I've been a-courting Mary-Jane

[venta]

So, an important point, I'm sure you'll agree.

Please fill in what, if anything, you would sing/shout between verse and chorus:

(Edit: sorry, polls play merry hell with formatting and can't be edited after the fact.)

[Poll #1304903]

I think I learned this song from my parents. They sang an extra line in between the verse and chorus, but not one between the chorus and the verse.

Years later, singing this round a campfire with the Scouts, I learned a new set of fill-in lines. These are now the ones I'd sing without thinking (and the ones I filled in on the poll[*]). I thought no more about it, and decided it was another strange thing my parents had made up to fool me.

Recently (at oxfordgirl and mejoff's wedding, no less) someone started singing On Ilkley Moor and I was quite astonised to hear libellum yelling[**] something quite different in between the verse and the chorus.

I was talking to someone else recently, who came up with a third set[***] (which I have annoyingly now forgotten) and it got me wondering. How many variants are there ? Are they geographically distributed ? If you have friends who like a bit of a sing and might know On Ilkley Moor, send 'em along here to fill this poll in and I'll be most grateful.

I'm sure that there will be a moral to this tale.

[*] By which, of course, I mean will have filled in, since at the time of writing the poll doesn't yet exist.
[**] That's a bit unkind. It was quite a melodious noise. Not quite singing, though, so let's go with yelling.
[***] Though, interestingly, despite knowing the song she didn't know that the words to While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks fit really well to the tune. If you didn't know this either, give it a try. While glory shone around, while glory shone around, while glo-ry shone a-round.

Comments

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

As a second generation Yorkshire emigrant, I only know of this song because of my mother telling me to wear my woolly hat in winter so I didn't "get stuck out on Ilkley Moor baht'at", seemingly assuming that I had absorbed its cultural context during gestation. I therefore have this feeling like I ought to know what you're talking about and am a bit rubbish for not doing.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Also, she used to sing "While shepherds washed their socks by night all seated on the ground, the angel of the lord came down and threw them all around" while we were hanging up washing. I later found this to be the incorrect lyrics during school carol singing. See also "We three kings of orient are, one in a taxi one in a car".

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it wasn't just me whose parents perpretrated that kind of thing!

Anyway, everyone knows the three kings came from a mysterious place called Orientar.

[ringbark.livejournal.com]

That's rubbish. One in a taxi two in a car, else you've lost one of the kings.

Also, shepherds is
While shepherds washed their socks by night
All seated round a tub
A bar of Fairy Soap came down
And they began to rub.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

No no, it's: one in a taxi, one in a car, one on a scooter / honking his hooter / smoking a big cigar.

He may have been the third one to arrive, but it sounds like he was worth waiting for.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

"Following Ringo Star", I thought.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

While shepherds washed their socks by night
All watching ITV
The Angel of the Lord came down
And switched to BBC.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

No no no:

We three kings of orient are
One in a taxi one in a car
One in a scooter beeping his hooter
Following Ringo Starr

You have a different socks one to me because you didn't throw the socks around the airing cupboard.

[beckyl.livejournal.com]

The cigar was alway 'green' in the version I knew.

[ulfilias.livejournal.com]

one on a scooter, bipping his hooter, smoking a big cigar !

[venta.livejournal.com]

Oh no, are you a whole 3rd person who doesn't know it ? This calls for serious cultural re-alignment on my part. I assume everyone not only knows it but is bored to death with hearing it.

I'm too scared to google for something that would reveal the tune, but an executive summary would be that someone goes on a cold moor without a hat, bad shit ensues. If you do not wish bad shit to ensue, wear a hat.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Well I got that message, yes, I've just never heard the song.
(Thinking about it my hat is safe and warm in the lab and I am not. Bah.)

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

Though it's rather implicit that it wasn't just a hat he wasn't wearing.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Not in my version! Mine is entirely suitable for a family audience and, although going out on a moor on a bike in the middle of the night is clearly unwise, there is no indication his courting wasn't entirely chaste.

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

on a bike in the middle of the night

That's no way to talk about Mary Jane! She's a lovely girl!