> Brass Monkey > Songs > George’s Son
George’s Son
[John Kirkpatrick]
John Kirkpatrick sang his own song George’s Son on Brass Monkey’s 1986 album See How It Runs. The LP was re-released in 1993 as the second half of the CD The Complete Brass Monkey; and the song was also included in 1994 on his Topic anthlogy A Short History of John Kirkpatrick and in 2009 on Topic’s 70th anniversary box set Three Score and Ten. According to the original album’s sleeve notes, he wrote it “for a dramatisation by the Orchard Theatre company of Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd but not used in the end. This song is a synopsis of chapter five.”
The John Kirkpatrick also sang George’s Son in a 1995 live recording on their 1996 Fledg’ling CD Force of Habit and Brass Monkey sang it on their 30th anniversary CD and DVD, The Best of Live.
Crucible sang George’s Son in 2005 on their WildGoose album Crux. This track was also included in 2006 on the Seville House anthology Forged in Sheffield. They noted on their album:
We first heard George’s Son, written by John Kirkpatrick, on the Brass Monkey album See How It Runs and sang it unaccompanied before our current version evolved. Helena [Reynolds] wrote Jake’s Progress to go with the song, in memory of another fine, brave dog.
Mawkin:Causley sang George’s Son in 2008 on their CD Cold Ruin. They noted:
A blockbuster of a song by one of our Heroes, tbe inimitable John Kirkpatrick. John composed it for a theatre production of Far From the Madding Crowd. It sounds to us so much like a song from a movie soundtrack that you’d hardly believe it was about a couple of dogs and a large flock of sheep!
Lyrics
John Kirkpatrick sings George’s Son
O there was George and there was George’s Son
Two finer dogs, oh they never did run
And they worked the sheep, and they worked them well
O but George’s Sun, he could run like hell
For one dark night when all were safe asleep
To George’s Son, oh, some devil did creep
Saying, “Show your master, come show him true,
What George’s Son with those sheep can do.”
O how they scambled and how they flew
And how they thundered that parish through
And how high the cliff he drove them along
O and in his ears ran that devil’s song
Their clattering bells roused that shepherd bold
And at that sound, oh his blood ran cold
And he prayed for mercy with all his might
Saying, “Some demon rides with my sheep this night”
And quickly, quickly he ran the ground
And quickly, quickly that cliff he found
And quickly, quickly he raised his gun
And the devil smiled on young George’s Son
A flock was lost, and a fortune too
And a brisk young farmer could ruin knew
To some labouring job he was forced to come
But his saddest loss was young George’s Son
O there was George and there was George’s Son
Two finer dogs, oh they never did run
And they worked the sheep, and they worked them well
O but George’s Sun, he could run like hell
Acknowledgements
Lyrics copied from the See How It Runs sleeve notes.