[Callers] Politically Correct?

[Yoyo Zhou]

It looks like this is the version Rich is referring to:
http://www.ceder.net/recorddb/viewsingle.php?RecordId=1891

More background on the English folk song / sea shanty this American folk
song is based on:
https://mainlynorfolk.info/martin.carthy/songs/billyboy.html

In traditional songs things don't really have to work logically - for
example, in this song, there's the lyric, "She's as tall as any pine, And
as straight as a pumpkin vine." So the last verse of the song goes,

"How old may she be,
Billy Boy, Billy Boy?
How old may she be,
Charming Billy?
Three times six and four times seven,
Twenty eight and eleven,
She's a young thing,
And cannot leave her mother."

This, despite the questionable math, puts the refrain into a very ironic
context.

My understanding of square dance singing calls is that many of them were
set to popular music of the time (though I have no idea about this
particular one). So if your audience was expected to know this song and the
context behind the refrain, that would be one thing. Notably, though, the
square dance-edited version is missing this context, and it adds the
line "Promenade
this pretty thing, won't you help me to sing" to the refrain, "She's a
young thing, And cannot leave her mother"! So it'd be quite something else
to hear this line on its own, which makes it sound like you should be
promenading with your underage partners/corners.

There's no universal answer to "is this acceptable" because it depends on
your "contra dance crowd" who is doing the accepting - this can vary widely
between dances, even within the same city. You'll have to figure out if the
dancers are ok with it as is, might be ok with it if you give them some
background about the song before you do the walkthrough, or would not be ok
even with that. However, I think you'll find a lot of other material is
less objectionable to any audience (and you already have some intuition for
this, since you asked the callers list about this one).

Yoyo Zhou

On Sun, Mar 25, 2018 at 9:40 AM, Darwin Gregory via Callers <
callers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

> If you are concerned about sexism alternate between she/her and he/his.  😎
>
> On Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 1:39 AM Alexandra Deis-Lauby via Callers <
> callers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
>
>> People are not things. I don’t think it’s appropriate for any crowd.
>> Try your hand at some new lyrics!
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On Mar 25, 2018, at 1:12 AM, Rich Sbardella via Callers <
>> callers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
>>
>> Hello folks,
>>
>> I have been calling singing squares for years, and there is one I love by
>> Dick Leger titled Billy Boy.  The tag line that is sung during the
>> Promenade is "She's a young thing, that cannot leave her mother."
>>
>> Here is a link to a version of the full song, not within a square.
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKRJuLHU3Qo
>>
>> My question is, is this song appropriate for the contra dance crowd with
>> the tag line above?  (The tag line is the only line that is sung.)
>>
>> Any Thoughts?
>>
>> Rich
>> Stafford, CT
>>
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