Mister Lucky - Posted - 03/03/2021:  17:28:37

Apparently you don't understand..........

The mole is used as a metaphor, and every one seemed to know the intent and understand the meaning, except perhaps you and a few others.

Sometimes exactness is a blessing, and sometimes it is splitting hairs.

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 03/03/2021:  22:43:44

Well it’s tune of the week and the idea is to provoke discussion on the particular tune, it’s history and how it’s played . I have one opinion and you have yours so that makes for an interesting tune of the week.

AndyW - Posted - 03/03/2021:  23:55:26

Or Troll of the week. Contrarian on every thread.

grakesh - Posted - 03/04/2021:  00:40:41

Cool

gentrixuk - Posted - 03/04/2021:  01:21:39

quote:

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Originally posted by Hay-on-Wye

Dudley eh? Bit of a coincidence as I also live in the borough of Dudley, West Midlands, England. Dudley has been around since the 8th century and had a castle built in the 12th century. Since then it’s produced coal at Baggeridge pit which closed in 1968. It’s now a country park and I worked there as a ranger for several years when it opened in 1983.

The only thing it’s famous for now is closed down shops and smack heads.

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Hi Neil - don't want to drift the thread but nice to know where you live, as I grew up around there. Your profile confused my by saying its in Wales! My parents are still in the area and I'm looking forward to getting back to see them soon - this is the longest I've ever gone without visiting. I remember when they opened the country park at Baggeridge, and one of my college economics projects was the history of Baggeridge Brickworks.

Professor Jive - Posted - 03/04/2021:  06:24:20

Common guys, it's just a song about sex and the sporting life. In the early 20th century during the jug band era, hokem songs were popular among the various jug bands. A hokum song was one full of sexual symbolisms such as "the jelly roll". For obvious reasons, Jelly Roll Morton got his name playing piano in sporting houses. I believe this song and tunes like Red Rocking Chair are examples of hokum songs. I think the mole has nothing to do with the animal any more than the jelly roll has any thing to do with the pastry. But then maybe my opinion is just a bunch of hokum (In the dictionary meaning: "nonsense").

Lew H - Posted - 03/04/2021:  08:42:11

As I look back over this discussion, a question arises in my mind that might help explain the disparate themes among the verses of this song. Did Mole in the Ground originate among African Americans? There was considerable musical intermingling of blacks and whites in the eastern area. Other songs with unclear focus and mixed themes did come from African Americans into the white-ish repertoire. Raleigh and Spencer is a case in point. Some early blues too have a congeries of topics among their verses. I have to wonder if this wonderful song originated among black singers and musicians.

janolov - Posted - 03/04/2021:  09:33:36

There are some information about the origin of the tune at wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Wish_I...he_Ground

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 03/04/2021:  10:26:19

quote:

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Originally posted by gentrixuk

quote:

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Originally posted by Hay-on-Wye

Dudley eh? Bit of a coincidence as I also live in the borough of Dudley, West Midlands, England. Dudley has been around since the 8th century and had a castle built in the 12th century. Since then it’s produced coal at Baggeridge pit which closed in 1968. It’s now a country park and I worked there as a ranger for several years when it opened in 1983.

The only thing it’s famous for now is closed down shops and smack heads.

---

Hi Neil - don't want to drift the thread but nice to know where you live, as I grew up around there. Your profile confused my by saying its in Wales! My parents are still in the area and I'm looking forward to getting back to see them soon - this is the longest I've ever gone without visiting. I remember when they opened the country park at Baggeridge, and one of my college economics projects was the history of Baggeridge Brickworks.

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Gentrixuk I live in sedgley by the beacon hotel. Worked at Baggeridge when it was officially opened by princess Ann.  Baggeridge is a bit commercial for my liking now. Visitor centre is just a cafe and there is a high rope slide and big children's play area.   But needs must i suppose to bring the revenue in.   When it first opened, on a wet Wednesday the park would be lucky to get 10 cars parking there producing an income of £10 a day.  The original head ranger Nigel Smallbones moved from the park in the late eighties to Berry head country park in Devon and has since retired.   He is regarded as the U.K.'s leading authority on dolphins around Devon and Cornwall coast. 

Baggeridge brick is demolished now. There's a large housing estate and enourmous OAP home  there now and all that remains is the chimney. 

I lived in Hay- on- Wye for a period on the Welsh side of the river hence my screen name but must have added Dudley again without changing the country back to England.  

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 03/04/2021:  11:37:02

quote:

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Originally posted by Lew H

As I look back over this discussion, a question arises in my mind that might help explain the disparate themes among the verses of this song. Did Mole in the Ground originate among African Americans? There was considerable musical intermingling of blacks and whites in the eastern area. Other songs with unclear focus and mixed themes did come from African Americans into the white-ish repertoire. Raleigh and Spencer is a case in point. Some early blues too have a congeries of topics among their verses. I have to wonder if this wonderful song originated among black singers and musicians.

