Talk:The Vicar of Bray (song)

untitled

This page was placed on Votes for Deletion in June 2004. Consensus was to keep; view discussion at /Delete.

This clearly belongs on Wikibooks, not Wikipedia. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 13:10, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I think I agree. Should it be discussed on Vfd? Rmhermen 14:44, Jun 26, 2004 (UTC)

Please don't throw me in the briar patch. Seriously, I do think this is not a Wikibooks article, since the commentary is not literary. There is no analysis of the poetry, commentary on the form, or anything except explaining a cultural artifact. I do realize that this is a fine line, and I realize that I shouldn't regard Wikibooks as the wasteland, but, well, I really believe that what I've been doing in the annotations has been to make a single cultural item understandable. I could have done it without annotation, by, instead, writing a long-ish narrative: "The song is a topical reference to many of the events surrounding the Restoration and Glorious Revolution. The Church of England was the "established church" (line 4), which differs from today's Church of England in that..." but I don't think that would alter what's being done in the annotations, only the form of them. Geogre 00:54, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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I'm not so clear on that: the song illustrates so much, so succinctly, about a complicated period on English history, that I think it's very useful. orthogonal 14:23, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Right, but the way we handle it is to put it on Wikiboos, which is where annotated texts go, and link to it from encyclopedic articles on Wikipedia. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 00:23, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

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I seem to recall a version of the song set in Tudor times. The Vicar was a Catholic until Henry VIII created the Anglican church, then of course an Anglican, then a Catholic again under Mary, etc. Any ideas where I could encounter the words to that version? --Christofurio 14:45, Jun 28, 2004 (UTC)

There's an earlier version, but it isn't that much earlier: The Religious Turncoat; Or, the Trimming Parson

I lov'd no king in forty-one
When Prelacy went down;
A cloak and band I then put on,
And preached against the Crown.

Chorus:

A turncoat is a cunning man,
That cants to admiration,
And prays for any side, to gain
The people's approbation.

*   *   *

When brewer Noll with copper nose
The stinking Rump dismounted,
I wisely still adher'd to those
Who strongest were accounted.

I preached and prayed for Oliver,
And all his vile abettors,
But curs'd the King and Cavalier,
And cried 'em down for traitors.

When Charles returned unto the land,
The English Crown's supporter,
I shifted off my cloak and band
And then became a Courtier.

The King's religion I profest,
And found there was no harm in't;
I coged and flattered like the rest,
Till I had got preferment.

*   *   *

When Royal James began his reign,
And Mass was used in common,
I shifted off my Faith again,
And so became a Roman.

*   *   *

When William had possess'd the throne,
And cur'd our country's grievance,
New principles I then put on,
And swore to him allegiance.

I then preached up King William's right
Pray'd for his foes' confusion,
And so remained a Williamite,
Till another Revolution.

But when Queen Anne the throne possess't,
I then, to save my bacon,
Turn'd High Church, thinking that was best,
But found myself mistaken.

For soon discerning very plain,
The Whigs had got the better,
I turn'd Low Churchman, so remain
A Trimming Moderator.

Therefore all you, both high and low,
Let me for once direct you, -
Serve no cause longer than you know
The party can protect you.

orthogonal 17:50, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. I just looked at the "Vicar of Bray" article and realized my mistake. I have heard of the theory that Simon Alwyn was the real, historical, figure on whom the song is based. And of course if that's true than his career as a Tudor flip-flopper was metamorphized (by some lyricist or other) into a fictitious Stuart era flip-flopper. Nonetheless, we all know the type. Dick Morris, anyone? --Christofurio 01:17, Jun 29, 2004 (UTC)

I hope nobody minds my interrupting here: "trimming" is one of those fantastic 18th century slang words. (Mencken estimates that English lost 75% of its profanity in the 19th c.; the 18th c. certainly had a larger vocabulary of opprobrium than we do in our "sux"-dominated age.) To "trim" is both to turn one's sails with the wind and to clip coins, hence to counterfeit. Geogre 00:58, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Ok, I've been researching this business of origins (with real books and stuff) since starting the annotations. As nearly as I can summarize it, it goes like this.

• "Vicar of Bray" exists as a rhyme or proverb, reflecting Simon Alleyn and his flips. It's a well known taunt at the end of Eliz., but it goes kind of dormant, like "54-40 or Bust."
• During the tergiversations of religion in the Chas II-James II-Wm & Mary, several people followed the state religion's switches. In particular, as I outlined in the annotations, the two Tests force people into an impossible position of being forsworn.
• John Dryden, among others, gets tapped with "Vicar of Bray."
• The charge is in a heyday.
• 1720's, the rapid switches are over with, for the most part, in religion, but by now the cultural phenomenon is a a high, and a Tory satirist writes the form here reproduced, and it gets set to music.
• The 1720's and 30's produced some of the biggest ear-worm music of all time. You hear those things, and they get into your head and won't come out again ("Lillabullero," anyone?).

