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Farmer Giles
Bob Lewis: On Autumn Harvest ah09: Bob Lewis: Drive Sorrows Away. Recorded at the Fife Traditional Singing Festival May 2009.
Bob remembers this as a regular party piece with a lot of the singers around the Midhurst area of Sussex and learned the song in its entirety from Cyril Phillips. Bob also recalls seeing the song in one of Arthur Beckett’s books, Spirit of the Downs or Wonderful Weald. One of the places that used to hold singarounds was The White Horse at Sutton, tucked right underneath the Downs. A local author, Arthur Beckett, refers to the song in one of his books (Spirit of the Downs or Wonderful Weald) where he describes being in the pub in Sutton after there had been something like a farm sale. The pub was bursting at the seams with what Beckett describes as a sort of rough agricultural types and poor farmers. Amongst this singing was a song that he describes as interminable with a "Toor-ri-li-oor-ri-li-aa" chorus - a countryman’s song denigrating Londoners and the big city types and putting one over on them (Roud 1744).
1: I come from the country, me name it is Giles,
And I’ve travelled a hundred and twenty odd miles;
For a simple old farmer I know I’ve been took,
But a ain’t such a fool as you think that I look.
 Right toora lye oora lye oora lye ay.
2: Now I comes up be train and the journey was fine,
On the London and Brighton and South Eastern line;
Of snails and hot harness I’ll give such talk,
If I wants to get home in a hurry I’ll walk.
Right toora lye oora lye oora lye ay.
Now it took all night and best part of next day,
Folks got out and gathered wild flowers by the way.
Right toora lye oora lye oora lye ay.
3: Now the Angel at Islington I hadn’t seen,
So I took a bus up to Islington Green;
There were scores and scores of them dainty young things
Now they all had fine feathers but not one had wings.
Right toora lye oora lye oora lye ay.
They all called for drinks and they asked I to pay,
Said I, “If you’re angels, go on fly away.”
Right toora lye oora lye oora lye ay.
4: I saw Nelson’s Column one day from The Strand,
And a chap standing by said, “Isn’t that Grand?”
I said, “Your pardon, may n’t I beg
For down on me farm I’ve a pig with five legs.”
Right toora lye oora lye oora lye ay.
“I beat thee this time, mister, so what do e say?
You don’t get five hams off one pig every day.”
Right toora lye oora lye oora lye ay.
5: I went to a theatre in Leicester Square,
And I’m very glad that me missus weren’t there;
’Cos there were lots of young ladies all dressed up in tights,
And me missus, her won’t let me look at such sights.
Right toora lye oora lye oora lye ay.
I’d go every night if I had me own way,
’Cos one girl winked at me just as if to say:
Right toora lye oora lye oora lye ay.
6: I went up to the National Gallery,
And a very fine picture of Venus I see;
Now I gazed at it once and I gazed at it twice,
I says, “If that there be Venus she must have been nice.”
Right toora lye oora lye oora lye ay.
There’s only one thing I’ve got for to say,
I wish my old woman were built the same way.
Right toora lye oora lye oora lye ay.
7: I went up to Westminster and saw parliament,
And a very enjoyable time there I spent;
There were lots to laugh at and lots to admire,
And one gentleman called another a liar.
Right toora lye oora lye oora lye ay.
There’s only one thing I’ve got for to say*,
’Cos if they don’t do much they got plenty to say.
Right toora lye oora lye oora lye ay.
* Alternative:
Verse 7 line 5:
Now they tells I that is the up-to-date way
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c p 2010 Autumn Harvest : www.springthyme.co.uk
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