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I think your spot on there. Futile oppression seems to be the general theme of the song. The verses probably statements of how things were at a time when the oppressed had no voice or power to change them.  The bottom of the social pile we're the African Americans, who prior to 1968 were referred to as negroes. They were only officiallly only referred to as black Americans during the civil rights campaign led by Martin Luther King.  So I think the origins of the song were probably as you say.

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 03/04/2021:  23:14:05

quote:

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Originally posted by AndyW

Or Troll of the week. Contrarian on every thread.

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I'm sorry you feel like that

AndyW - Posted - 03/04/2021:  23:46:10

quote:

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Originally posted by Hay-on-Wye

quote:

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Originally posted by AndyW

Or Troll of the week. Contrarian on every thread.

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I'm sorry you feel like that

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Not you Neil.

AndyW - Posted - 03/05/2021:  00:09:10

quote:

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Originally posted by AndyW

quote:

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Originally posted by Hay-on-Wye

quote:

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Originally posted by AndyW

Or Troll of the week. Contrarian on every thread.

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I'm sorry you feel like that

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I didn't mean you Neill.

 

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gentrixuk - Posted - 03/05/2021:  01:25:10

quote:

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Originally posted by Hay-on-Wye

quote:

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Originally posted by gentrixuk

quote:

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Originally posted by Hay-on-Wye

Dudley eh? Bit of a coincidence as I also live in the borough of Dudley, West Midlands, England. Dudley has been around since the 8th century and had a castle built in the 12th century. Since then it’s produced coal at Baggeridge pit which closed in 1968. It’s now a country park and I worked there as a ranger for several years when it opened in 1983.

The only thing it’s famous for now is closed down shops and smack heads.

---

Hi Neil - don't want to drift the thread but nice to know where you live, as I grew up around there. Your profile confused my by saying its in Wales! My parents are still in the area and I'm looking forward to getting back to see them soon - this is the longest I've ever gone without visiting. I remember when they opened the country park at Baggeridge, and one of my college economics projects was the history of Baggeridge Brickworks.

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Gentrixuk I live in sedgley by the beacon hotel. Worked at Baggeridge when it was officially opened by princess Ann.  Baggeridge is a bit commercial for my liking now. Visitor centre is just a cafe and there is a high rope slide and big children's play area.   But needs must i suppose to bring the revenue in.   When it first opened, on a wet Wednesday the park would be lucky to get 10 cars parking there producing an income of £10 a day.  The original head ranger Nigel Smallbones moved from the park in the late eighties to Berry head country park in Devon and has since retired.   He is regarded as the U.K.'s leading authority on dolphins around Devon and Cornwall coast. 

Baggeridge brick is demolished now. There's a large housing estate and enourmous OAP home  there now and all that remains is the chimney. 

I lived in Hay- on- Wye for a period on the Welsh side of the river hence my screen name but must have added Dudley again without changing the country back to England.  

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I grew up in Wallheath, so I know Sedgley well. I usually drive through that way there when I visit - I'll wave next time I pass through, which I'm hoping will be soon. Loving the discussion about the tune - I didn't know there were so many versions of it.

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 03/05/2021:  09:41:07

Just come across this lovely 2 finger version played on a tack head banjo

youtu.be/4IW_Pmq-rfM

Mister Lucky - Posted - 03/05/2021:  16:23:14

quote:

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Originally posted by AndyW

quote:

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Originally posted by Hay-on-Wye

quote:

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Originally posted by AndyW

Or Troll of the week. Contrarian on every thread.

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I'm sorry you feel like that

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Not you Neil.

 

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"Troll of the week."

Well, I have found that it is better not to follow the crowd. 

And......I understand that many folks prefer to live in an echo chamber only hearing the ideas that they agree with. 

And.....I realize that name calling is the first resort of those who have no game. 

New ideas can be frightening to those with a rigid paradigm. 

Please feel free to ignore my contributions to this forum if they make you uncomfortable. 

