> Folk Music > Songs > Sleepytoon in the Morning
Sleepytoon in the Morning
[
Roud 9140
; Ballad Index RcSlee2
; George Morris]
John MacDonald sang Sleepytoon in November 1974 to Tony Engle and Tony Russell in his caravan at Pitgaveny, Elgin, Morayshire. This recording was included in the following year on his Topic album of Scots ballads, bothy songs and melodeon tunes, The Singing Molecatcher of Morayshire and in 1998 on the Topic anthology Come All My Lads That Follow the Plough (The Voice of the People Volume 5). Hamish Henderson commented in the original album's sleeve notes:
A ‘cornkister’ or bothy song composed by the late George Morris of Old Meldrum. In Victorian and Edwardian days farm servants in the North-East were housed in bothies (stone outhouses, where they had their sleeping and feeding quarters), and these served as fertile incubators of the ploughman's folksong. Many of such songs provide vivid and often scurrilous descriptions of the auld-style bothy life (cf. descriptive booklet with the Tangent LP Bothy Ballads).
Geoff Morris, who wrote a number of popular ‘cornkisters’, was a well-known entertainer in the North-East. John has added a lilting chorus to his song.
Jim Taylor sang Sleepytoon in the Morning at the Fife Traditional Singing Festival, Collessie, Fife in May 2009. This recording was included a year later on the festival anthology There's Bound to Be a Row (Old Songs & Bothy Ballads Volume 6). The album's booklet commented:
A George Morris composition. This song is typical of the later bothy ballads or ‘cornkisters’ of the early 20th century and was recorded on a 78 by George in the early 1930s. George's father was a farrier with his own business and George too became a blacksmith. In 1912 he married Agnes Kemp, the sister of Willie Kemp, the King of the Cornkisters, and moved to Oldmeldrum in 1919 where the Kemp family ran a hotel business. During his time in Oldmeldrum he started performing and writing and by 1930 he had come to the attention of the Beltona record label. During the following decade he recorded more than 40 bothy ballads or cornkisters composed by himself or in collaboration with Willie Kemp.
Lyrics
John MacDonald sings Sleepytoon | Jim Taylor sings Sleepytoon in the Morning |
---|---|
Cam all my lads that follow the ploo, |
Come aa ye lads that follow the ploo, |
At five o'clock a foreman champs like a shot, |
At five oor foreman jumps like a shot, |
At half past five we follow our nose, |
Syne at half past five we follow wir nose, |
Oor foreman lays his brose cup by, | |
Oor bailie's sober, thin an sma, | |
He's a hardy nut is the orra loon; |
I ken but Birkie is oor loon, We hae a great muckle kitchie-deem, |
The fairmer's name is Geordie Brown, |
The fairmer's name is Geordie Broon, |
She's a argefying bitch, the fairmer's wife, |
She's a hungry hun, the fairmer's wife, |
But oor misses she is nae sae bad, | |
I've been writing this stroud on the corn kist, |