Request: Comical song version of Hamlet story
PeterJuhl
he's interested in. Please help him if you can, and mail replies to:
al...@apricot.co.uk
He writes:
I haven't figured out how to post to the news group with Mosaic yet, and I
would appreciate some help in tracking down a song myself. Could you post
a
similar request on my behalf?
It's for a comic version of the 'Hamlet' story which used to be sung,
though
not as far as I know recorded, by Martin Carthy. He sang it unaccompanied,
and it is to a slowed-down country dance tune. (It'll take me a day or so
to
figure out which one).
The verses are very dense, and tell the story too fast for me to remember,
but the chorus, which alters each time, includes variants like
'Hamlet, Hamlet, acting funny
loves his mummy'
'Hamlet, Hamlet, bloody gory,
Hamlet Hamlet end of story.'
If you can do the post, I'll look through my tune books to get the title.
ta
Alan Kearns
L. Ravi Narasimhan
Folk Musician." Mike is very active in the New Jersey folk music
scene, but, I don't think has net.access.
--
Ravi Narasimhan |"Come see the violence inherent in the
Department of Physics, UCLA |system! Help help! I'm being
Los Angeles, CA 90024 |repressed!"
os...@raman.physics.ucla.edu | --- Dennis
Rick Lee
: An acquaintance asked me to post this request for information on a song
From digital tradition, http://pubweb.parc.xerox.com/digitrad/list=100:
HAMLET
HAMLET
(Adam McNaughton)
There was this king sleeping
In his garden all alane
When his brither in his ear dropped
A wee tait of henbane
Then he stole his brother's crown
And his money and his widow
But the dead king walked in cutty sark
And said hey listen, kiddo
I've been killed and it's your duty
To take revenge on Claudius
Kill him quick and clean and show
The nation what a fraud he is
The boy says, right, I'll do it
But I'll have to play it crafty
So that nobody will suspect me
I'll kid on that I'm a dafty
So wi all except Horatio
(and he trusts him as a friend)
Hamlet - that's the boy
Kids on he's round the bend
And because he wasn't ready
For obligatory killing
He tried to make the king think
He's tuppence off the shilling
Took the mickey oot Polonius
Treated poor Ophelia vile
And told Rosencrantz and Gildenstern
that Denmark was a jail
Then a troup of traveling actors
On the 784
Arrived to do a special one night
Gig in Elsinore
Hamlet, Hamlet, Loved his mommy
Hamlet, Hamlet, acting balmy
Hamlet, Hamlet, hesitating
Wonders if the ghost's a cheat
And that is why he's waiting
Then Hamlet wrote a scene for
The players to enact
While Horatio and him would watch
To see if Claudius cracked
The play was called "the Mousetrap"
(not the one that's running now)
And sure enough, the King walked out
Before the scene was through.
So Hamlet's got the proof that Claudius
Gived his dad the dose
The only problem being now that
Claudius knows he knows
So while Hamlet tells his ma that her
New husband's not a fit one
Uncle Claud puts out a contract with
The English king as hit man
And when Hamlet killed Polonius
The concealed corpus delecti
Was the King's excuse to send for
An English hempen necktie
With Rosencrantz and Gildenstern
To make sure he got there
But Hamlet jumped the boat and put
The finger on the pair
Meanwhile Laertes heard his dad had been
Stabbed thru the arras
He came racing back to Elsinore
Toute-suite, Hot foot from Paris
And Ophelia with her dad killed by
The man she wished to marry
After saying it with flowers
She commited hari-kari
Hamlet, Hamlet, there's no messin'
Hamlet, Hamlet, Learned his lesson
Hamlet, Hamlet, Yorick's crust
Convinced him that men, good or bad,
At last must come to dust
Then Laertes lost the place and was
Demanding retribution
But the king said, keep the head and
I'll provide you a solution
And he arranged a sword-fight with
The interested parties
With a blunted sword for Hamlet and
A sharp sword for Laertes
And to make things double sure
The old belt and braces line
He fixed a poison on the sword tip and
A poisoned cup of wine
And the poisoned sword got Hamlet
But Laertes went and muffed it
Cause he got stabbed himself and he
Confessed before he snuffed it
Then Hamlet's mammy drank the wine and
As her face turned blue
Hamlet says, I quite believe
The King's a baddy too
Incestuous, treacherous, damned Dane
He said, to be precise,
And made up for hesitating by
Killing Claudius twice
Cause he stabbed him with the sword and forced
The wine between his lips
Then he said, the rest is silence
That was Hamlet had his chips
They fired a volley over him that
Shook the topmost rafter
And Fortinbras, knee-deep in Danes
Lived happily ever after
Hamlet, Hamlet, a' the glory
Hamlet, Hamlet, end of story
Hamlet, Hamlet, I'm away
If you think this is boring
You should read the bloody play
@royalty @murder @ghost @poison
filename[ HAMLT
DC
(DT of October 1994)
Stephanie Smith
> [From Hamlet]
>
> But the dead king walked in cutty sark
> And said hey listen, kiddo
>
> On the 784
> Arrived to do a special one night
> Gig in Elsinore
>
There are a couple of errors in this rendition which I just noticed.
The lines above are:
The deid king walked and got his son
And says hey listen, kiddo.
Then a troup of traveling actors
Like the 7:84... etc.
