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Serious Tom

[ Roud 1608 ; Ballad Index PuMB076 ; VWML GG/1/15/960 ; Mudcat 139504 ; trad.]

Frank Purslow: Marrow Bones

Steve Jordan and Geoff Jerram sang Serious Tom in 1974 on the Forest Tracks album Folk Songs From Hampshire of songs collected in 1905-09 by Dr. George B. Gardiner. They also sang it in 2006 on Geoff Jerram’s Forest Tracks album Bedlam. John Edgar Mann noted on the first album:

Collected from James Channon, Ellisfield, Basingstoke, in September, 1907 [VWML GG/1/15/960] , this is described by Frank Purslow as “a typical 19th century pub song”. Although very short in duration, it is not short on psychology: despite his protests, one wonders whether Tom is really all that happy with his bachelor state—fear, the last verse reveals, has held him back from matrimony (“the hazard is too great to run”). Still a fine, vigorous song to sing in a pub… or anywhere else except church.

… and Geoff Jerram noted on his album:

From Marrow Bones, Frank Purslow’s first anthology of folk songs collected in Hampshire and Dorset. This song was very appropriate at The Royal Oak, Fritham, in the New Forest, where Saturday song sessions became a regular feature in the 60s. Steve and I sang together regularly when we were both residents at the Fo’c’sle. We rarely get together now and I am particularly pleased to sing with Steve again on one of our favourites.

Lyrics

Steve Jordan and Geoff Jerram sing Serious Tom

Here’s Serious Tom sits over his bowl
With his pipe and his pot for to cheer his soul,
While his gay companions round him cling
He’ll muse awhile and then he’ll sing,
He’ll muse awhile and then he’ll sing.

A single-life is a life of joy
There’s no girl on Earth shall my peace destroy.
For I’ll laugh and joke and drink and sing
And live as happy as a King,
For while we are here with our friends all around
There’s no greater pleasure can be found.

I own, I love a single life,
Tough there’s many live happy with a wife.
But when all is said and all is done
The hazard is too great to run,
The hazard is too great to run.

A single life – etc.