STAN JARDINE and his LYRICS
Lyrics for some Merseyside folk-songs by Stan Jardine. 
.The songs on this page were written and performed by Stan Jardine of Birkenhead, who played with various folk groups, including the Wallasey Wreckers for a time, and later singing solo in Birkenhead folk venues. Sadly, Stan died in about 2003, and, with the kind permission of Norma Jardine and her children, I am making them available here, in their own page, to commemorate Stan, his life, his singing and his songs.
Many thanks to "The A-Team" at BBC Radio Merseyside for finding so many of the words.
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Please, can somebody supply a photo of Stan Jardine?
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Please feel free to click here to email me with
more information about any of the songs, and especially if you can offer
some more lyrics or answer some of the Questions.
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STAN JARDINE.
In March 2005, Tim Clark and his folk-club mates in Birkenhead offered some snippets seeking complete words, e.g. "The Liverbird smiled at me."
Dan Tanzey - who describes himself as a “plastic scouser”, ie, from the Wirral, - writes from Blackpool (April 06);
"
I knew Stan Jardine quite well at one time. For a while he was the resident singer at St Albans’ Folk Club in Wallasey, on the first Saturday of every month if memory serves. I used to go along and sing a few songs myself if I was home. As well as traditional songs,Stan wrote many of his own, some parodies of existings songs (“What do you want to make those eyes at us for?” being one that comes to mind.)
Dan also came up with the following; " I remember the chorus of another "Wallasey Wreckers" song, probably of the Jardine stable. Sadly I can’t remember any of the verses. The last word of the fourth line changed every time – for obvious comedic reasons.
“Oh how I pine for McAlpines, The “Golden Virginia”, the white wine;
Yer wellies don’t fit;You get covered in [sand] [grit] [brick-dust] [mud] etc
But it’s certainly fine at McAlpines”
“The Night-Shift Army”.
Dan Tanzey mentions this song. Stan,having been a night-shift worker himself, knew the problems. The chorus was:
“We are the night-shift army,
working the night away
Pale and drawn we greet the dawn
to sleep all through the day
To the sound of rattling dustbins
and a friendly ice-cream van
I’d like to stick his ding-dong chimes
right up the ice-cream man.”
One verse started something like:
“We clock-off at the sun-rise and go home to our wives
With clattering clogs waking all the dogs,
they’ve got teeth like Gurkas knives…..”
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“And Then He Kissed Me”,
based he swears,on an actual experience.
And excuse the attempts to write the vocalisations in the chorus.
“I was walking up Brownlow Hill just the other day.
I ate my fish and chips and I threw the paper away.
Then a copper came up to me
He said “That is an offence, you see.”
He took me by the arm, put me up against a wall
and then he kicked me.
Chorus:
He kicked me in a place that I’ve never been kicked before
(Oo-oo-oo-oo oh-oh-oh-oh)
He kicked me in a place I don’t want to be kicked anymore
(wah-wah-wah-wah)
He took me to the station and
he robbed me of everything that I had
I asked if I could use the phone
to call me Mam and me Dad
Then a sergeant said very well
Took me off to a private cell
He took me by the arm, put me up against the wall
and then he kissed me.
Chorus:
He kissed me in a place that I’ve never been kissed before
(Oo-oo-oo-oo oh-oh-oh-oh)
He kissed me in a place I’d quite like to be kissed a bit more
(wah-wah-wah-wah)
(The rest is best left to the imagination.)
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The Liver Bird Ballad
Lyrics Ted Bowe, Music S Jardine
There's a wily old bird called the Liver
Perched up on the top of a dome
With his big beady eyes he just sits there
Watching the big ships come home
Chorus
And it's hey ho my port oh!
Welcome to Liverpool town
The old Liver Bird is still nesting up there
And we can't get the old buzzard down
2.You can talk of the places you've been to
You can boast of the mountains of Rome
But a give me the old Liver buildings
With the Liver Bird perched on its dome
Chorus
3. Now we're making 12 knots down the Mersey
And the Blue Peter flies at the mast
We're Singapore bound from the Salthouse
Won't be home 'till the Liver is passed
Chorus
4. Oh you can make all the changes you want to
Even alter the face of the town
But while I'm away, keep this promise
Don't knock the old Liver Birds down
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The Liver Bird Smiled at Me. Cid Evans
1.Oh they took away the landing stage when they pulled Old Parly down
It'll never be the same again, dear old Liverpool town
Scottie Road's not there no more, &Park Road's gone as well
Go and take a look yourself and see no lies I tell
Chorus
For now there's concrete blocks of offices and shops
And a tower where the market used to be
Oh they sacked our town when they pulled it down
But the Liver Bird smiled at me,
Oh the Liver Bird smiled at me
2. You remember dear old Market Street
with the handcarts lined up there
Selling puppies and mice, and kittens full of lice
and other kinds of ware
There was ducks and geese, and chickens there
Dollies from the duckhouse and dives
Oh I'm telling you you'll never see these things again while I'm alive
Chorus
3.People say to me that I've never seen such a change in all me time
Since I went to sea so many years ago at the age of 29
Well I'm going back to sea again to another land I'll go
I'll remember Liverpool, the one I used to know
Chorus
4. So give me back my Liverpool, the one I used to know
Way back in my childhood days, the one I love so
With the overhead railway at the docks, the trams on either side
When we'd only pay a penny & up to Walton we could ride
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The Merseysider by Stan Jardine
Chorus
I'm a Merseysider and I always will be
That river it pulls at my very soul
It's a rouse you know with its ebb and flow
And the wind sends the waves that break and roll
1.
