In The Town Where I Was Born...

[poliphilo]

I don't sing. Or maybe that should read I can't sing. Or even I shouldn't sing. I am wholly unmusical. I can't hold a tune. And in the normal course of things I don't even try

But faced with a baby I do.

First I sing nursery rhymes. I find I know the words of ever so many.

Then drinking songs like One Man went to Mow.

Then I move on to Yellow Submarine

And from there I access my cache of music hall numbers- Daisy Daisy, I'm 'Enery the 8th I Am, The Moon Shines Bright on Charlie Chaplin.

Finally I launch into the Battle Hymn of the American Republic and variations thereon- including the old RAF version with the verse that goes, "He jumped without a parachute from thirty thousand feet....(repeat three times)... And he ain't gonna jump no more".

The baby seems to like it. 

I believe my mother is responsible. She used to sing to me when I was tiny. All sorts. Including Daisy Daisy. And- my favourite- The Skye Boat Song. That's the one she used to put me to sleep with. Such a sad song. A lament for Culloden and Bonnie Prince Charlie. I'd sing it too if I knew the words.

Comments

[shullie.livejournal.com]

it's something about babies isn't it... I can't sing.. well I can and it's ahell of noise...lol

I uses to sing Daisy Daisy too and with my daughters .. and the Skye Boat song to my son, and now my grandson....

though when I just looked it up on goodle I only seem to sing the chorus and the first verse... and I miss some of thsoe words up too..

my version is:
chorus
Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,
Onward! the sailors cry;
Carry the lad that's born to be King
Over the sea to Skye.


How the winds howl, How the waves roar,
Thunder fills the sky;
There on the shore stands our foes,
Follow they dare not try...

the offical version is:

Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,
Onward! the sailors cry;
Carry the lad that's born to be King
Over the sea to Skye.

Loud the winds howl, loud the waves roar,
Thunderclaps rend the air;
Baffled, our foes stand by the shore,
Follow they will not dare.

and apparently there are other verses too ;)

Though the waves leap, soft shall ye sleep,
Ocean's a royal bed.
Rocked in the deep, Flora will keep
Watch by your weary head.

chorus

Many's the lad fought on that day,
Well the Claymore could wield,
When the night came, silently lay
Dead in Culloden's field.

chorus

Burned are their homes, exile and death
Scatter the loyal men;
Yet ere the sword cool in the sheath
Charlie will come again.


pity he was never everything they and the song hoped for...

I shall be singing this all day now....

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thank you for that. I'm going to try and memorize these words.

It's a great blessing that Charlie didn't come again. The Stuarts were such a lost cause.

It's a bit like the American Civil War: the losers get all the sympathy- and all the romance- even though it would have been a disaster if they'd won.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

How did "1066 and all that" put it?

The Royalists - wrong but romantic, and the Roundheads, right but repulsive.

"The Skye Boat Song" tends to be my baby calming song of choice too. And I figure if I only sing it to those babies still unable to talk, they're not going to notice if I fluff the words.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

1066 and All That is full of wisdom.

I wonder if the the Skye Boat Song wasn't the thing that first fired my interest in history. So sad, so yearning, so mysterious! Who wouldn't want to find out what all these names- Charlie, Flora, Culloden- actually stood for- and what exactly a claymore was?