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Johnny Todd

[ Roud 1102 ; G/D 8:1583 ; Ballad Index FSWB174A ; Mudcat 1153 , 66816 ; trad.]

Ewan MacColl: The Singing Island Norman Buchan: 101 Scottish Songs Frank Kidson: Traditional Tunes

Ewan MacColl sang Johnny Todd in about 1954/55 on his, A.L. Lloyd's and Harry H. Corbett's Topic album The Singing Sailor. This track has been reissued lots of times, e.g. on their albums Row Bullies Row Singing Sailors (Wattle Records), Off to Sea Once More (Stinson Records) and A Hundred Years Ago. Lloyd noted on the last album:

A curiosity: a 19^th century sailor ballad, that passed into the keeping of Liverpool children who used it as a ball-bouncing song, and finally emerged as a wildly successful theme-tune for the television cops-and-robbers serial, “Z Cars”. Main credit is due to the folk song collector Frank Kidson, who published it in his Traditional Tunes in 1891.

Ewan MacColl also included Johnny Todd in his 1960 book The Singing Island where he noted:

This song first appeared in print in Frank Kidson's Traditional Tunes. Kidson had heard it as a child in Liverpool, where it was sung as a children's game song, and during the last fifty years many other versions have come to light. The fourth stanza is the one most subject to variation and it crops up in many songs, particularly urban ones. A Scots version, Johnny Johnson, is known to Edinburgh children.

Isla Cameron sang Johnny Todd on her 1956 Tradition album Through Bushes and Briars.

Bob Roberts sang Johnny Todd in a Peter Kennedy recording on his 1960 Talking Book EP Windy Old Weather. This track was also included in 1994 on the Saydisc CD of sea songs collected by Peter Kennedy, Sea Songs and Shanties. Kennedy noted on the latter album:

Collected by Frank Kidson, the tune of this song became well-known in the late sixties when it was used for the TV series “Z Cars” which featured the Liverpool police. It seems to be a sailor's version of Madam Will You Walk? (known in a Somerset version as The Keys of Canterbury). The only other version I have recorded was Johnny Sailor, sung by children in the streets of Belfast.

The Galliard sang Johnny Todd in 1963 on their album England's Great Folk Group.

Paddie Bell sang Johnny Todd in 1965 on her EMI album Paddie—Herself.

Louis Killen sang Johnny Todd in 1973 on the National Geographic Society's anthology Songs & Sounds of the Sea.

Hughie Jones sang Johnny Todd on his 1999 Fellside CD Seascape. He noted:

Collector Frank Kidson described Johnny Todd as a Liverpool children's skipping song but early TV watchers and Everton football fans will surely recognise the theme from “Z Cars”.

The Andover Museum Loft Singers conducted by Paul Sartin sang Johnny Todd in 2012 on their WildGoose CD The Bedmaking. The album's liner notes commented:

A Liverpool song for Loft Singer, conducting assistant and Scouser David Hughes, the melody of this found fame as the theme to “Z Cars”. It was first published by collector Frank Kidson in 1891.

A Scottish variant is printed in Norman Buchan's 101 Scottish Songs with the title My True Love's a Sailor.

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