Do Ye Ken John Peel? barndance

Perhaps not truly appropriate to this site, and my apologies to anyone it might offend. Contoversial? Perhaps. But the man loved and championed music of all stripes.

Bare bones melody to the song here, but ornamented and given a bit of swagger it sounds diddly enough.

My wife’s favourite radio announcer passed away last night while on holiday in Peru from a heart attack, John Peel, BBC radio 4 & 1, her favourite program - “Home Truths” on 4. We’ll miss Saturday mornings with you John.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hometruths/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/3955369.stm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1336387,00.html

Somehow a rinky dinky bare bones tune/song like this is appropriate for the moment… Maybe someone will append the several lyrics that go with this one… I can’t seem to do it… His radio voice at times used to grate on me, something I’m not fond of, that thing radio one and pop DJs do, but we shared a similar taste in music, from Hendrix to the Sex Pistols and beyond…

I think he would have appreciated the humour in this…

Do ye ken John Peel with his coat so gay?
do ye ken John Peel at the break of day?
Do ye ken John Peel when he’s far, far away
With his hounds and his horn in the morning

Twas the sound of his horn brought me from my bed
And the cry of his hounds as me oftimes led
For Peel’s view holloa would wake the dead
Or a fox from his lair in the morning

Do ye ken that hound whose voice is death?
Do ye ken her sons of peerless faith
Do ye ken that a fox with his last breath
Cursed them all as he died in the morning?

Yes, I ken John Peel and auld Ruby too
Ranter and Royal and Bellman so true
From the drag to the chase, from the chase to the view
From the view to the death in the morning

And I’ve followed John Peel both often and far
O’er the rasper fence and the gate and the bar
From Low Denton Holme to the Scratchmere Scar
When we vied for the brush in the morning

Then here’s to John Peel with my heart and soul
Come fill, fill to him a brimming bowl
For we’ll follow John Peel thro fair or thro foul
While we’re waked by his horn in the morning

http://www.stevebulman.f9.co.uk/cumbria/john_peel.html

& - in Cumbrian dialect and with ‘chorus’, though I would change things a bit and take the last verse as a chorus, and change things around to fit John Peel the radio announcer:

Then here’s to John Peel wiht my heart and soul,
Come fill, fill to him a brimming bowl,
For we’ve followed John Peel thro fair and thro foul,
While being waked by his programme in the morning…

Oops - the cumbrian bit:

http://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/english/doyekenj.htm

John actually used this tune as a jingle at one stage in his career. So, he won’t mind too much.

Nice one John, short and sweet. I’m still being emotional about John Peel, maybe in part lack of sleep. My wife is the one who used to always insist on his Radio 4 programme “Home Truths”, getting angry about it only once when we were one of the featured chuckles in his story sharing. I hadn’t told her beforehand that I’d made a submission, but I also wasn’t expecting it to play. Sadly we missed it this Saturday. 9:00 Saturday mornings, and as the Radio Times puts it - “John Peel takes a wry look at the foibles of family life.” I would disagree with ‘wry’ in its negative connotations, but he had a different way of seeing things, an eccentric slant, but always with compassion. He listened, and he laughed with us, but never with cruelty or judgement. I think he was that way with his music, from Radio Caroline, getting seasick on that old ship rocking in the waves off the coast to broadcast alternatives to the pabulum of other radio broadcasts, to his work with BBC Radio 1, still supporting the up and coming talent in Britain, giving them a voice and a chance. So much of the industry is trapped in formulae and needing to please a hunta of commercialism or BBC-ites, it was good that we had gentle rebels like John Peel. He’s planted and nurtured a crop of ideas and ways that will hopefully continue to run roots into the edifices and pull the breeze blocks of complacency down. The industry is still stagnant, we need more to upset the norm and re-oxygenate the air waves…

I thought I asked someone to put this soapbox away where I couldn’t find it?

John Peel was the first person to play Planxty on UK radio. Because of JP I got to see them at their very first like gig in England way back in 72 or 73. I’d never seen Uilean Pipes or a Bodhran before. What an amazing experience.

D’ye ken JP is the tune that the blazing tar barrels are paraded to at Allendale on New Year’s Eve. Its a good march.
Noel Jackson
Angels of the North

One of the recordings I added has this song in it. What does “ken” mean?

Know

That’s what I thought…