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West Yorkshire Lullaby

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Cyril Tawney wrote West Yorkshire Lullaby in 1995. He sang it in 1997 on his cassette of non-maritime songs, Man of Honour. He noted:

There aren’t many Beacon Parks in West Yorkshire folks! A ‘lullaby’ for the most part, but it ends up more of a dandling song. It would probably sound at its best sung by Eartha Kitt. Captain Oates, by the way, had his family home at Meanwood in Leeds.

Lyrics

Cyril Tawney sings West Yorkshire Lullaby

Hush-a-bye, my little one,
Close your pretty mouth.
I know things aren’t so peaceful
Since we moved up from the south.
The folks up here are nice enough,
As kind as people go,
But oh! oh! oh! don’t their voices carry so!
Oh! oh! oh! don’t their voices carry so!

They’re fond of conversation –
Ah, but that’s the very catch,
For they turn ev’ry tete-a-tete
Into a shouting match.
You address them sotto voce;
They reply fortissimo –
Oh! …

What seemed to be an argument
Turns out quite the reverse.
You’d think two auctioneers
Were taking time off to rehearse.
You’d hear less noise if a carthorse
Trod upon a gouty toe.
Oh! …

It probably goes back to days
When they were in the pram
With a foghorn of a father
And a klaxon of a ma’am.
With larynxes like timberwolves
And lungs like buffalo.
Oh! …

In days gone by, town criers cried
And [hoisted?] every word.
Wesley never preached outside,
But no one would have heard,
And Captain Oates unplugged his ears
And sailed off to the snow,
Crying “Oh! …”

There’s lots of ruined abbeys
In the countryside around,
But the reason wasn’t Cromwell
Or King Henry, I’ll be bound.
It was much more like what happened
To the walls of Jericho.
“Oh! …”

But hush-a-bye, my little one;
We really ought to smile,
’Cos daddy’s selling hearing aids
And making quite a pile.
His business never slackens,
So it’s not all bad, you know.
“Ho! …”