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Drummer Girl
Traditional

Verse & chorus: .wav (334K)  |  .mp3 (60K) "The Drummer Girl" is performed by  Wild Mountain Thyme  on their CD Scotland's Depraved.  Please refer to Cantaria's Copyright information

Notes: This English song is one of many, many songs of it's ilk, where a young woman disguises herself as a man and joins the military.  It was also recorded by Steeleye Span on "Please To See The King" (1971)

 

I was brought up in Yorkshire and when I was sixteen
I ran away to London and a soldier I became

Chorus:
With me fine cap and feathers, likewise me rattling drum
They learn-ed me to play upon the ra-ba-da-ba-dum
With me gentle waist so slender, me fingers long and small
I could play upon the ra-ba-dum the best of them all

And so many were the pranks that I saw upon the breech
And so boldly did I fight me boys although I'm but a wench
And they buttoned then up me trousers so up to them I smiled
To think I'd live with a thousand men and a maiden all the while

And they never found my secret out until this very hour
When they sent me out to London to be sentry at the Tower
When a young girl fell in love with me and she found that I's a maid
She went out to me officer me secret she betrayed
He unbuttoned then my red uniform and he found that it was true
"It's a shame", he says "to lose a pretty drummer boy like you"
So now I must return to me mum and dad at home
And along with me old comrades no longer can I roam

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