Bluegrass Messengers

Andrew Batan- Ford (WI- CA) pre1937 Cowell

Andrew Batan- Ford (WI- CA) pre1937 (1906) Cowell

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/cowellbib:@field(NUMBER+@band(afccc+a4194b1))

Liner notes follow.

R. Matteson 2013]

ANDREW BATAN (Child 250)- Sung by Warde Ford, 1955. Learned from his Uncle Charles Welker, of Crandon, Wisconsin, who learned it from Randal Macdonald, a Scottish logger in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, in 1906. Sir Andrew Barton was a Scottish sea-officer who around 1511 was harrying shipping under pretense of searching for smuggled Portuguese goods, which in true pirate fashion he always found on each vessel he boarded. Henry VIII turned a deaf ear to complaints about Barton because he was reluctant to make enemies in Scotland at the moment. So the Earl of Surrey undertook to equip 2 ships privately under his 2 sons, and Barton was pursued by them and killed. The ballad-maker, however, was plainly on the side of the pirate.

The ballad has firm points of resemblance with Henry Martin (Child, 250); Charles Stewart is an anachronism, of much later date than the song or the events it describes. Since Andrew Barton was a real person, and since this text has obviously been very much eroded down in the process of oral transmission, it seems likely to me that this is the older form, and that Henry Martin is a later rewriting of the same song, with a new title, for broadside purposes.

The tune has a somewhat unusual form: ABCB, with the A phrase ranging up and back from the tune center, and the B phrases descending down and up to the tune center, giving the tune a wide range and an almost continuous, circular effect. These characteristics are found in many Gaelic tunes, so that this tune may well come from Scotland.

There once were three brothers from Merry Scotland
From Merry Scotland were they.
They cast a lot to see which of them
Would go robbing all o'er the salt sea.

The lot it fell to Andrew Batan,
The youngest one of the three,
That he should go robbing all o'er the salt sea,
To maintain his two (three) brothers and he.

He had not sailed but one summer's eve
When a light it did appear.
It sailed far off and it sailed far on,
And at last it came sailing so near.

''Who art? Who art?" cried Andrew Batan,
"Who art that sails so high?"
"We are the rich merchants from old Engeland,
And I bid you will let us pass by."

"Oh no, Oh no," cried Andrew Batan,
"Oh no, that never can be.
Your ship and your cargo I'll take them away,
And your merry men drown in the sea."

When the news reached old Engeland
What Andrew Batan had done:
Their ship and their cargo he'd taken away,
And all of their merry men drowned, --

"Build me a boat!" cried Captain Charles Stewart,
"And build it strong and secure.
And if I don't capture Ardrew Batan,
My life I'll no longer endure."

He had not sailed but one summer's eve,
When a light it did appear.
It sailed far off and it sailed far on,
At last it came sailing so near.

"Who art? Who art?" cried Captain Charles Stewart,
''Who art that sails so nigh?"
'We're the jolly Scotch robbers from Merry Scotland,
And I pray you will let us pass by."

"Oh no, Oh no," cried Captain Charles Stewart,
"Oh no, that never can be.
Your ship and your cargo, I'll take them away,
And your merry men drown in the sea."

''What ho! What ho!" cried Andrew Batan,
"I value you not one pin,
For while you show me fine brass without,
I'll show you good steel within."

Then broadside to broadside these vessels they stood,
And like thunder their canon did roar.
That he'd fought but four hours or so,
Till Captain Clarles Stewat gave o'e.

"Go home, go home," cried Andrew Batan,
"And tell your old King for me,
While he remains King on the dry land,
I'll remain King of the sea."