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All Around My Hat
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All Around My Hat
All Round My Hat / All Around My Hat
[
Roud 22518
; Master title: All Round My Hat
; Ballad Index K145
; VWML FK/10/134/1
, GB/7a/71
, RVW2/2/50
; DT ROUNDHAT
; Mudcat 37571
; trad.]
Neil O’Brien from Pictou, Nova Scotia, sang All Around My Hat to Helen Creighton in July 1953. This recording was included in 1962 on the Folkways album of Maritime Folk Songs from the Creighton collection where she noted:
This variant of the song, All Around My Hat, may have come by way of Prince Edward Island, for Mr. O’Brien left his Nova Scotia home at Spry Bay at the age of six and lived there for the next thirteen years. He has done some fishing and mining in his day, and my regret is that I did not find him earlier. His repertoire by 1953 had become depleted and I suspect a good many cherished songs have died with him. Further words for this song are in the book, Maritime Folk Songs, and my earlier book, Traditional Songs From Nova Scotia. It took over fifteen years to find enough singers to put their bits and pieces together and make a complete song. A version from Petpeswick was used in the folk opera, The Broken Ring.
Peter Bellamy accompanied himself on melodeon on All Around My Hat in 1969 on his second solo album, Fair England’s Shore. He noted:
All Around My Hat I have known for so long that I have forgotten where I originally acquired it. I found several versions in the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library at Cecil Sharp House, many of which had a long and very confusing story line. I decided to stick with this clear and simple form.
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All Around My Hat / Black Jack Davy Chrysalis CHS 2078 (single, UK, November 1975) |
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Chrysalis 6155 055 (single, p/s, Belgium, 1975) |
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Besides Gaudete, All Around My Hat is Steeleye Span’s only hit single (originally with the B-side Black Jack Davy), which reached No. 3 in the British charts in December 1975. This contagious song became so popular that it was the subject of a lampoon in folk circles (“I’m going to drown my cat”, etc.). It was originally an English song, which years ago was borrowed by the IRA and turned into an Irish rebel song. Steeleye Span’s version is a composite of melody and chorus of the traditional All Around My Hat and verses from the song Farewell He.
Apart from the single release, this song appeared in a longer version (single 3.01, LP version 4.06) as the title track of their 1975 album All Around My Hat, and later on several single reissues and on lots of compilations.
This video from the Dutch programme TOPPOP was broadcast in January 1976:
At least seven live recordings of All Around My Hat with several Steeleye Span line-ups are or were available:
- at the Cambridge Folk Festival in 1981 on the CD The Best of the Cambridge Folk Festival
- from the Royal Opera Theatre in Adelaide, Australia in 1982 on the Australia-only LP On Tour and on the CD Gone to Australia,
- from the Beck Theatre on 16 September 1989 on the video A 20th Anniversary Celebration,
- from Steeleye’s 1991 tour on the CD Tonight’s the Night... Live,
- from St. David’s Hall, Cardiff on 6 December 1994 on the video 25 Live: The Classic Twenty Fifth Anniversary Tour Concert,
- from 1994 on the CD Steeleye Span in Concert,
- from The Forum, London on 2 September 1995 on the CD The Journey.
In 1996, Status Quo recorded this song together with Maddy Prior for a single and for their album Don’t Stop: The 30th Anniversary Album. This track with added mumblings by Peter Sellers from the final moments of the Commoners Crown album can be found on the Steeleye Span / Maddy Prior sampler A Rare Collection 1972-1996.
Cyril Tawney sang All Around My Hat live at the Holsteins folk club in Chicago on 31 May 1981. This concert was published in 2007 on his CD Live at Holsteins.
Brian Peters sang All Around My Hat in 2003 on his CD Different Tongues. He noted:
The version of All Around My Hat that became a 1970s folk-rock hit consisted of the words to a different song, grafted on to the melody and chorus we all came to know rather too well. Being a bit of a misery myself, I decided to do it slow and mournful and, with the help of ballad supremo David Atkinson, married a tune collected by Baring-Gould (who had replaced the original lyrics with some dreadful doggerel of his own) to a set of words popular amongst street traders. I decided, controversially, to omit the spoken asides between verses, such as “Here’s your fine cauliflowers!” which I felt didn’t really contribute to the pathos of the story.
The Friends of Fiddlers’ Green sang All Around My Hat on their 2015 album Old Inventions.
Lyrics
Neil O’Brien sings All Around My Hat
Young men are false, oh they are so deceiving,
Young men are false and they seldom prove true,
For their rambling and ranging, their minds is always changing,
Always a-looking for some fair one that’s new.
Seven long years th-at I have spent in courting,
Seven long years th-at I have spent in vain,
But since it is my fortune that I must marry an old man
Never will I ramble so far, far again.
All around my hat I will wear a green laurel
All around my hat for six long years or more,
And if anyone should ask me why I wear that laurel
I’ll tell them I am slighted by my true love John.
O if I only had my own heart to keep it,
O if I only had my own heart again
I would roll it in my bosom and keep it there forever,
Never would I ramble so far far again.
Peter Bellamy sings All Around My Hat
Chorus (after each verse):
All around my hat I will wear the green willow,
All around my hat, for a twelve-month and a day,
If anyone should ask me the reason why I wear it:
It’s all because my own true love is far, far away
My true love she was fair, and my true love she was kind too,
Many’s the happy hours were spent between my love and me;
I never could refuse her whatever she’d a mind to,
Now she’s far away, far across the stormy sea.
Will my love be true and will my love be faithful?
Will my love remember me wherever she is gone?
The young men do run after her, so pretty and so graceful;
Me, I’ve been lamenting and crying all alone.
Final chorus
All around my hat I will wear the mournful willow,
All around my hat, … (as above)
Steeleye Span sing All Around My Hat
Chorus:
All around my hat I will wear the green willow,
All around my hat, for a twelve-month and a day.
And if anyone should ask me the reason why I’m wearing it:
It’s all for my true love who’s far, far away.
Fare thee well, cold winter and fare thee well, cold frost,
Nothing have I gained but my own true love I’ve lost.
I’ll sing and I’ll be merry when occasion I do see;
He’s a false deluding young man, let him go farewell he.
The other night he brought me a fine diamond ring
But he thought to have deprived me of a far better thing.
But I being careful like lovers ought to be;
He’s a false deluding young man, let him go farewell he
Chorus
Here’s a quarter pound of reasons, and a half a pound of sense,
A small sprig of time and as much of prudence.
You mix them all together and you will plainly see.
He’s a false deluding young man, let him go farewell he.
Chorus
Brian Peters sings All Around My Hat
My love she was fair, and my love she was handsome,
And cruel were the judges that sentenced her away.
For thieving was a thing that she never was inclined to;
They sent my love across the sea ten thousand miles away.
Chorus (after each verse):
All around my hat, I will wear a green willow,
And all around my hat, for a twelve-month and a day.
And if anyone should ask me the reason why I’m wearing it:
It’s all for my true love who’s far, far away.
Seven long, long years my love and I are parted,
Seven long, long years they’ve sentenced her away.
Seven long years I’ll love my love and never be false-hearted
And never sigh or sorrow though she’s far, far away.
Some young men are false and they’re full of all deceiving,
Seeking for some young girl they mean to lead astray.
And when they have deceived them, so cruelly they leave them;
But I’ll love my love forever though she’s far, far away.