Well there's dredgers and tugs, some ocean liners,
Isle of Man boats and the ferries too
Flags unfurled from all over the world
Cargo vessels but no funnels of blue
Chorus
2.Well the river brought the boats and then the docks
The docks brought the work and the cargo too
That river like a wife brought men to life
Though there's not as much work now,
well we'll still pull through
Chorus
3.From Stockport to Liverpool she wends her course
When the fog rolls down and the hooters sound
And then all of the funnels sail over the tunnels
When the barrage comes, there'll be power all round
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New Brighton Ferries Cid Evans
Chorus
Oh the New Brighton Ferries don't sail anymore
They've taken the pier head away
And the fine golden sands that ran through my hands
On many a bright summers day
Well the sands of time have taken their toll
Now the river's all muddy and brown
You can see very clear if you stand at the pier
Way back in Liverpool town, boys
Way back in Liverpool town
1. When I was a lad many years ago
On Sundays we'd go for a sail
With me big bag of butties and me bucket and spade
And me Dad with his bottle of ale
Oh we sit on the sand and we thought it was grand
For, as kids we'd play all through the day
With a bat and a ball up against the sea wall
And catching crabs as the tide ebbed away
Chorus
2.And then sometimes we'd go for a swim in the sea
For the river it was then quite clean
On those bright sunny days in amongst the suns haze
But now it all seems like a dream
So before we went home, on the donkeys we rode
And sixpence a ride was the fare
At the end of the day, then we'd all sail away
On the ferry boats we'd have no cares
Chorus
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Dirty Old Tramp Steamer
Lyrics Ted Bowe, Music S Jardine
Chorus
She's a dirty old tramp steamer with a dim-lit fo'c'sle head
And her plates are worn and they're rusted through
from the coats of paint she's shed
She's been ravaged by the oceans and she shows her many scars
From her blunted bow to abaft her bridge, many rusted twisted spars
1.Such a sorry sight indeed she looks, judged unfit for sea
With a bill of sale from the broker man and a cat for company
Oh I knew her well and I trod her decks, and I mingled with the crew
And I steered her west through the raging seas for the port of Santa Cruz
Chorus
2.Yet I loved that old tramp steamer,
and I'd notch her full ahead
And she'd answer me with a turn of speed
Like she knew each word I'd said
Oh the ports we've known and the lands we've seen
from Aden to Cochin
And the storms we've braved and the tricks she's played,
and the fights she's got me in
Chorus
3. Now she's tied up fast and she's laid she'll rust,
no more she'll go to sea
And the cat will leave and tugs will heave her to
the scrap yard cemetery.
Chorus
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Liverpool You're Everything to Me Stan Jardine
Chorus
Liverpool you're everything to me
River Mersey right down to the Irish Sea
Though your buildings aren't the same
Still you're rich in fame
And that's the way you're always going to be
1.It's so many years since first you gave me life
Way back against the means test bitter strife
But you fed and you reared me strong
And you never taught me wrong
And you gave me one of your daughters for a wife
Chorus
2.Then you kept us safe throughout the bloody way
Though many heats were broken and what for
Then you gathered up the bits from the debris of the blitz
From the V2's and the cruel bombs galore
Chorus
3.Then you gave us Lime Street Central and Exchange
And the overhead and the docks of endless rains
An the sailors in their day could ne'er forgot old Maggie May
And the other dubious ladies to engage
Chorus
4.Like so may others once we went away
But we miss those Liver birds each lonely day
For there's nowhere else on earth I'd swap for a pierhead berth
And now we're home, we'll never more will stray
Chorus
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SINGERS' PAGE? I have made another page to hold information about the
various singers and writers of Liverpool folk-songs, so that such information as
comes my way will be made available, while leaving the Songs page to be just
that. Some items may prove to be inseparable from their composer, but I'll be
giving it a try. Anybody got any suggestions of people to be included? Anybody
got some information, data, or appreciations that they feel should be available
on internet?
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