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Track List
Pig's Ear's 3rd album, "Salted!", includes a selection of some of the band's favourite songs.
1. Poor Ditching Boy (Richard Thompson)
2. Kelly the Boy from Killane (Trad)
3. The Rape of Glencoe/ Bonny George Campbell (Jim McLean/ Trad)
4. Three Jolly Sportsmen (Trad)
5. Balaclava (Trad)
6. Rout of the Blues (Trad)
7. Drink Old England Dry (Trad)
8. The World Turned Upside Down (Leon Rosselson)
9. Arthur McBride (Trad)
10. Ripe and Bearded Barley (Trad)
11. Subject's Joy (Trad./Pollington)
12. Adieu Sweet Lovely Nancy Trad. (from the Copper Family collection)
13. Boys of Bedlam (Trad)
14. Why Soldiers Why/Johnny I Hardly Knew You (Trad)
Sleeve Notes
The World Turned Upside Down (Leon Rosselson) – The “Diggers” (which is what we tend to call this song) were a grass-roots movement campaigning for common ownership of the land, founded during Cromwell’s time by one Gerrard Winstanley.The English Revolution not being that revolutionary, they were crushed by the Parliamentary army. We’ve Pig’s Ear’d this by adapting one of Rosselson’s verses to give it the resounding chorus we thought it needed. Sorry Leon.
Arthur McBride (Trad) – Traditional tale about a couple of Irish lads wise to the ploys of the Press Gang; is it coincidence that Sergeant Harper appears both in this song and in the Sharpe’s Rifles books? Discuss. And we may get done under the Trade Description Act for trying to pass Keith off as a “wee little drummer”....
Ripe and Bearded Barley (Trad) – Good solid trad. charting the joys of John Barleycorn. A song we toyed with for some time before realising what it needed was a fourth voice....
Subject’s Joy (Trad/Pollington) – Shamelessly lifted from the singing of Strawhead, who arranged a set of words dating from 1679 to this tune. What better toast could a drinking song have than “Drink to the love of life for all?”
Adieu Sweet Lovely Nancy (Trad - from the Copper Family collection) – Another song we have known for years given a new lease of life for us by the addition of some sweet lovely flute to the arrangement.
Boys of Bedlam (Trad) – If setting out to write a song, how many people would choose the devotion of a madwoman to a madman as their subject? As far as we can discover the origins of this song are lost and we can only wonder who the original Mad Maudlin and Mad Tom were. Bedlam, of course, was the nickname for Bethlehem Hospital for the insane of which there are records revealing it as a fairly appalling place.
Why Soldiers Why/Johnny I Hardly Knew You (Trad) – A soldiers song of barrack room stoicism, taken from the singing of Martin Wyndham-Read on the definitive collection of soldiers songs, “Songs and Marches of the Redcoats”. We pair it with the Irish original of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again”, which gives a very different slant on the heroic soldier image.
Poor Ditching Boy (Richard Thompson) – A hard luck tale of unrequited love. Otherwise known to Pig’s Ear by the alternative title “blood” because of the resounding final word!
Kelly the Boy from Killane (Trad) – A song tracing some of the struggles of the Society of United Irishmen, founded by Wolfe Tone in 1791, when Irishmen of all persuasions united to fight for independence from the British crown.
The Rape of Glencoe/ Bonny George Campbell (Jim McLean/ Trad) – A modern song about the massacre of the MacDonald clan in 1692 by traditional Campbell enemies in the service of the English King William III. For the sake of balance, we pair this one with a traditional lament from the other side of the divide.
Three Jolly Sportsmen (Trad) – This sounds like a traditional jolly hunting song, but if you listen to the words, the message is not what it seems!
Balaclava (Trad) – A song whose origins can be traced to a veteran of the Crimean War. It was during this war on 25th October 1854 when the catastrophic miscommunication that led to the famous Charge of the Light Brigade occurred.
Rout of the Blues (Trad) – Nothing to do with the result of the 1997 General Election (or Chelsea FC’s latest defeat); the “Blues” in this song are the Blues and Royals regiment and this is a rousing farewell to the force off to the wars.
Drink Old England Dry (Trad) – This drinking song of defiance against the old enemy across the Channel dates from a period during the Napoleonic wars when there were fears that the French had actually landed in southern England and invasion was imminent. Now of course we go to France for our beer anyway.....
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