{"id":1273,"date":"2020-02-28T08:36:39","date_gmt":"2020-02-28T08:36:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/?page_id=1273"},"modified":"2020-10-28T14:56:10","modified_gmt":"2020-10-28T14:56:10","slug":"they-all-have-a-mate-but-me","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/index.php\/they-all-have-a-mate-but-me\/","title":{"rendered":"They all have a mate but me"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
AKA<\/strong><\/td>The fox and the hare<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Lyrics<\/strong><\/td>JB Geoghegan <\/td>Music<\/strong><\/td> JB Geoghegan<\/td>Roud<\/strong><\/td>RN1140<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n
Music Hall performers<\/strong><\/td>Sam Torr 1870s, 1880s<\/td><\/tr>
Folk performances<\/strong><\/td>Source Singers<\/strong>
C., S.E. 1922 USA : Massachusetts
Livimore, Mrs. Abby Maria 1930 USA : Vermont
Kennison, Josiah 1931 USA : Vermont
Ring, Mr. 1942 England : Kent :
Dornan, Angelo 1955 Canada : New Brunswick
Sparkes, Emily 1958\/1959 England : Suffolk
Boyden, David 1964 England : Bedfordshire
Green, Harry 1967 England : Essex
Connell, John 1972 Ireland
Addison, Mrs. 1976 England : Lincolnshire
Brennan, Caroline 1978 Canada : Newfoundland
Goodman, May Terry nd USA : Virginia
Cowan, Beryl nd England : Essex <\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Kind Christians all, on you I call, \nIf to pity you feel inclined\nYou're care bestow on a fellow full of woe, \nWho is almost off his mind\nSix wives I've wed, but they've all gone dead, \nMy love was labour in vain\nFor I've married and I've buried, till I'm very nearly worried\nAnd I'm sick with women on the brain.\n\nThere's the fox and the hare\nAnd the badger and the bear\nAnd the birds on the Greenwood tree\nAnd the pretty little rabbits\nSo engaging in their habits\nAnd they've all got a mate but me.<\/em>\n\nThe first on the page is little Sally Sage, \nShe once was a lady's maid\nBut she ran away on a very dark day, \nWith a fellow in the fried fish trade\nThe next was a cook, oh a beauty with a hook, \nAnd I'll tell you the reason why\nFor a leg she had a stump, on her back was a hump\nAnd she'd got a little squint in her eye.\n\nAnother one to charm was a girl on a farm, \nWell versed in harrows and ploughs\nShe guarded the rigs of a lot of little pigs\nAnd squeezed new milk from the cows\nShe was sixteen stone, all muscle and bone\nAnd she looked with a awful leer\nAnd she would have been mine but fell in a decline\nThrough swallowing mouse in her beer.\n\nThen another one came, oh a right jolly dame\nAnd her purse was as long as my arm\nAll full of yellow gold, such a sight to behold\nWould the heart of a miser warm\nAnd her only sin was a love of gin\nAnd it brought our hopes to a wreck\nFor she slipped with her heel on a bit of orange-peel\nFell down and broke her blessed neck\n\nI could add to the score full half a dozen more\nFor the list is a long way round\nOne went o'er the sea for a better chap than me\nAnd some of them were hanged or drowned\nAnd the last I had through drink went mad\nIn vain I tried to stop her\nAnd sad was my dismay to discover that\nShe'd been boiled to death in a copper.\n<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
A song collected from folk source singers on both sides of the Atlantic, and found in a number of broadsides and songbooks. As a folksong its more often referred to as The Fox and The Hare,  <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was originally sung in the halls by Sam Torr, written by our old friend JB Geoghegan<\/a>. The British library catalogue has They all have a mate but me <\/em>(song begins: “kind Christians all”) written by Joseph Geoghegan, published London 1876. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sam Torr (1849-1923) was a successful music hall comedian in the style of a lion comique. He started singing in the “Free and Easies” as a teenager and was later famous for a song called “On the back of daddy O” in which he would appear to be riding on the back of a life-sized dummy. For a while he turned to managing in the halls, and famously worked with Joseph Merrick “the elephant man”. He returned to performing in the early 20th century, but also managed the Malt Cross in Nottingham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n