> MichaelAnnJillo > Songs > Hymey Hancock

Hymey Hancock

[ Roud - ; trad.]

MichaelAnnJillo sang Hymey Hancock in a probably 1990s home recording in Mike and Ann Waterson’s kitchen. It was included in 2023 on their CD I’ll Give You One More As You Go.

Lyrics

MichaelAnnJillo sing Hymey Hancock

Oh, my name is Hymey Hancock, I’m a man that is very well known
In the city of Carlisle I’ve a business of my own.
It’s at the end of Castle Street, and my name it is over the top,
And I am doin’ a rattlin’ business in the old clothes shop.

I sell corduroy, likewise the best of tweed,
I guarantee every article is free o’ the gallopin’ [breed?].
I scarcely sell a bolt of cloth without any reprise or [coup?]
And I’m doin’ a rattlin’ business in the old clothes shop.

One evening a man come in an overcoat to buy,
I offered him one at 12/6: “Try that one on,” says I.
He tried it on and it fitted him well, and as he was walking away
I tipped him on the shoulder, says, “The coat you’ve got to pay.”

For my name is Hymey Hancock, I’m a man that is very well known
In the city of Carlisle I’ve a business of my own.
It’s at the end of Castle Street, and my name it is over the top,
And I am doin’ a rattlin’ business in the old clothes shop.

He told me that the coat was his because he had it on.
“Exchange,” he says, “is no robbery”—for he had for me his own.
I says he’d better pay for it, or else I call a cop,
And he tipped me through the window of the old clothes shop.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Garry Gillard for transcribing the lyrics.