> Nic Jones > Songs > The Halliard: The Spanish Lady

The Spanish Lady

[ Roud 542 ; Ballad Index E098 ; trad.]

Dominic Behan sang The Spanish Lady in 1959 on his Topic LP Down by the Liffeyside. The liner notes of the 1963 reissue commented:

Dominic writes [in the original album notes]: “Hamish Henderson tells me this was written by Joseph Campbell of Ulster. Fancy that now!”

In her traditional dress, the Spanish lady is sometimes encountered washing her feet, sometimes combing her hair, sometimes counting her cash (Alan Lomax thinks she might be a prostitute counting up her evening takings)—but always by the light of a candle and always in Dublin City. Yet who she is and how she got there we do not know; all we know is that she was very beautiful, and very exotic, and also inaccessible.

This is a treatment of a tune and theme common throughout the British tradition.

The Halliard (Nic Jones, Dave Moran, Nigel Patterson) sang The Spanish Lady in 1967 on their first album, It's the Irish in Me.

Paddie Bell sang The Spanish Lady in 1968 on her LP I Know Where I'm Going.

Frank Harte sang The Spanish Lady in 1973 on his Topic LP Through Dublin City. He commented in the album liner notes:

For too long this fine old Dublin song has been sung mainly by choral groups and concert sopranos. I remember the song from childhood and it has grown as I heard verses of it year after year. In some versions the last verse ends—

She had 20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 none
She had 19 17 15 13 11 9 7 5 3 and 1,

meaning “she had the odds and the evens of it“—in other words she had everything.

Lyrics

The Halliard sing The Spanish Lady

As I came down to Dublin City at the hour of twelve at night,
Who should I see but a Spanish lady washing her feet by candle light.
First she washed them, and then she dried them, over a fire of angry coals.
In all my life I never did see such a maid so neat above the soles.

Chorus (after each verse):

𝄆 Whack fol the too-ra loo-ra laddy,
Whack fol the too-ra loo-ra-lay 𝄇

I stopped to look but the watchman passed. Said he, “Young fellow, now the night is late.
Along with you home or I will wrestle you straightway through the Bridewell gate.”
I drew a kiss of the Spanish Lady, hot as a fire of angry coals,
In all my life I never did see such a maid so neat above the soles.

Now she's no mot for a puddle swaddy with her ivory comb and her mantle fine
But she'd make a wife for the Provost Marshall drunk on brandy and claret wine
I drew a kiss of the Spanish Lady, hot as a fire of angry coals,
In all my life I never did see such a maid so neat above the soles.

I've wandered north and I've wandered south through Stonybutter and Patrick's Close,
Up and down the Gloucester Diamond and back through Napper Tandy's house.
Old age has laid her arm on me cold as a fire of ashy coal
And where is the lovely Spanish Lady neat and sweet above the soles?

Links

See also the Mudcat Café thread The Spanish Lady.