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Childhood songs 2 Darby Kelly



This series has been rather forgotten but here's a second song from Singing Together days:

My grandsire beat the drum complete
His name was Darby Kelly O
No man so true at rat-tat-too
At roll-call or reveillez O

When Marlborough's name first rose to fame
So loud he rolled the points of war
At Blenheim he and Ramillies
Fired all their cannons to the core

With a row-dow-dow
With what a shout the boys came out
The girls they waved, you don't know how!

And now (small shame) I bear the name
And drum of Darby Kelly O
No man so true at rat-tat-too
At roll-call or reveillez O

I couldn't find a sung version of it but the above video (a cover of Status Quo's Burning Bridges) gives you the air.

2 comments:

  1. The original folk song has a different section that was omitted by the Quo.

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  2. Also, it's "fired all our champions to the core".

    See http://www.folkinfo.org/songs/displaysong.php?songid=499

    ReplyDelete