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Broadside ballad entitled 'The Mashers of Ramsey's Pend' |
CommentaryVerse 1: 'We'll sing you a song, and it wont be long, / If you listen to what we say / It's about two girls you know very well / And they live straight over the way. / There cheeks are as red as a piece of white chalk, / And they wear a Grecian bend; There's no mistake about it, / They're the mashers of Ramsey's Pend.' This song was published by the Poet's Box, 224 Overgate, Dundee. This ballad is a rather misogynistic satire on the two girls referred to in the title as 'The Mashers of Ramsey's Pend'. 'Masher' is an obsolescent expression for 'dandy', a word normally applied to men. The fact that 'masher' is applied here to two women seems to be additional, deliberate insult. The song presents the girls as grotesques with blue hair and red noses, 'covered in muck'. Even the description of them as the 'prettiest piece of potted head' is repellent: potted head is a traditional Scottish dish made from sheep's heads. It is not clear what the connection between the different Poet?s Boxes were. They almost certainly sold each other?s sheets. It is known that John Sanderson in Edinburgh often wrote to the Leitches in Glasgow for songs and that later his brother Charles obtained copies of songs from the Dundee Poet?s Box. There was also a Poet?s Box in Belfast from 1846 to 1856 at the address of the printer James Moore, and one at Paisley in the early 1850s, owned by William Anderson. Early ballads were dramatic or humorous narrative songs derived from folk culture that predated printing. Originally perpetuated by word of mouth, many ballads survive because they were recorded on broadsides. Musical notation was rarely printed, as tunes were usually established favourites. The term 'ballad' eventually applied more broadly to any kind of topical or popular verse.
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Probable period of publication:
1880-1900 shelfmark: L.C.Fol.70(88b)
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