Even God is uneasy, Say the moist bells of Swansea.

October 2, 2018 10:05 AM

And who robbed the miner?/Cry the grim bells of Blaina. A little-known poem discovered by Pete Seeger became a popular folk standard and subsequently recorded hundreds of times by various artists. Besides the original, most folksy version by Pete Seeger (1964 live performance linked, but originally recorded live for the 1958 album, "Pete Seeger and Sonny Terry"), the most famous version is probably by The Byrds and was released on their debut album, "Mr Tambourine Man" (1965). A poppy version that borrows heavily from The Byrds was recorded by Robyn Hitchcock and The Egyptians (1984); and Cher tried her hand in 1965, with good results.

Idris Davies' poem, "The Bells of Rhymney", takes the stanzas of "Oranges and Lemons" and uses this framework to comment on the mining industry in Wales. "Oranges and Lemons" is an English nursery rhyme that references the bells of churches in and around London; this charming YouTube version is, fittingly enough, aimed at young children.

Some brief background about Idris Davies from Welshnot:

"[Idris Davies] wrote it during a four-year stint on the dole. From the age of 14, he had worked as a miner at the Mardy Colliery in Rhondda Fach,, south Wales. But at the age of 21, he was involved in an accident which resulted in him losing part of a finger. With his injury and the disruptions caused by the 1926 General Strike, he found himself jobless.

He used this period of unemployment to educate himself, something he called, 'the long and lonely self-tuition game'. He would spend his days in the local library. He also started to write poetry, in both Welsh and English. His writing was influenced by the bitterness and hurt of the mining communities around him.

Despite the vast wealth created by the country’s coal industry, Welsh people found themselves living in one of the most depressed areas of Europe with unemployment hitting 85 percent in places such as Abertillery during the early 1930s. The infant mortality rate doubled from 56.6 per 1000 children in 1930 to 118.8 in 1934."

"The Byrds' recording of 'The Bells of Rhymney' was also influential on The Beatles, particularly George Harrison, who constructed his song 'If I Needed Someone' around the same guitar riff that the Byrds had used in the song." (Wikipedia)

posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome (25 comments total)

Lovely. I had no idea about the Seeger version and the story behind it, despite digging on the Byrds' take since forever. Thanks so much.
posted by adamgreenfield at 10:23 AM on October 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

Americans might recognize "Oranges and Lemons" from its use in Orwell's 1984.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:23 AM on October 2, 2018

I grew up in Rhymney! Can't say I was ever that fond of the place. It's pronounced Rumney, not Rimney by the way.
posted by misteraitch at 10:25 AM on October 2, 2018 [5 favorites]

Don't forget John Denver!
posted by sophrontic at 11:03 AM on October 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

Don't forget The Soft Boys - awfully sincere for them, IYAM.
posted by Frowner at 11:14 AM on October 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

What kind of person thinks of applying the adjective "moist" to a bell?
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:19 AM on October 2, 2018

All that enumeration of the sins of the owners, and they took out the choppers to chop off their heads?
posted by jackbishop at 11:31 AM on October 2, 2018

What kind of person thinks of applying the adjective "moist" to a bell?

A person from Wales. I am given to understand that it's damp enough that in strict technical terms everything is moisturized.

Idris Davies seems to be that rare thing, a working class poet who was able to publish a good amount. Per Wikipedia, TS Eliot thought highly of him. He was substantially self-educated and a socialist, and if he feels that the damn bells are moist, then moist they'll be.
posted by Frowner at 11:36 AM on October 2, 2018 [8 favorites]

I am given to understand that it's damp enough that in strict technical terms everything is moisturized.

I got sunburned in Wales, but I have the magic ability of getting sunburned in all climates.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:51 AM on October 2, 2018

A person from Wales. I am given to understand that it's damp enough that in strict technical terms everything is moisturized.

Or, at least, moistened.
posted by y2karl at 11:55 AM on October 2, 2018

"Don't forget The Soft Boys - awfully sincere for them, IYAM."

There's not a lot of distance between The Soft Boys' version and Robyn Hitchcock w/the Egyptians, really. I think I prefer The Egyptians' take on it, though.
posted by jzb at 11:57 AM on October 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

I am given to understand that it's damp enough [in Wales] that in strict technical terms everything is moisturized.

I get that, but in my mind "moist" seems like it should be reserved for organic usages. My choice would be something like "damp" or "dank" for a metallic object that's gotten wet.

