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Fathom the Bowl

[ Roud 880 ; Ballad Index K268 ; trad.]

The Watersons sang Fathom the Bowl in 1966 on their eponymous album The Watersons. Like all but one tracks from this LP, it was re-released in 1994 on the CD Early Days. It was also reissued in 2003 on The Definitive Collection. A.L. Lloyd commented in the original album's sleeve notes:

This rousing and convivial song may be found in the collection of English songs made by William Alexander Barrett and published in 1891. Barrett noted his budget of songs at harvest homes, sheep shearings, ploughing matches and from itinerant ballad-singers (like the ones interviewed by Mayhew and his team of early sociologists in mid-Victorian times) who still lifted up their cracked voices in the city streets.

Alfred Williams collected in the countryside around the Upper Thames in the early part of this century and found Fathom the Bowl sung all the way from Malmesbury to Oxford. His singers usually followed it with a spoken toast, a pithy and familiar bit of folk wisdom:

Here's to the large bee that flies so high!
The small bee gathers the honey,
The poor man he does all the work,
The rich man pockets the money.

John C. Reilly sang Fathom the Bowl in 2006 on Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs & Chanteys.

Jon Boden sang Fathom the Bowl as the September 12, 2010 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day.

Lyrics

The Watersons sing Fathom the Bowl

Come all you bold heroes give an ear to me song
I will sing in the praise of good brandy and rum
There's a clear crystal fountain near England shall roll
Give me the punch ladle I'll fathom the bowl

Chorus (after each verse):

I'll fathom the bowl I'll fathom the bowl
Give me the punch ladle I'll fathom the bowl

From France we do get brandy from Jamaica comes rum
Sweet oranges and apples from Portugal come
But stout and strong cider are England's control
Give me the punch ladle I'll fathom the bowl

My wife she do disturb me when I'm laid at my ease
For she does as she likes and she says as she please
My wife she's a devil she's black as the coal
Give me the punch ladle I'll fathom the bowl

My father he do lie in the depths of the sea
With no stone at his head by what matters for he
There's a clear crystal fountain near England shall roll
Give me the punch ladle I'll fathom the bowl

Acknowledgements

Transcribed by Garry Gillard