Toper talk: The Toper's Song

There's only so many choruses of 'Delilah' and 'If I Were The Marrying Kind' that a drinker can take. If you want bawdy, politically incorrect banter with a hint of historic provenance and just enough folk heritage, you need The Toper's Song.

The Toper's Song is an arrangement by Peter Warlock of a song featured on an eighteenth century ballard sheet sung by that most excellent English clown, Joseph Grimaldi. Warlock himself was himself a noted toper and man of many facets. Indeed, Warlock was but a pseudonym of Philip Arnold Heseltine, a noted critic, author and self-taught composer who studied at Eton and Oxford, wrote about Delius and produced a raft of songs influenced greatly by his love of Elizabethan music.

Heavy-drinking joviality was a way of life for Warlock at time The Toper's Song was written, as he enjoyed a wild, boozy time in Eynsford, Kent in the company of friend E. J. Moeran. Music critic Ian Copley was impressed just enough to say that the song had "sufficient individuality and harmonic piquancy to lift it out of the ruck of anonymous commonplace".

Sadly, I don't know if that's true. I haven't been able to find an album or download of The Toper's Song. But you know how sometimes you don't need to hear a tune for it to resonate inside your head?

See if you know what I mean when you read the lyrics;

"The landlord he looks very big,
With his high cock'd hat and his powder'd wig;
Methinks he looks both fair and fat,
But he may thank you and me for that,
For 'tis
O, good ale, thou art my darling,
And my joy both night and morning!

The brewer brew'd thee in his pan,
The tapster draws thee in his can;
Now I with thee will play my part
And lodge thee next unto my heart,
For 'tis
O, good ale, thou art my darling,
And my joy both night and morning.

But if my wife should thee despise,
By Jove, I'll beat out both her eyes,
But if she loves me as I love thee,
A happy couple we shall be,
For 'tis
O, good ale, thou art my darling,
And my joy both night and morning.

Thou oft hast made my friends my foes,
And often made me pawn my clothes;
But since thou art so night my nose,
Come up my friend and down he goes,
For 'tis
O, good ale, thou art my darling,
And my joy both night and morning."


If you want to find out more about Peter Warlock, try some of these links:

- some of his work featured on last.fm

- extracts from over thirty of his songs recorded by Hyperion

- Geoff Grainger's extensive website

- a short biography on the Pristine Classical site

Lyrics courtesy of recmusic.org

Illustration by Hal Collins, taken from the ever-excellent 'Merry-Go-Down' by Rab Noolas - another Heseltine pseudonym (read it backwards). Much, much more from that anthology "collected for the use, interest, illumination and delectation of serious topers" will feature here in the future.