(I know the word "moist" itself is a bit of a problem for some people, but that's not my issue with it)
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:01 PM on October 2, 2018

I myself am serenely untroubled by the word "moist" unless it's appended to, as it were, an appendage. Or anything that glistens.

Whenever I've heard this song, I've pictured some old, darkened bells in a damp stone church tower with maybe a little moss growing on/around them.
posted by Frowner at 12:21 PM on October 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

Ehh, apparently it's just my own weird thing so I'll shut up about it.

For now.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:31 PM on October 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

There's not a lot of distance between The Soft Boys' version and Robyn Hitchcock w/the Egyptians, really.

I think they're basically the same band, except for Rob Lamb, the original member and guitarist. Sadly this song isn't on the album with Peter Buck, otherwise we'd have even more jangly RIckenbacker.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 12:36 PM on October 2, 2018

"I think they're basically the same band, except for Rob Lamb, the original member and guitarist."

I think Lamb left before that was recorded? The big missing piece, I think, is Kimberly Rew. And, yeah, Peter Buck is always brings a little extra jangle to the table - but you can only jangle so much. A man's gotta know his limitations, after all.

Unfortunately this wasn't on the set list when I got to see them play together.
posted by jzb at 12:59 PM on October 2, 2018

In Rhymney they named a street after him, or, rather, a cluster of houses and flats: Idris Davies Place. It was designed with footpaths running through it which passed through some of the buildings, as in the buildings were constructed around these paths, with gaps at ground level providing some partial cover over them, and presumably this was all done to encourage foot traffic and help engender a sense of community. Except it turned out that when sheep escaped from their pastures on the hillsides above the town, they often sought shelter from the ever-present rain in these covered walkways and found them to be convenient latrines. And patrons staggering home from the nearby Puddler's Arms public house would likewise find momentary shelter there to relieve their bladders, so that, when I walked that way on my way to school in the morning the aromas of ovine and human urine would intermingle to drearily malodorous effect, and the piss-patches and the rainwater would merge together moistly and dankly leading one to wonder if the well-intentioned tribute to our homegrown poet had maybe not gone quite to plan, and whether that in itself was some kind of bleakly poetic metaphor for something.
posted by misteraitch at 1:46 PM on October 2, 2018 [10 favorites]

I notice even Robyn couldn't come up with a rhyme for Ynysybwl.
posted by Grangousier at 1:49 PM on October 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

Invincible?
Miserable?
Municipal?
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:12 PM on October 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

Invisible, maybe. Invisible / Ynysybwl would be a very Robyn couplet. Missed a trick there.

(Although that's based on how it ought to be pronounced. I've no idea what the locals actually call it.)
posted by Grangousier at 2:53 PM on October 2, 2018

(Full disclosure, I used to live in Newport: "Put the vandals in court")
posted by Grangousier at 3:20 PM on October 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

Oysterband have also recorded it - sometimes coupled with "Coal Not Dole" (sorry for the crap video - just listen).
posted by e-man at 8:41 PM on October 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'd pronounce Ynysybwl as UNNis-uh-BULL: punishable wouldn't be a bad rhyme for it, or, mangling the scansion a bit more, unmissable.

Returning by degrees towards the subject of the post, housing developments like Idris Davies Place, misguided as they could be, were usually at least some improvement over the slummy Victorian terraces they replaced. In one of his later poems, Davies condemned those who'd constructed the old terraces as 'the brutes who built so basely / in the long Victorian night', a thought I bear in mind whenever I'm tempted to romanticise that era.

Davies's poetry veers too close to doggerel for my liking - he's no John Clare - but I respect his achievements even so, and a few of his lines, like the ones above, have stayed with me. As for the song, the mispronunciation, while only a minor thing, makes it hard for me to enjoy most versions of it - but I've enjoyed seeing it mentioned on the blue - thank you joseph conrad is fully awesome for the post!
posted by misteraitch at 1:51 AM on October 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

This is the version I learned the song from: Ian Campbell This is also the group that I learned Dirty Old Town from.

Of course that first version you hear always sounds like the best.
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:26 PM on October 3, 2018

Well, well. I find out now, forty years later, that "All Tomorrow's Parties" by the Velvet Underground was a knockoff.
posted by Rich Smorgasbord at 9:56 AM on October 5, 2018