Edited by - Mister Lucky on 03/05/2021 16:35:47

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 03/06/2021:  00:08:14

Jack I won’t ignore your comments at all. They are valid as they are your opinion of how you see the tune . However having spent a month looking into the tune, it’s history, it’s lyrics and the people who have covered it, it appears to have a universal hopeless feel to it. Think Doc Watsons version which he got from his uncle Frank is the only upbeat version. Mary’s version is akin to how children add verses to songs which are generally happy . The innocent s of youth

maryzcox - Posted - 03/06/2021:  07:06:27

Regardless of the words -this is still a pretty tune without them. Here's an instrumental version on a gut strung, skin head banjo that I recorded in low A :) youtu.be/gdzEIokDxuE

maryzcox.com

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 03/06/2021:  08:01:23

Oh yes Mary, it’s a catchy tune alright. It was hearing the tallest man on earths version a couple of months ago that got me to learn the tune again and put it up as tune of the week when I started looking at the lyrics. Your instrumental version with that bassy gut stringed banjo is wonderful and the bass melody of the tune is really neat

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 03/06/2021:  08:55:49

@marycox I bet the girl in this schoneberg print I bought about 10 years ago played mole in the ground. Did you ever busk in Bleeker street?

Angel of Bleeker street

 

hoodoo - Posted - 03/08/2021:  06:10:08

Kind of late to the party, but here is a version that I recorded for fun this morning

banjohangout.org/myhangout/med...archived=

UncleClawhammer - Posted - 03/08/2021:  06:25:58

quote:

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Originally posted by Mister Lucky

quote:

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Originally posted by UncleClawhammer

Honestly, I think the lyrics are there more to be sung than understood, and it's just a mix and match of disconnected verses typical of a lot of folk songs. I never thought of it as much more than a quasi-nonsense love song. Robert Cantwell, however, has this to say in his book about the folk revival, When We Were Good:



"[W]hy does Bascom wish to be a mole in the ground? Perhaps because he is a man not at home where destiny has placed him. He has been in the “Bend,” quite likely a prison, too long, “with the rough and rowdy men” of whom, I think it is fair to say, he is not one. And he has had a bad experience with railroad men, who “drink up your blook like wine.” Even Tempe, his woman, doesn’t love him in the way he deserves, wanting him only when he can supply the cash for the nine-dollar shawl she covets; that doesn’t prevent him, though, from loving her… To hear her sing, he would wish himself not only a contemptible mole but a vile “lizard in the spring.”



A lizard, a mole: Bascom is not the first man in love to feel his rodent-like unworthiness and reptilian cupidity… Nor is he the first to feel, under the influence of love, the roughness of his own sex, or whose heart has learned the arcane and curious language in which nature, in the form of mole and lizard, little miracles of creation and perhaps, in the metaphorical field of sexuality, covert genital symbols, both speaks to his condition and brings him into unconscious sympathy with his beloved."



Indeed.

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Wow, this analysis falls into the category of excessive overthinking.

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Yes, that's why I posted it. That's the joke.

As I've said, I think the song is a straightforward semi-nonsense love song (it verges on being a tune, not a song).

Edited by - UncleClawhammer on 03/08/2021 06:29:01

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 03/08/2021:  08:33:06

quote:

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Originally posted by hoodoo

Kind of late to the party, but here is a version that I recorded for fun this morning



banjohangout.org/myhangout/med...archived=

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I can't get your version to play, ??? Don't know why

hoodoo - Posted - 03/08/2021:  11:48:02

Weird. Sometimes it does that when I upload files, but this one works on my computer (using Google Chrome), so I assume that it should work elsewhere. Anyway, my ego is not big enough to think that a version uploaded this morning is 'must listen to material'

atleson - Posted - 03/08/2021:  12:23:01

Mary, that was lovely. That low tuned banjo just get me every time. What exactly is low A?

best,
jim

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 03/08/2021:  23:20:20

quote:

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Originally posted by hoodoo

Weird. Sometimes it does that when I upload files, but this one works on my computer (using Google Chrome), so I assume that it should work elsewhere. Anyway, my ego is not big enough to think that a version uploaded this morning is 'must listen to material'

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But I'd still like to have a listen.  I've gone through a page of the mp3' on hangout and there's 2 others and yours that won't work.....weird 

cmic - Posted - 03/08/2021:  23:37:26

quote:

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Originally posted by Hay-on-Wye

quote:

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Originally posted by hoodoo

Weird. Sometimes it does that when I upload files, but this one works on my computer (using Google Chrome), so I assume that it should work elsewhere. Anyway, my ego is not big enough to think that a version uploaded this morning is 'must listen to material'

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But I'd still like to have a listen.  I've gone through a page of the mp3' on hangout and there's 2 others and yours that won't work.....weird 

Neill: sorry to say, but this link is "listenable". The problem might be with you computer or software ?

banjohangout.org/myhangout/med...archived=

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 03/14/2021:  00:58:11

It seems though, that even the mole in the ground may not be safe.


youtu.be/l2_gYkO1fRc

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 03/22/2021:  15:30:50

Just heard this tune, country boy by Snooks Eaglin on BBC radio 2 blues programme. It’s not mole in the ground but sounds remarkably like it.

youtu.be/rSyf2KBc0r0


Whatever, great track