"D'ye ken John Peel?" â which translates to "Do you know John Peel?" â is a famous Cumberland hunting song written around 1824 by John Woodcock Graves (1795âÂÂ1886) in celebration of his friend John Peel (1776âÂÂ1854), an English fox hunter from the Lake District. The melody is said to be a contrafactum of a popular border rant, "Bonnie Annie." A different version, the one that endures today, was musically adapted in 1869 by William Metcalfe (1829âÂÂ1909), the organist and choirmaster of Carlisle Cathedral. The tune etymology has a long history that has been traced back to 1695 and attributed to adaptations â one in particular, from the 20th century, the 1939 jingle, "Pepsi-Cola Hits the Spot."
John Graves, who wrote it in the Cumbrian dialect, tinkered with the words over the years and several versions are known. George Coward, a Carlisle bookseller who wrote under the pseudonym Sidney Gilpin, rewrote the lyrics with Graves' approval, translating them from their original broad Cumberland dialect to Anglian; and in 1866, he published them in the book, Songs and Ballads of Cumberland. Another song written by Graves mentions one of John's brothers, Askew Peel (1789âÂÂ1854), a horsedealer who also lived in Caldbeck.
"D'ye ken John Peel?" was first sung in 1824 in Gate House in Caldbeck in John Gravesâ home to the tune of the Border rant "Bonnie Annie." A different musical version was composed in 1869 by William Metcalfe, a conductor, composer, and lay clerk of Carlisle Cathedral. His arrangement â lauded as more musical than the traditional melody â became popular in London and was widely published. In 1906, the song was published in The National Song Book, but with a tune closer to Bonnie Annie â and <u>that</u> version is the most widely known today. English counties have no official anthem. However, "D'ye ken John Peel?" is commonly regarded as a kind of unofficial anthem of Cumberland and the region.
British musicologist Ann Gilchrist (1863âÂÂ1954) and Canadian folklorist Edith Fowke (1913âÂÂ1996) trace the use of the tune and lyrics in other songs and poems, including: <ol type="1" start="1"> <li> "Red House," first published in 1695 by John Playford (1623âÂÂ1686/7) in The Dancing Master (9th ed.)<br />
<ol type="a" start="1"> <li> "Where will Our Good Man Lay?"</li> <li> "Where/Whar Wad Our Gudman/Bonny Annie Lye/Laye"</li> <li> "Where/Whar wad our Guidman Lie"
<li> From the 1729 opera, Polly, Act I, Scene VIII, Air 9, the song "Red House," being the same version published in The Dancing Master</li></ol> <li> "Address to the Woodlark," by Robert Burns (1759âÂÂ1796) <li> "0! What Can Make My Annie Sigh?" by John Anderson <li> The words, "Where wad bonny Anne lye?," in the song, "The Cordial," sung to the tune "Where Should Our Goodman Ly?"
<li> English-turned-American composer Austen Herbert Croom-Johnson (1909âÂÂ1964), born in Hereford, imported the tune, "D'ye ken John Peel," and scored it for a 1939 jingle, "Pepsi-Cola Hits the Spot" (aka "Nickel, Nickel"). His Chicago-born lyricist partner, Alan Bradley Kent (né Karl Dewitt Byington, Jr.; 1912âÂÂ1991), wrote the words. </li></ol>
Cumbrian lyrics, taken from Hodgson manuscript.
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Verse 1 (best known; by Graves)
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â¡Some versions, according to The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, show the phrase as " with his coat so gray," implying that his coat was likely made of local Herdwick wool, commonly gray. If so, the color of John Peel's coat would be in contrast to that of other huntsmen â traditionally brightly colored, often red or .
Verse 2 (Coward's version)
Verse 3
Verse 4
Verse 5
As is common with songs often sung from memory, this has been recorded with other verses and minor differences in lyrics, such as in the third verse: "From the drag to the chase, from the chase to the view" and "From a view to a death in the morning":
Alternative verse 1
Coward's version of the last line was used for Matt Cartmill's book, A View to a Death in the Morning: Hunting and Nature Through History as well as Anthony Powell's novel From a View to a Death. The alternative version was used as a title to the short story From a View to A Kill, found in the Ian Fleming collection of short stories, For Your Eyes Only. This was in turn shortened to A View to a Kill, when applied to the fourteenth James Bond movie.
This verse was not in Coward's version:
Alternative verse 2
A number of parodies also exist. On BBC radio's I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again, a version parodied the British Radio DJ John Peel
1st parody
Another was used in the 1979 film Porridge, which saw Ronnie Barker as Fletch cheekily observe a new prison warden.
2nd parody
Several lines of the song are also parodied in the course of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. In the same vein, Birkenhead post-punk group Half Man Half Biscuit included the song 'D'ye ken Ted Moult?' on their compilation ACD, adapting the lyrics to address the 1980s double glazing spokesman of the same name, while comic singer-songwriter John Shuttleworth used the song as the basis for his cassette-only album Do You Ken Ken Worthington?.
Wedgwood's creamware pitcher modelled with hunting scenes in low relief and with a handle modelled as a leaping hound, which was introduced in 1912, carried the pattern name "D'ye Ken John Peel".
P.M.Adamson Download sites and youtube
Catalog of Copyright Entries, Part 3: Musical Compositions
<ol type="i" start="1"> <li>
<li>"John Peel," variations on an English tune
Catalog of Copyright Entries, Part 3: Musical Compositions
<ol type="i" start="1"> <li> "D'ye ken John Peel"
<li> "Do ye ken, John Peel?"
<li> "Do ye ken, John Peel?"
<li> "Do ye ken John Peel," fox trot
<li> "Pepsi-Cola Hits the Spot"
<li> "Pepsi-Cola Radio Jingle"
<li> "Get Hep"
<ol type="i" start="8"> <li> "Pepsi-Cola Hits the Spot"
Catalog of Copyright Entries, Part 3: Musical Compositions
<ol type="i" start="1"> <li>