THE COWBOY
traditional American – arranged by Mark Gilston © Copyright 1999
LATHER AND SHAVE
traditional American
(Learned at Camp Woodland, Phoenecia, N.Y. 1960)
COME ALL YOU YOUNG PEOPLE
traditional American – arranged by Mark Gilston © Copyright 1999
(Learned from my father, Richard Eugene Gilston who learned it from Sidney Goose of NYC.)
Come all you young people, take warning from me.
Never live as fast as I have.
I married me a wife, makes me tired of my life,
Let me strive to do all that I can, can, can.
Let me strive to do all that I can.
She dresses me in rags, the worst of old rags,
While she goes in silks so fine.
And come the morning round, she goes marching into town,
Where the gentlemen do drink wine, wine, wine.
Where the gentlemen do drink wine.
Six days of the week, I labor for my bread,
And she says three of them must be hers.
Oh she’ll squabble and she’ll squall, and she swears she’ll take them all,
And she says I’m obliged to maintain her, her, her.
And she says I’m obliged to maintain her.
So come welcome death, and take away her breath.
Give me back my freedom once more.
I’m living out my days just a-hatin’ all her ways,
And I know I’ll never marry anymore, more, more.
And I know I’ll never marry anymore.
LADY GAY
traditional American
TOM’S GONE TO HILO
traditional English
PRETTY POLLY
traditional English – arranged by Mark Gilston © Copyright 1999
PRSTEN MI PADNA
traditional Macedonian – arranged by Mark Gilston © Copyright 1999
SNOSHTI SI RADA
traditional Bulgarian – arranged by Mark Gilston © Copyright 1999
DEVIL BUCK
traditional American
(Learned from Ben Mandel of NYC)
It was a lonely summer’s day. Two brothers, they did go,
To labor in the stoney field, some harvest for to mow.
All in a row the three did reap; the lonely farmer’s wife,
And last of all, the eldest son did wield the mighty knife.
They scarce had followed once around, when in the clearing stood
The specter of a devil buck come bounding through the wood.
His eye did burn with evil, and his horn was dark with moss;
And on his mighty whistle side, they saw the bloody cross.
Now the brothers, they did shun the field, and threw away the blade;
And there, betwixt the two of them, a bitter oath was made.
“Oh, I will take the mountains high, and you, the river west;
And ere the sun does set again, we’ll snare him in his nest.”
And, oh, the widow tore her hair all on the farmer’s grave,
For it was this dreadful wicked beast did make her weep and rave.
Now the youngest one he did go west, but took the rise instead.
And there he spied the devil buck a-standing in his bed.
Oh he did waver in his spell, and trembled to the ground;
But with a sick and fevered eye, his bloody mark, he found.
The air was torn with thunder, as he drew his dreadful aim.
And there, upon a mark of blood, his brother he has slain.
See the widow tear her hair. Hear her mournful wail;
Beware the lonely hunter’s fate that makes her rant and rail.
Feel the lonesome summer’s wind. Hear its mournful cry.
There’s many a youth whose life was spent, all on the mountains high.
MISS FOGARTY’S CHRISTMAS CAKE
traditional American – written in 1883 by C. Frank Horn of Middleport, Pennsylvania – arranged by Mark Gilston © Copyright 1999
As I sat in my window last evening,
The letterman brought unto me
A little gilt-edged invitation
“Gilhooley come over to tea”
I knew that Miss Fogarty sent it.
So I went just for old friendships sake.
And the first thing they gave me to tackle
Was a slice of Miss Fogarty’s cake.
chorus: There were plums and prunes and cherries,
And citrons and raisins and cinnamon, too
There was nutmeg, cloves and berries
And the crust, it was nailed on with glue
There was carvaseed in abundance. (Irish for caraway)
It would work up a fine stomach ache.
It would kill a man twice just by eating a slice
Of Miss Fogarty’s Christmas cake.
Miss Mulligan wanted to try some,
But surely it wasn’t no use.
We worked in it over an hour,
But we couldn’t get none of it loose.
So Murphy, he went for the hatchet,
And Flannigan went for the saw;
But all they succeeded in breaking
Was the hatchet and Flannigan’s jaw.
Miss Fogarty proud as a paycock,
Kept smiling and blinking away
Till she flipped over Flanagan’s brogans
And spilt the homebrew in her tay
“Gilhooley,” she cries, “You’re not eating,
Try a little bit more for my sake.”
”No thanks, Misses Fogarty, “says I,
”But I’d like the receipt for your cake.”
Maloney came down with the colic,
And Murphy complained of his head.
McFadden lay down on the sofa,
And he swore that he wished he was dead.
Miss Daley fell down in hysterics,
And there she did wriggle and shake.
And every man swore he’d been poisoned
From eating Miss Fogarty’s cake.
BOW DOWN
traditional American
(Learned from my father, Richard Eugene Gilston) – arranged by Mark Gilston © Copyright 1999
DAY-TRADER’S ALPHABET
by Mark Gilston & William T. Fischofer © Copyright 1999, All rights reserved
A is for action which makes the stocks move;
And B is for bonds which our fathers approve.
C is for cash, a position we spurn;
And D are the dividends we’ll never earn.
Chorus:
Warily. Scarily. So nervous are we.
Us day-traders live on vol-a-til-i-ty.
Buying and selling: Go short or go long.
Give a trader his Maalox, there’s nothing goes wrong.
E is for earnings; make stocks rise and fall;
And F is for futures, the put and the call.
G stands for Greenspan, still head of the board.
And H is that hot tip I wish I’d ignored.
I is inflation which spooks the bond guys.
And J stands for junk bonds, which we all despise.
K is for Kernon, Joe give us a tout!
And L is the leverage, which gives us more clout.
M stands for margin call, our greatest fear;
And N is for NASDAQ, the high techs rule here.
O stands for options: more risk in your trade;
And P’s penny stocks where small fortunes are made.
Q are the quotes which we constantly view.
And R is Rukeyser, our Wall Street guru.
S is for Sqawk Box, which starts every day,
Where the talking heads tell us the tips we must play.
U stands for up-tick, required to short;
And V is for value: through bargains we sort.
W is Wall Street, our home on the range,
Where we make executions down at the exchange.
Y is for Yahoo where we tout all our picks,
From Alcoa to Zoran, we watch all the ticks.
Z was for Woolworth’s, which never made sense
So they changed it to Venator: Those guys must be dense.
Final chorus:
Warily, Scarily, So nervous are we.
Us day-traders live on vol-a-til-i-ty.
Now my alphabet’s over and I’ve finished my song.
It would sure be a miracle if nothing goes wrong.