Features - The Blue Toon Song Book

THE TARVES RANT
Traditional as sung by Davie Stewart

Davie Stewart

Come a ye gey young lads come listen unto me
I’ll tell you a story without a word of lee
It happened eenst upon a term-time to Tarves we did go
To hae a spree and get some fun the truth I’ll let you know

My name I needna mention it’s hardly worth my while
I dinna mean to ruin masel’ or spend my time in jail
I canna work your horses lads or I canna hold yer plough
Nor cut and bind and harvest but I can feed a cow

It’s Tarves we for treacle came it’s we bein’ on the brose
There were some lads there for bits and sheen there were others there for clothes
There were few there that I did know and a few knowed me
But there was a lad amang the lave he tried tae bully me

But it’s off to Mr Phillip’s now to have a little fun
When I sore ensnared wi’ the maiden o’ the inn
She was a lovely maiden a maiden though she be
She’d twa rosy cheeks twa rollin’ een a lovely maid was she

But drunk we were merry men and drunk we thought no shame
Until I left the tavern tae steer my course for hame
There I lost my comrades and on them I did cry
But at that very moment a lad in blue passed by

He told me very quickly if I wouldn’t hold my tongue
He’d take me into custody and that before long
He took me by the arm and dragged me towards the inn
Right earnestly we did fight but it didn’t end in fun

Now surely I’m a prodigal a villain to the bone
To tear the coat from off his back and it not being his own
But soon assistance came to him they dragged me through a door
They took me as a prisoner and left me to think it o’er

For surely the folk in Tarves they think me a disgrace
For I was pulled up to Aberdeen it was to plead my case
But when I heard my sentence I heard it like a shot
Thirty bob I’d to pay for my fine and fifteen for his coat

So come a’ ye jolly ploomen lads a warnin’ ye’ll tak’ by me
If ye gang doon tae Tarves don’t go on the spree
It’s seek what ye’re requirin’ and steer your course for hame
If a row gets up in Tarves ye widna get the blame

Flagnote: Tarves lies to the north-west of Aberdeen, between Old Meldrum and Nethermill.The great folk song collector Gavin Greig, writing in 1909, considered the song to be ‘quite modern’. Davie Stewart was born at Peterhead in 1901, the son and grandson of two Robert Stewarts, both travelling tinsmiths and hawkers, in the Buchan area. He was only thirteen when the Great War broke out and he enlisted twice at that age before being brought home by his father. However at 16 year old he did manage to join the Gordon Highlanders. He was wounded in action three times before he was transferred to a pipe band, where he had tuition to supplement the knowledge of the pipes learned by ear from other travellers. After his war service Davie went back to his travelling ways. He travelled and busked all his days, sometimes in company with his great friend Jimmy MacBeath and amongst his fellow travellers he was known as ‘The Galoot’. During the depression of the 1930s his travels took him to Ireland where he met and married Molly from the Cork area. He didn’t return to Scotland until 1950 when he settled in Dundee and first came into contact with folk song collectors including the great Dr Hamish Henderson in 1953.He died in 1972 in St Andrews where he had gone to sing at the folk club. Dr Hamish Henderson wrote of his funeral – ‘The very large attendance at his funeral in Dundee bore witness to the real love and affection in which Davie was held, not only by hundreds of his own folk, but also by the entire Scottish folk-song revival.’ Like the Stewarts of Blair, Jeannie Robertson, and his friend Jimmy MacBeath, Davie Stewart was yet another traveller who added much to the Scottish Folk Song Renaissance with his wide repertoire of Scottish song.