7:84 was the name of a Scottish theatre company active in the 1980s
and the 1970s. It derives from the observation that 7% of the
population own 84% of the wealth in Scotland. The Gaelic singer Dolina
Maclennan was one of the people involved with the productions.
One of these days I'm going to learn Hamlet by heart. It's wonderful
to see Adam McNaughton sing this.
Stephanie Smith
ssm...@nas.edu
Roger Gawley
On Mon, 5 Jun 1995, Rick Lee wrote:
>
> HAMLET
>
much snipped
> Then a troup of traveling actors
> On the 784
> Arrived to do a special one night
> Gig in Elsinore
I think that someone else said this last time around, but 784 should really
be 7:84 (say "seven, eighty-four") from the 7:84 Theatre Company. Seven
percent of the population own eighty-four percent of the wealth.
The whole song is a hoot; is it know which genius wrote it?
Rick Lee
: The whole song is a hoot; is it know which genius wrote it?
Adam MacNaughton, former Glasgow schoolteacher, excellent bass singer,
long-time resident singer at the Star Folk Club in Glasgow, now
proprietor of a great second-hand bookshop in Glasgow.
And yes, the 784 reference is as you said, according to Dick Gaughin.
Rick
Craig Cockburn
Roger....@durham.ac.uk "Roger Gawley" writes:
>
> The whole song is a hoot; is it know which genius wrote it?
>
--
Craig Cockburn (pronounced "coburn"), Edinburgh, Scotland
Sgri\obh thugam 'sa Gha\idhlig ma 'se do thoil e.
Sally Greenberg
: Adam McNaughton is correct. Sung to traditional fiddle tune "Mason's
: Apron". I do not know either what recording McNaughton's performance
: can be found on.
: A local (Pullman, Washington/Inland Northwest) artist named Dan Maher
: performs this tune regularly. It appears on his CD "Winter Whisky" from
: the Songfinder label. The credits for the CD list the title of the
: song as "Oor Hamlet" (I don't know what oor means but that's what it
: says). The copyright acknowledgement says "(C) M/S MCPS 10090". Hope
: this is of use.
Paul Espinoza of Golden Bough also frequently performs an excellent
rendition of this song in concert. I'm fairly certain, though, that it's
not on any of the Golden Bough albums :-(.
Sally
--
========================================================================
Sally Greenberg |Palo Alto/San Jose Folk & Celtic music calendar
sal...@netcom.com |Get by FTP from /pub/sa/sallyg at ftp.netcom.com
|Finger sal...@netcom.com for more details.
========================================================================
Joseph Erhard-Hudson
: In article <Pine.SUN.3.91-941213.95...@draco.dur.ac.uk>
: Roger....@durham.ac.uk "Roger Gawley" writes:
: >
: > The whole song is a hoot; is it know which genius wrote it?
: >
: Adam McNaughton? I think it might be on his album "words, words, words"
Adam McNaughton is correct. Sung to traditional fiddle tune "Mason's
Apron". I do not know either what recording McNaughton's performance
can be found on.
A local (Pullman, Washington/Inland Northwest) artist named Dan Maher
performs this tune regularly. It appears on his CD "Winter Whisky" from
the Songfinder label. The credits for the CD list the title of the
song as "Oor Hamlet" (I don't know what oor means but that's what it
says). The copyright acknowledgement says "(C) M/S MCPS 10090". Hope
this is of use.
--
Joseph Erhard-Hudson
i925...@wsunix.wsu.edu
Embrace the tiger and return to the mountain.
TGraff
: performs this tune regularly. It appears on his CD "Winter Whisky" from
: the Songfinder label. The credits for the CD list the title of the
: song as "Oor Hamlet" (I don't know what oor means but that's what it
: says). The copyright acknowledgement says "(C) M/S MCPS 10090". Hope
: this is of use.
I have heard it referred to as "OUR Hamlet". That may explain the
"Oor..."
Furthermore, I have been performing this song for some time now (and I
thank you all greatly for answering the 7:84 question; I always just sang
it without understanding what it meant) and just recently, a friend of
mine told me that he heard a story about the song's origin. Apparently
the author, Adam McNaughton, was challenged by a friend to tell the entire
story of Hamlet in under 3 minutes; and thus the song was born. I have no
idea if there is any validity to this, my friend didn't even know where he
had heard it.
Anyone ever hear about it?
Tim Graffham
Jay S. Luxenberg, M.D.
>: A local (Pullman, Washington/Inland Northwest) artist named Dan Maher
>: performs this tune regularly. It appears on his CD "Winter Whisky" from
>: the Songfinder label. The credits for the CD list the title of the
>: song as "Oor Hamlet" (I don't know what oor means but that's what it
>: says). The copyright acknowledgement says "(C) M/S MCPS 10090". Hope
>: this is of use.
> Apparently
>the author, Adam McNaughton, was challenged by a friend to tell the entire
>story of Hamlet in under 3 minutes; and thus the song was born. I have no
>idea if there is any validity to this, my friend didn't even know where he
>had heard it.
>
>Anyone ever hear about it?
John Roberts and Tony Barrand have a version on their CD "A Present from
the Gentlemen" on Golden Hind Music 1992. They say in the liner notes that
Adam McNaughton is a Glasgow singer and teacher, who crafted it to teach
some of the finer points of English Literature to inner-city
schoolchildren. They credit their Anglicized version to Martin Carthy.
--
n...@itsa.ucsf