The Burlesque Bellowhead Trivia Quiz

Answer: Honesty

The chorus of this song reveals the answer.
"And honesty's all out of fashion
These are the rigs of the times, times m'boys
These are the rigs of the times"

One of the meanings of the word "rig" refers to being dishonest. Examples of modern usage with this meaning include jury rigging or a rigged game. Here it saying that these (the stories in the verses) are the con tricks of today.

The song is a litany of dishonest tradesmen. This version uses the older tradesmen such as the butcher, baker and tailor. To give one verse as an example:
"And here's to the butcher, I must bring him in,
He charges four pence a pound and he'll think it no sin.
Slaps his hand on the scale-weight to make them go down
He'll swear it's good weight yet it wants half a pound."

Longer versions exist and of course some updated ones referring to more recent events. The final verse in most suggests a solution of letting all these crooked tradesmen be blown away in the wind.

Answer: Four blind horses

According to the lyrics, "Jordan is a hard road to travel I believe" but I don't believe that the Jordan referred to is really a road. I think that the reference is to the River Jordan.

The album notes say that the song was originally written in the middle of the nineteenth century by Daniel Emmett. Other sources indicate that this gentleman simply updated an older song with more topical verses. That is the way of folk music. This song has been updated again and again since the Daniel Emmett version, with various topical references. This version isn't that recent with no hot topics or identifiable references to twenty or twenty-first century politics.

The answer to the question is to be found in the first verse:
"I looked to the East, I looked to the West
I saw John Ball a coming a calling
With four blind horses riding in the clouds
To look on the other side of Jordan"

Answer: New Zealand

The spellings used are those in the lyric's booklet, which also claims that "The words, possibly Australian, are half-remembered from a miscellaneous shanty album". But checking on these terms we find that there are no Kaori trees, but there are Kauri trees native to New Zealand.

Dusky Sound is another name for Tamatea fjord on the south west extremity of New Zealand. Port Cooper is an old name for what is now Port Lyttelton, which is found in New Zealand, while "Tom Cane's Bay" is found in Port Underwood, also in New Zealand. Allowing for phonetic spellings, these all support the only possible answer as being New Zealand.

Another version of the song, which is close to the lyrics sung by Bellowhead, is found on a New Zealand folk song site. Here they refer to a version recorded around Auckland in 1913. The lyrics given are:

"Eastward round by Dusky Sound, and Pegasus - through the Strait,
Port Cooper, Ocean, Tom Kain's Bay, for that is the coaster's fate."

The same site (folksong.org.nz) supplies the additional information that: "Port Cooper (Lyttlton Harbour, near Christchurch), Tom Kain's Bay (O'Kains Bay near Akaroa) and Ocean Bay (near Blenheim) are on the east coast."

So although there may be other versions of this song, the particular one is clearly from New Zealand.

Answer: Ruby brooch

The plot here is that a young man has found a lady for the evening and goes to an inn. There she orders the best foods, wines, and lodgings expecting the victim to pay for it and probably be robbed blind in the meantime. In songs such as "New York Girls", the victim wakes up without money, clothes or anything else. Here the table is turned and the intended victim robs the woman instead.
"As soon as she was fast asleep
Out of the bed I did creep.
I searched her pockets and there I found
A silver snuff-box and ten pound,
A golden watch and a diamond ring,
So I took the lot and I locked her in."

The chorus of this song gives the title.
"I was up to the rigs, down to the jigs, Up to the rigs of London town."
Or to very loosely translate, I might look a yokel but I knew the trickery of the big city.

Another similar story is "Ratcliffe Highway". In this a sailor buys a bottle of wine for the lady but although he has paid with a guinea, she only offers a song for his change. He gets annoyed, throws the bottle at her and it kills her. Then he escapes back to his shipmates.

Answer: Betty

A sad tale of being slow and not bold enough, the first verse ends:
"But I lost my pretty Betty by courting too slow."

The second verse ends with the phrase "by not being bold", then the remaining verses refer to "courting too slow" again. As a consequence, Betty falls for the sailor who kisses and flatters her.

Another song which seems to encourage sexual harassment,
"And when you go courting now don't you be too nice
But kiss all them pretty girls and let them for to know
That you don't mean to lose them by courting too slow"

The song is identified as being from a broadside in the "Madden Collection". These are the papers and manuscripts collected by the nineteenth century palaeographer Sir Frederic Madden, that are kept at the Bodleian library in Cambridge.

Answer: Rotting teeth

The Lady of the title goes out for a walk, there she meets an old man.
"His head was bald, his beard was grey,
His cheeks were like the mortal clay"

No mention of his dentistry in the lyrics. This is Death, who has come for her. She tries to bribe him with various gifts but to no avail.

The moral being that no matter what our station in life we are all equal in death.

Answer: Yellow handkerchief

The final verse starts, "So take this yellow handkerchief in remembrance of me". This line gives the traditional song its alternative name. The version presented here is one of the shorter ones in terms of the number of verses. All versions agree that the singer has had the misfortune to meet with "Flash Company", those good time friends who are good at spending someone else's money.

As the end of each verse reminds us:
"If it hadn't have been for flash company I should never have been so poor."

Answer: Nightingale

All fine songbirds, but only one of them is mentioned in the lyrics. The second verse starts:
"At the end of the grove, I sat myself down
And the song of the nightingale echoed all around."

A traditional song, other recordings are under the name "The Birds in the Spring" and "Down By the Green Groves". The Bellowhead version is based on that of the Copper family from Rottingdean, Sussex, who call it "By the Green Grove".

The best description of the song is from Ian Robb who is quoted as saying "the simple pleasure of a springtime walk in the countryside".

I have been assured by the raven lady of Knaresborough Castle in Yorkshire, that ravens are the largest British songbird. At the time she told me I had a raven on my forearm and I wasn't going to argue with her or the raven.

Answer: Parrot

To explain this, first a summary of the song is needed. The Lady Margaret is at home. Along comes a knight, the outlandish one of the title, who convinces her to grab her father's gold and fastest horses, then to ride away with him. These are the "black black horse" and the "dapple-grey mare".
They get to a place where he informs her that she is going to die, as he has killed six pretty maids previously. But the lady gets the better of him and rides home again.

Now we get to the parrot. When she gets home her parrot asks where she has been; "Oh where have you been my pretty mistress, so long before it is day". The lady then bribes the parrot to keep quiet.
"Don't you prittle don't you prattle, my pretty Polly, don't tell no tales of me,
And your cage shall be made of the glittering gold and your perch of the best ivory."

Lady Margaret's father has heard the parrot, and asks what is up. The parrot keeps its side of the bargain by saying that a cat had appeared and that he was calling for his mistress to frighten it away.

The moral of this story is, if you want to murder a serial killer, don't forget to bribe the parrot.

Answer: Liverpool

The verse, "When I get back to Liverpool Town, I'll cast a line to little Sally Brown" tells all.

The song itself appears to have two possible origins. Firstly, that it is a rope hauling shanty, the other claim is that it refers to cotton screwing.

I'd never heard of this but the website Mainly Norfolk, quoting the cover of an EP by The Young Tradition informs me that "Cotton screwing was about the hardest shipboard task there was: the bales of cotton were forced into the hold until they were packed solid."

Wikipedia adds some information as well. "Cotton-screwing involved the use of large jack-screws to compress and force cotton bales into the holds of outbound ships. Work gangs consisted of four men, who timed their exertions in turning the jack-screw to songs called chants."