I have to confess I was inspired to add Tyrolean Knockabout when I saw this rather unbelievable object in the b3ta newsletter this afternoon. It defies belief (and as they say, “Filed in the what the fuck are Amazon selling now? category”). A bit of a filler, this track, but a chance to get the accordion out, it would appear. Thanks to EskimoEric
See lyrics to Tyrolean Knockabout
Neil G
I think it should be ‘break man’. The break in a song is usually a little instrumental bit, hence no singing and ‘more words’ to be found. So the break man would be the man who provides the break. That’s how I’ve always understood it.
13 December 2008
Dave Betts
Why Amazon, Why?
13 December 2008
Richard
I can’t agree with you on this one I’m afraid. A filler? This is one of my favorites on this album.
I love the accordian and the guiter after the second verse. And he talks about taking a walk with a flask – I always like the songs when he goes walking (Light at the end of the Tunnel, Joy Division Oven Gloves etc)
Anyway, HMHB dont do fillers!!
13 December 2008
Chris The Siteowner
Sorry Richard. You’re probably right. Anyone else want to speak up for the big “break” theory?
13 December 2008
s.g.d.,a Shropshire lad
from the website:
Jimmie Rodgers was “The Singing Brakeman” – he’d obviously put a few words in with the yodelling as well.
Richard is correct,they don’t do fillers.
14 December 2008
Neil G
There’s my whole belief system in tatters. What am I going to do now?
14 December 2008
Daryl
Agree with richard and sgd. No way a filler.
As to Paul Ross and Amazon, my conception of man as nature’s final word is destroyed, although all of the 25 5-star reviews are taking the piss.
I see it rather like an online version of unloading old fridge freezers in front of Paul’s “gaff”. Sort of.
Daryl
14 December 2008
Neil G
Whilst on the hmhb website, I saw this “keeping my feet above the mulch of the barton” First sentence of Phase the Third, Chapter 2 of Tess of the d’Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy) reads, “The dairymaids and men had flocked down from their cottages and out of the dairy-house with the arrival of the cows from the meads; the maids walking in pattens, not on account of the weather, but to keep their shoes above the mulch of the barton.”. So it looks like ‘barton’ rather than bottom. Never heard the word before.
14 December 2008
Richard
Its a killer when that happens Neil. I thought the same as you. We were partially right – it was just Nigel being very clever and having two meanings – one for us and another for intelligent people!
14 December 2008
dj
keeping my feet above the mulch of the barn or possibly barton, i’ve heard nigel use this phrase in an interview previously as well
14 December 2008
grim
Mulch of the barton, I think. Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles: “The dairy maids and men had flocked down from their cottages and out of the dairy-house with the arrival of the cows from the meads; the maids walking in pattens, not on account of the weather, but to keep their shoes above the mulch of the barton.”
Not sure, but it appears to mean, “the lands surrounding a manor house.”
(“Pattens” also isn’t a typo, but means a sort of high-heeled wooden shoe or clog, worn precisely for purposes of not getting the feet muddy.)
14 December 2008
Steve Malkmoose
A farmer friend of mine has since told me that a “barton” is a type of barn or outbuilding where the cows are kept” – so I take it they were trying to avoid the cow shit lol
15 December 2008
Charles Exford
‘Barton’ is from an old English word for farmyard in general, from the same root as the Anglo-Saxon word ‘bere’ for ‘barley’ and of course the usual placename suffix ‘ton’ for ‘fortified settlement’ (the fortifications almost always being a wooden stockade to stop yer livestock getting rustled). Hence Barton being such a common placename and surname.
Rather like Shakespeare, Hardy has almost single-handedly managed to preseve a fair bit of Olde English lexis for our delectation, simply by including such archaic rural items in one of his classics – and I like to think that’s what he was consciously trying to do, as surely is our Nigel. I don’t think either Hardy or his Birkonian admirer are just trying to show off that they know a few obscure words.
Incidentally, did anyone hear the “Walking Hardy’s Landscape” series on R4′s Woman’s Hour recently ? A few weeks ago (and I remember noting that it happened to be the morning when HMHB would have been setting off in the van to Norwich) they were tramping around Berkshire following the story of Jude the Obscure, and the ‘Hardy expert’ from the University of Hull referred twice to “The Book of Revelations” and then once, as if correcting herself almost immediately, to “The Book of Revelation”. Edge-of-the-sofa listening.
As for ‘The Singing Brakeman’, I seem to recall Peel may have played some of his yodelling stuff on air, but the pun with ‘break man’ is almost certainly intended, since Nigel seems so self-consciously obsessed by ‘the break’ as a concept in so many of his songs….
Exford.
