Song Lyric Sunday: Dance The Polka

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For this week on Song Lyric Sunday Jim is inviting us to play a song that mentions jewellery, like a watch, a ring or a necklace. His post Ring On Her Nose tells all. I’ve decided to take you down the English folk music route for this, with a song that I have known for around fifty years, ever since one of my favourite bands recorded it. And as two more of my favourite bands have also given us a version, I’m being extremely self indulgent and playing theirs too – three for the price of one, if you like.

The song is New York Girls, also known as Can’t You Dance the Polka, which is a traditional sea shanty. One of the seminal works on English folk music is by Steve Roud, who has created the Roud Folk Song Index, a database of around 250,000 references to nearly 25,000 songs, collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. This one is #486 in his list and was first collected by W. B. Whall in the 1860s. It was printed in 1910 in a book titled Ships, Sea Songs and Shanties: an earlier book Sailors’ Songs or Chanties, from 1887, by Messrs Davis and Tozer, contains a version but does not specify when it was collected. It has a bit of history, doesn’t it!

The first version I knew was by Steeleye Span, who included it on their 1975 album, Commoner’s Crown. It featured a guest on ukulele who also contributed some spoken parts:

This was the band’s seventh album, and it reached #21 in the UK, achieving a Silver Disc for sales of 60,000 – mine included! The story behind this track is that they wanted a ukulele on the song, but no one in the band knew anyone who played the instrument. Finally someone remarked that Peter Sellers was known to play it competently, and they decided to approach him to appear on the song, even though none of them knew him at all. To their surprise, he agreed, and had a whale of a time. Sellers started amusing himself by doing some voices from The Goon Show: they had been sheepish about asking him to do his famous voices and were delighted when he started improvising with them. The October 24, 1974 issue of Melody Maker featured the band with Sellers striking a guitar god pose with his ukulele – the shot used in this video.

Playing by the SLS rules I need to share the lyrics with you. They vary from version to version, as with all traditional songs. This is a transcript of the Steeleye Span variant:

 

As I walked down through Chatham Street a fair maid I did meet.
She asked me to see her home, she lived in Bleeker Street.

Chorus (after each verse):
And away you Santy, my dear honey,
Oh you New York girls, can’t you dance the polka?

And when we got to Bleeker Street we stopped at forty-four,
Her mother and her sister there to meet her at the door.

And when we got inside the house the drinks were passed around;
The liquor was so awful strong, my head went round and round.

And then we had another drink before we sat to eat.
The liquor was so awful strong, I quickly fell asleep.

[Ah, come on, Min, play that modern banjo, Min]

When I awoke next morning I had an aching head.
There was I Jack all alone, stark naked in my bed.

My gold watch and my pocket book and lady friend were gone.
And there was I Jack all alone, stark naked in my room.

On looking round this little room there’s nothing I could see,
But a woman’s shift and apron [embarrassed falsetto cry]
That were no use to me. [embarrassed falsetto cry]

With a flour barrel for a suit of clothes down Cherry Street forlorn,
Where Martin Churchill took me in and sent me round Cape Horn.

[I say, are you a matelote? Careful what you say, sir—we’re on board ship here.]

The second version I know was recorded by Oysterband for their 1989 album, Ride. It opened the album – whereas Steeleye had used it as a closer – but I think it works well either way. Their video was recorded in New York, with assistance from the New York Ukrainian Community Polka Club, Ira Bernstein step dancing, the crew of an ocean racer (who were later arrested), a stray dog and others – keeping it real! And it is a lot of fun:

A much more recent version of the song is by the best live band I have ever seen – Bellowhead. They recorded it for their Hedonism album, released in October 2010, which also went Silver for sales of 60,000 copies and reached #57 in the UK Album Chart. Like Oysterband they opened the album with their version, though I have also seen them play it live as the final song before the encores. They released a shortened version as a single, and the official video features that. They also included it in a live streamed show in 2021 after they reformed the band, which was a delight, but the one I’m going with is the one they created ‘live from home’ in pandemic days, as it was such a joy to see in those terrible times. They had a lot of fun with this, and I think you will, too:

So there you have it: three versions of a traditional song, all given their own style. I chose this as it qualified for today’s theme – the line about the stolen gold watch  – and as one of the things about folk music which attracts me so much is the way that songs can live on for many years and still sound fresh. And above all, this one is fun, and we could all use some of that, couldn’t we?

Thanks as always to Jim for running the show, and I’ll see you again for some more hot Tuesday Tunes. Take care 😊

48 thoughts on “Song Lyric Sunday: Dance The Polka”

    • Music helped me through that. So many artists found a way to connect with us from their homes and their (usually) weekly visits to Facebook and YouTube were great to see. This was one of the best.

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  5. As a rule traditional Folk Music tends to leave me cold, though I do appreciate the historical aspect. I did buy a Steeley Span record once, it was ‘All Around My Hat’. It had got into my brain and I couldn’t shake it off.

    Best wishes, Pete.

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    • I’m glad you enjoyed these, Nancy. All three bands are great live, brilliant musicians and lots of laughs. Bellowhead in particular: their shows border on the anarchic but they still keep it all together.

      Good to know you can dance the polka – I can’t! 🤣

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  13. I’m finally commenting before night here… now that my Dodgers won the World Series and after a month of playoffs. I’ve heard the Steeleye Span before…I read someone’s post full of Sea Shanties…I love and enjoy them for the singalong quality and the lyrics.

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    • Not a sport that gets much attention here!

      I thought that would be the one that people knew, if any of them. I was born and brought up in a seaside town with a long tradition of folk songs, and used to love joining in with shanties. They are so uplifting, aren’t they 😊

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  14. I was wondering what this song had to do with jewelry, so I Googled it and found out: the sailor narrator takes the girl to Tiffany’s, buys her the earrings, and notes they “cost me fifteen cents”. Thanks for joining in with your Polka music today, Clive.

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    • Like most folk songs that have been handed down it has many variants. None of those I played contained that verse, though: I included it for the reference to his gold watch being stolen.

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  19. Not being familiar with this song, I do not think that if I heard these three selections playing in succession, I would even recognize they were the same song first time around. Thanks for putting a little jiggety jig in my morning, Clive.

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