Day 12: The Old Songs
Song Information
I've talked already about Bellamy's strong belief in using source singers as the starting point for singers on the Folk Revival and this song comes from Bob Copper, part of the Copper family from Rottingdean (near Brighton).
Mrs Kate Lee collected 50 or so songs from “Brasser” Copper in 1896, and over the next 70 years they were kept alive by Jim, John and later Bob and Ron Copper. Bob made an effort to write down the songs, which is probably why the Copper Family repertoire is so famous.
As an anthem it's a bit acerbic towards “modern” songs, but considering Bob wrote it because he was desperate to find someone else who cared about the Copper Family's repertoire and nobody seemed to give him the time of day we can probably forgive that.
You could argue that this is the first Copper song in the collection, which only works as an argument because the lyrics are a poem that Bob originally wrote in 1945. I'm the one making it, and even I think that's a bit tenuous.
This made the list primarily for the line “Wake the Vaulted Echoes”, which is the name of the Peter Bellamy retrospective CD released by Free Reed Records which is full of random recordings (and almost certainly out of print now).
Listen to the Song
Lyrics
O, you may moan with plaintive tone your gormless modern tune,
But I will roar along the shore beneath a blood-red moon,
And songs that Nelson’s sailors sang shall ring across the wave
And fifty thousand sailor-men will join the chorus brave
A chorus brave and tarry that savours of the sea,
And a fifty thousand sailor-men will rise to sing with me.
The old songs, yes, the old songs that gave our fathers joy,
The songs they sang till the welkin rang when Nelson was a boy,
Or in the dusty, sunlit barn a farmer’s song I’ll sing,
A country rhyme to a rhythmic time of flails that thump and swing
All up and down the threshing floor to win the golden grain,
And fifty thousand threshermen will join the bold refrain,
A bold refrain and fearless that springs from English soil,
And a fifty thousand threshermen will join my song of toil.
Or in the depths of cellar cool reclining on a bench,
When I’ve dispersed an honest thirst that ale alone can quench,
I will wake the vaulted echoes wide in praise of barley-brew,
And a fifty thousand drinking men will join the chorus true,
A chorus true and hearty of hops and barley-malt,
And a fifty thousand drinking men will prove they’re worth their salt.
They will echo onward down the years and never, never fade,
For fifty thousand singing men will never be afraid
For to raise their lusty voices their spirits to revive
And tell to all eternity, “We’re glad that we’re alive.”