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Tom of Bedlam

from Songs by Ed, Will and Ginger

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about

This is a very old song, as old as the mind losing its grip on rational codes of social normality. It is again about Bedlam, which in 1403 was built to contain "mad-folk". Their rehabilitation and treatment included such tools as manacles, shackles and spikes.

Bedlam is renowned as a place of deep, swirling insanity, designed to hide (and show) the too loose and too sharp minded people of the time. Curious visitors could parade through to witness madness for recreation. £400 a year is said to have been generated by the admission of visitors to this hospital, which in 1500 was an awful lot of cash.

Sub-sub-cultures emerged from this place, and legends of liminal traveling madmen became currency in drama and song. The mad seers of the road, the lunatics of divination and dance, the secret kings of unreason…all from Bedlam came.

Of course there was a certain kudos to be gained from impersonating Bedlam boys; the ‘superstitious’ awe with which they were regarded accorded them especial success in the art of begging.

This song is old: Shakespeare mentions the character of Tom of Bedlam in King Lear, when Edgar disguises himself thus:

my face I'll grime with filth;
Blanket my loins: elf all my hair in knots;
The winds and persecutions of the sky.
The country gives me proof and precedent
Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices,
Strike in their numb'd and mortified bare arms
Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary;
And with this horrible object, from low farms,
Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes, and mills,
Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers,
Enforce their charity. Poor Turlygod! poor Tom! (Act II, Sc. 3)

Sometimes called Abraham men, from the Abraham ward of Bedlam, there was a huge rise in people wandering the country engaged on these freelance pursuits from 1550 - 1750. The anonymous author of O Per Se O (1612) reported of Abram-men that "some dance, but keep no measure; others leap up and down". It’s a style that's certainly gained in popularity.

The eminent antiquarian John Aubrey wrote that they such beggars wore a tin badge on their arm, an ox horn round their necks, a long staff and fantastic multi-coloured clothing.

We'd love to say that an old tramp, all tattooed and pell-mell, croaked us this song in strange urban woodlands; but we actually learned it from a recording by Steeleye Span, with Martin Carthy and Maddy Prior singing. Martin Carthy has been a great influence upon our understanding of English Folk Song. Anyone who has not discovered his music, should remedy that lack in their life.

lyrics

For to see mad tom of Bedlam,
10,000 miles I’ll travel,
Mad maudlin goes on dirty toes,
To save her shoes from gravel,

Still I sing bonny boys, bonny mad boys,
Bedlam boys are bonny,
For they all go bare, and live by the air,
And they want no drink nor money.

My staff has murdered giants,
By bag a long knife carries,
For to cut mince pies off of children’s thighs,
With which to feed the faeries,

Still…

Spirits clear as lightning,
shall on my travels guide me,
The moon would quake and the stars would shake,
Whenever they espied me,

Still..

It’s when next I have murdered
The Man in the Moon to a powder,
His staff I’ll break, his dog I’ll bake,
There’ll howl no demon louder

So drink to Tom of Bedlam,
He’ll fill the seas in barrels,
I’ll drink it all, all brewed with gall,
With Mad Maudlin I’ll travel.

Still…

credits

from Songs, released January 1, 2010

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A Walk Around Britain UK

Wayfaring songs from journeys on foot around Britain.

With Ed, Will & Ginger. And others.

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