15 December 2008
Neil G
As DJ said, above, Nigel used the phrase ‘above the mulch of the barton’ in an interview. It was on the Millennium Edition of Andy Kershaw’s show between When The Evening Sun Goes Down and If I Had Possession Over Pancake Day. I downloaded it from the HMHB website some time ago. It’s not on there at the moment. I’ve listened to it quite a few times but I never caught that phrase until today. Strange.
4 February 2009
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
Stumbled across this. Released 41 years ago – suddenly I feel very old.
10 February 2012
MIKE IN COV
Does anyone recognise the vocal line? Sounds a bit C&W/Guthrie-ish to me, but I can’t put my finger on it.
22 July 2012
John Burscough
I’d suspect, from the subject matter, title and yodelling interlude, that it may have begun life as “The Happy Wanderer”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9Ec8UX1Vzs
24 July 2012
Charles Exford
That’s a 1954 cover by Fred Waring on his TV show of a much-covered German song that was a worldwide smash hit in the early 50s. Here’s a modern but very appropriate video for the a choral version of the German version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkJPQ72C1_U&feature=related
I so want it to be based on an original folk song or lieder but it ain’t, and I was so ready to nominate you for a Golden Biscuit 2012 award when I clicked on your link … but it seems to be a quite different melody to me.
24 July 2012
Charles Exford
Oh, another embarrassing edit for Exxo – it is indeed based on a much earlier German folk song. I did find bits on the web that seemed to deny this, but I’ve just found more convincing sources in German. Anyway, still a v.different tune to me. You’re definitely in the right soft-play area though, Mike & John. I immediately think of all those 1950s Western stage musicals, and for example there are melodic similarities with the chorus of “Whip Crack Away” – it will be a cowboy song – lot of C & W melodies came from the German settlers of course.
24 July 2012
John Burscough
Bit distant musically, I fröhlich admit. (Incidentally, would now be the time to set up a separate Black Horse for tunes? Or rename the HMHB Lyrics Project entirely? Information Service, possibly?)
24 July 2012
Chris The Siteowner
A hush-hush project upon which Mike In Cov is currently beavering away will reinforce your logic there, John. But to be honest, completely reformatting the site is probably going to take more spare hours than I’m ever likely to have at my disposal. It might take away some of the charm of going over the comments too. However, if somebody wanted to put together an article on stolen tunes for the Black Horse section, that’d be just fine’n'dandy.
(I have considered changing the site’s domain to halfmanhalfbiscuit.co.uk though, if only to confuse Geoff Davies further about what an “official” site is)
24 July 2012
Charles Exford
Sorry if I’m taking the diversionary cul-de-sac right up to Uncle Charlie’s front door as usual….but is a ‘black horse’ some sort of web design jargon then ?
(tried googling, but difficult for obvious reasons).
24 July 2012
Chris The Siteowner
No, it’s just referring to the middle column on this website where I split the links up into “Here comes the Black Horse…” (stuff on this site) and “…There goes the Brown Cow” (stuff on other sites). Not my finest moment, I acknowledge.
24 July 2012
Chigley Skin
Would you consider alternative suggestions for those categories? Stuff on this site could be “In your vicinity…”, while stuff elsewhere could be “What do you know – it’s got its own website…”
24 July 2012
SPENCER THE HALFWIT
You wouldn’t believe the hours I’ve spent looking for references to a black horse or a brown cow in the lyrical canon.
Okay I lied but I did wonder.
24 July 2012
vendor of quack nostrums
@ Sthw
Did you try On the ‘Roids?
24 July 2012
MIKE IN COV
I’m glad I posed my question, if only because I’ve now seen the Pythonesque alphorn players in Charles’ video; I liked the bilingual subtitles, too.
The Happy Wanderer used to be all over what passed for radio in the late 50s and early 60s; but NB wasn’t around then; and I don’t think it’s quite right anyway. The instrumental backing in TK is indeed three minutes of Bavarian/Tyrolean oompah, but the vocal line feels different somehow.
Tunes used to travel long distances on boats, so Charles’ suggestion of a European export to the States is plausible. My favourite example: Oh Waly Waly (aka The Water Is Wide), a British folk song; Lay Down Your Weary Tune, Dylan; Mother Earth, Neil Young; and Van Diemen’s Land, U2. And, I’ve heard Malian music which both is and isn’t classic delta blues at the same time.
@Charles – what other Volkslieder do you have in mind? Give me some titles, that might trigger my memory.
If you speak Foreign, you can often get very different results by choosing different languages in Wikipedia. E.g. The German entry for Mein Vater War Ein Wandersmann is twice the length of the English one for The Happy Wanderer; and I know of at least one instance where the German entry has no English equivalent at all.
Surely this one’s the bogus official website.
25 July 2012
Chigley Skin
On a side-note, would “the mulch of the Barton” be a fair description of what’s going to be left of Joey up at Fleetwood after League Two’s finest brick shithouses have finished with him?
(For anyone who’s puzzled by that comment: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19118854)
7 August 2012