I saw the Lettermen, the Kingston Trio and more. Folk music was the topic among the kids I hung with. We spent afternoons playing albums. I don’t remember the first time I saw the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, but I did, and they went straight to the top of my chart. They had two or three albums available in the very early sixties, and I played the vinyl off them.
When I married my folk albums were packed away. My husband hated them. But they were unpacked and back on the stereo when we divorced, nine years later. Along came the magic of 8 track tapes and recording equipment, and I was in business; all my albums could be played in the car. The drive to work was a lot shorter.
My girls liked the music, too. I guess. It was all they heard. But they didn’t complain. There often was a third girl in the car, too, Chrissy, who lived next door and was Beth’s good friend. Here’s an old 110 film snap. You can see Beth’s black Irish hair, Shelly’s Teutonic blond hair, and almost make out that Chrissy and her brother Mark have beautiful red hair. I turned heads when I walked through a store with those three girls! I could hear minds turning and opinions forming.
The girls each were a year apart and their average age was about eight when Chrissy’s mother dropped by one day to tell me I was enabling the girls to form good opinions of reprehensible behavior. The three of them were enamored of the Clancy Brothers version of William Bloat and could be found and heard singing it in both back yards and out on the street. “It glorifies murder and suicide,” she told me.
I told her I’d heard worse versions that included clotted blood and thought it could even be considered an early advertising jingle. Or, heavy handed chauvinism. In any event, the girls didn’t unlearn the song and Chrissy was still allowed to come over.
In a mean abode
On the Shankell road
Lived a man named William Bloat
And he had a wife
The bane of his life
Who always got his goat
And one day at dawn
With her night dress on
He slit her bloody throat
Now he was glad
He had done what he had
As she lay there stiff and still
Till suddenly all of the angry law
Filled his soul with an awful chill
And to finish the fun
So well begun
He decided himself to kill
Then he took the sheet
From his wife’s cold feet
And he twisted it into a rope
He hanged himself
From the pantry shelf
Was an easy end let’s hope
With his dying breath
And he facing death
He solemnly cursed the pope
But the strangest urn
Of this whole concern
Was only just beginning
He went to hell
But his wife got well
And she’s still alive and sinning
For the razor blade
Was German made
But the rope was Belfast linen
I don't believe I have ever heard that before. Quite the song.
ReplyDeleteLove the song! Had to go and google it. A little more learning this morning! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteonly joanne would recollect this...Thank you..
ReplyDeleteonly joanne would remember this...Thank you..
ReplyDelete