Folk Song: Dance to Your Daddy
Folk Song: Dance to Your Daddy
“When the Boat Comes In” or “Dance Ti Thy Daddy” is a traditional English folk song hailing from Northumberland, a northern coastal district of England. A father, perhaps before embarking on a voyage, sings to his young son about the sequence of a man’s life: play, work, marriage, and fatherhood. I enjoy the spirited tune (it does leave one out-of breath) as well as the generational message. And I have always experienced a mysterious fascination for wooden sailing ships and historic voyages.
Dance to your daddy, my little laddie.
Dance to your daddy, my little man.
Thou shalt have a fish and thou shalt have a fin,
Thou shalt have a codlin when the boat comes in,
Thou shalt have a haddock baked in a pan.
Dance to your daddy, my little man.
Dance to your daddy, my little laddie.
Dance to your daddy, my little man.
When thou art a young boy, you must sing and play,
Go along the shore and cast your shells away,
Build yourself a castle, watch the tide roll in.
Dance to your daddy, my little man.
Dance to your daddy, my little laddie.
Dance to your daddy, my little man.
When thou art a young man, go unto the trades,
Find yourself a skill, and wages you’ll be paid.
Then, with all your wages, buy yourself some land.
Dance to your daddy, my little man.
Dance to your daddy, my little laddie.
Dance to your daddy, my little man.
When thou art a young man and go to take a wife,
Find yourself a lass and love her all your life.
She shall be your wife, and thou shalt be her man.
Dance to your daddy, my little man.
Dance to your daddy, my little laddie.
Dance to your daddy, my little man.
When thou art an old man, father to a son,
Sing to him the old ways, sing of all you’ve done,
Pass along the old ways, then let his song begin.
Dance to your daddy, my little man.
vv The BBC website provides this stunning sunset landscape from the northeastern coast of Northumberland, England.
The lyrics, as sung by Nancy Kerr and James Fagan on their album Between the Light and the Dark, are different from those I have transcribed above, but the following movie will give you an excellent introduction to the lively tune. An additional asset is the fantastic scenes from one of my (inexplicably) favorite movies, Master and Commander. [The following video does include some of the mild “violence”: firing cannons and a non-explicit surgical scene.]
Painting: Marco Polo. Montague Dawson.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010