Lyrics - Well Rant And Well Roar by Lloyd

WE'
LL
RANT
AND
WE'
LL
ROARMy name it is
Robert, they call me
Bob
Pittman;
I sail in the
Ino with
Skipper
Tim
Brown.l'm bound to have
Dolly or
Biddy or
Molly
As soon as l'm able to plank the cash down.chorus:
We'll rant and we'll roar like true
Newfoundlanders,
We'
Il rant and we'll roar on deck and below
Until we see bottom inside the two sunkers,
When straight through the
Channel to
Toslow we'll go.l'm a son of a sea-cook, and a cook in a trader;
I can dance,
I can sing,
I can reef the main-boom;
I can handle a jigger, and cuts a big figure
Whenever
I gets in a boat's standing room.chorus:
If the voyage is good, then this fall
I will do it;
I wants two pound ten for a ring and the priest,
A couple o' dollars for clean shirt and collars,
And a handful o' coppers to make up a feast.chorus:
There's plump little
Polly, her name is
Goldsworthy,
There's
John
Coady's
Kitty, and
Mary
Tibbo;
There's
Clara from
Bruley, and young
Martha
Foley,
But the nicest of all is my girl in
Toslow.chorus:
Farewell and adieu to ye fair ones of
Va
Ien,
Farewell and adieu to ye girls in the
Cove;
I'm bound to the westward, to the wall with the hole in,
I'
II take her from
Toslow the wild world to rove.chorus:
Farewell and adieu to ye girls of
St.
Kyran's,
Of
Paradise and
Presque,
Big and
Little
Bona,l'm bound unto
Toslow to marry sweet
Biddy,
And if
I don't do so,
I'm afraid of her da.chorus:
I've bought me a house from
Katherine
Davis,
A twenty-pound bed from
Jimmy
Me
Grath;
I'll get me a settle, a pot and a kettle;
Then
I'll be ready for
Biddy - hurrah!chorus:
O,
I brought in the
Ino this spring from the city,
Some rings and gold brooches for the girls in the
Bay;
I bought me a case-pipe - they call it a meerschaum -
It melted like butter upon a hot day.chorus:
I went to a dance one night at
Fox
Harbour,
There were plenty of girls, so nice as you'd wish;
There was one pretty maiden a-chawin' of frankgum
Just like a young kitten a-gnawing fresh fish.chorus:
Then here is a hea
Ith to the girls of
Fox
Harbour,
Of
Oderin and
Presque,
Crabbes
Hole and
Bruley.
Now let ye be jolly, don't be melancholy,
I can't marry all, or in chokey
I'd be.
Recorded by
Alan
Mills (
Folkways),
A.
L.
LLoyd (
Leviathan)
Note: (from
Penguin
Book of
Canadian
Folk
Songs,
Fowkes)
This rollicking tale of a young fisherman's love affairs is a
Newfoundland offshoot of the widely known
English capstan shanty'
Spanish
Ladies', which described the headlands sighted in a homewardvoyage through the
English
Channel.
Pacific whalermen later re-made itto tcll of the
Talcahuano
Girls, with a chorus: '
We'll rant and we'llroar like true
Huasco whalermen,'and
Australian drovers sang theirfarewell to the
Brisbane
Ladies.
The
Newfoundland version has borrowedveses 2, 8, 9 and 10 from the whalers' song; the remaining versesabout
Bob
Pittman and his courtship were composed around 1875 by
W.
H.
Le
Messurier who was editor of the
Evening
Herald and later deputyminister of customs in
St
John's.
James
Murphy printed it in
Old
Songsof
Newfoundland in 1912; it appeared in all the
Doyle booklets; and
Mrs.
Greenleaf heard it from
Mr
Le
Messurier himself, and also from
Tom
White of
Sandy
Cove, whose version had acquired some variations.
Paradise,
Oderin,
Presque,
Brule and
St
Kyran's are tiny fishingvillages along the west coast of
Placentia
Bay.filename[
RANTROARplay.exe
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