<div dir="ltr"><div>It looks like this is the version Rich is referring to:</div><div><a href="http://www.ceder.net/recorddb/viewsingle.php?RecordId=1891">http://www.ceder.net/recorddb/viewsingle.php?RecordId=1891</a><br></div><div><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial"><br class="gmail-Apple-interchange-newline">More background on the English folk song / sea shanty this American folk song is based on: <a href="https://mainlynorfolk.info/martin.carthy/songs/billyboy.html">https://mainlynorfolk.info/martin.carthy/songs/billyboy.html</a></div><br></div>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,<div><br></div><div>"How old may she be,<div>Billy Boy, Billy Boy?</div><div>How old may she be,</div><div>Charming Billy?</div><div>Three times six and four times seven,</div><div>Twenty eight and eleven,</div><div>She's a young thing,</div><div>And cannot leave her mother."</div><div><br></div><div>This, despite the questionable math, puts the refrain into a very ironic context.</div><div><br></div><div>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. <span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">Notably, though, the square dance-edited version is missing this context, and it adds the line</span><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);float:none;display:inline"><span> </span>"Promenade this pretty thing, won't you help me to sing" to</span><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline"> the refrain, "She's a young thing, And cannot leave her mother"! So i</span>t'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.</div><div><br></div><div>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).<br></div><div><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><div><div class="gmail_signature">Yoyo Zhou</div></div>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Mar 25, 2018 at 9:40 AM, Darwin Gregory via Callers <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:callers@lists.sharedweight.net" target="_blank">callers@lists.sharedweight.net</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="auto">If you are concerned about sexism alternate between she/her and he/his. 😎</div><div class="gmail-HOEnZb"><div class="gmail-h5"><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr">On Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 1:39 AM Alexandra Deis-Lauby via Callers <<a href="mailto:callers@lists.sharedweight.net" target="_blank">callers@lists.sharedweight.<wbr>net</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="auto">People are not things. I don’t think it’s appropriate for any crowd. <div>Try your hand at some new lyrics! <div><br><div id="gmail-m_-5330232213336773437m_-5468533612190867830AppleMailSignature">Sent from my iPhone</div><div><br>On Mar 25, 2018, at 1:12 AM, Rich Sbardella via Callers <<a href="mailto:callers@lists.sharedweight.net" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">callers@lists.sharedweight.<wbr>net</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div dir="ltr">Hello folks,<div><br><div>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."</div></div><div><br></div><div>Here is a link to a version of the full song, not within a square.</div><div><br></div><div><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKRJuLHU3Qo" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?<wbr>v=cKRJuLHU3Qo</a><br></div><div><br></div><div>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.)</div><div><br></div><div>Any Thoughts?</div><div><br></div><div>Rich</div><div>Stafford, CT</div></div>
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