Poverty Knock (or Knocks), however is not a new thing and the phrase can be found in other and older literature, although I like the idea that it fits the clickerty-clack of the machines as a  constant reminder throughout the working day and thus found its natural fit.

Jon calls this “One of Tom Waits’ great parlour ballads. His wife is American Irish and they do spend time in Ireland with her extended family so the influence of Irish parlour balladry is probably quite direct. John and I do this one a lot.”

If I’ve got this right then Wait’s wife, Kathleen Brennan, was very involved here as this is the record of the musical stage play Franks Wild Years that sort of span out of the comic monologue of the same title on Swordfishtrombones. It was a moderately successful  Off Broadway production and a proper collaboration between Tom and Kathleen. For me it’s probably the drop off point from an artist I became wildly obsessed with during a whiskey sodden night at the start of the 80s. I was fortunate enough to see him on The Heart Attack & Vine tour and then a couple of years later on the Raindogs tour. Both were exceptional shows, quite different – the first quite intimate, the second lurching and wonky  –  but each crowned by magnetic performances from Tom. After that, I suppose the acting took off and the paradox for me was that somehow the real drama of his nourish vignettes seemed to fade. Hey-ho. Still this is one of Tom’s songs that really does lend itself to interpretation and has an almost folk-naiveté about its meadows, dew, hills fields, etc, even if the implication is we are not when we are not.

Jon refers us back saying “I heard this off an old EFDSS cassette (same one I got I’d Like To Tell To You from). It’s another nice bit of folk surrealism.”

Short sweet and not needing any explanation, so I’ll simply give you this Mudcat link to explore some variations on a theme with a special mention of The Bonzo’s Look Out There’s A Monster Coming – one of my favourites from the late, great, ginger geezer.

Jon says “Ian Giles recorded this with the fabulous Folly Bridge (now reissued on Wild Goose I believe). Ian was supposed to be singing it at the Christening of our God-daughter but was called away at the last minute so we learnt this in the car on the way. Mighty chorus, particularly in a church.”

A very pleasant and unexpected surprise as I wasn’t tipped off about the duo performance here, regrettably, however, the Folly Bridge CD is currently unavailable. I’ll try and find out whether a repress is on the cards and let you know, but it’s unlikely. Anyway my first encounter with this song was on the excellent Mawkin:Causley EP Cold Ruin, although they changed the tune somewhat as well as the title, their version being called Come My Lads. You’ll see at Mainly Norfolk that there’s a transcription along with the note that this was possibly originally a Grange song. “A what?” I hear you ask. Well if you’re anything like me then this link will come as news to you. I must say it makes more sense of the song for me as it seems to be a song of comradeship rather than simply a drinking song. Once again Mudcat takes a little ramble in the getting there, but this isn’t one of those epic threads and is worth a few minutes, especially for the final comment. Whether true or not, that’s folk folks. A real spirit lifter (ouch!) this one. I can’t help but think that the Christening must have been very special.

Jon rightly calls this a “Surreal little number this one. We have a currently-dormant version of this with Bellowhead that may well make a comeback at some point. The melody here is a bit of a mash up of the Bellowhead tune and James & Nancy’s excellent version on Starry-Gazy-Pie.”

I’ll add a link to Mainly Norfolk that has versions from Linda Adams and a slightly longer one form John Kirkpatrick. It does seem most odd but then I believe that the simple explanation is that this is a conflation of two or three songs that all shared common elements. This Mudcat thread explains it quite well enough. The research looks to be better than I can muster, with the intrigue of the various feeds and the dual purpose religious and erotic imagery. I guess this is more a case of folk-confusion than the folk process as such and an example of how the oral tradition can carry something despite the meaning becoming obscured, or in this case seemingly lost completely. Still, nonsensical or not, Jon gives brings this to life and the line about “It is drinking of good liquor that made my heart to sing,” creates a kind of wayward logic to the whole thing.