Therefore, the Vicar of Bray is both Simon Alleyn and the later Simon Symonds. It's probably the case that Brome (who gives Alleyn) and Ray (who gives Symonds) are right: Alleyn prompted the creation of the phrase, but Symonds prompted the rhyme as we have it.

I'm really, really enjoying working on this article. Please don't exile us to unseen sections of the site. :-) Geogre 00:54, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Now that we've survived the Vfd debate...

...how do people feel about merging this into The Vicar of Bray? The title "Annotated Lyrics to..." is pretty unusual for a Wikipedia article, and I see no reason this can't just be sections of that article: it will probably result in more people seeing it. -- Jmabel 17:57, Jul 2, 2004 (UTC)

• What about naming this article "The Vicar of Bray(song)"? We have three or four "Vicars":
  • The song
  • the population genetics concept, which draws on the song
  • and two candidates for the historical Vicar upon whom the song is based (Geogre makes the persuasive argument that each was the basis).

I don't want to obscure the population genetics concept, but neither do I want a disambiguation page: disambiguation is inappropriate in this context, because all of the meanings build on the same concept. My inclination is to change the title (as it apparently is "un-Wikipedia-ish"), and leave the non-Song page with the historical vicars and the pop. genetics, with a link to the song. This is partly influence by the length of the song page: putting non-song information in there will bury that information in the depths of the article.

We have two main questions to answer "Who or what was the Vicar of Bray?" and "What is the Vicar of Bray (song) about?", and two pages to make the respective answers, namely "A 15th-16th century Vicar of flexible principle, who was made notorious by a [[song]] or a pop.genetics concept that uses that song as a metaphor" and "a song that recounts the (imagined) life of the Vicar of Bray, illustrative of many events in English History, viz.....")

Your thoughts? -- orthogonal 18:29, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

• I have no objection to VoB (Song). As long as the main VoB article links to it, I think we'll get some readership. I was only hesitant about the briar patch of Wikibooks, if the links to and from it were difficult. Geogre 18:05, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Other examples of annotated full texts

Major General's Song -- although I'd have titled it "The Very Model of a Modern Major General" -- from Gilbert & Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance, which I'd vociferously argue against deleting. -- orthogonal 21:53, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The Lord's Prayer. The Nicene Creed in English, Latin, and Greek. A 119-line excerpt from the Bhagavad Gita. 112 lines of quotations, in Sanskrit and English, with few glosses and no explication, from the Mulamadhyamakakarika. -- orthogonal 22:11, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer, the Keats poem, attempts to explicate it inline, and I think the results are kind of poor. (The Romantic poets disliked the Augustans. As a true partisan, I'm ambivalent about helping out Keats's article. Nah, I'll do it.) Geogre 18:02, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC) (Oh, and btw, textual editing is what I did, way back when I was a doctor of philosophy. I actually find it fun.)

Glorious Revolution

This edit is a change, but not necessarily an improvement. I'm hesitant to just revert, but I don't think either is a great summary of what occurred. Does someone want to take this on? - Jmabel | Talk 05:10, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

404

http://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiVICBRYAM;ttVICARBRY.html was added two days ago !as a link for "The American Vicar of Bray", but it gives a 404 error. I've removed it. - Jmabel | Talk 15:57, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Score formatting problem

User:Mon Vier removed with this edit the musical notation with the edit summary "Reluctantly rm Vorbis text due to formatting problem - righting it is sadly beyond me." I don't see any formatting problem, although I can imagine that the page would not display well on screens with fewer than 1280 pixels, including probably most mobile devices. If that is indeed the concern, I think we need a wider discussion whether the majority of readers should be denied information because a minority have problems displaying it. I have now ensured that the lyrics will not be wrapped into very short lines, which will require horizontal scrolling on narrow displays. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 04:40, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Authorship?

There seems to be no reference to who wrote these lyrics, only that the tune is based on 'Country Gardens'. Valetude (talk) 17:12, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

 I have sung about the Vicar for 75 years without understanding all the details -- and would never have thought to look him up in Wikibooks. He doesn't belong in a book. He lives on around campfires and songfests. I really appreciate George's dedicated historical explanation. ferren (talk) 16:02, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

The song was collected in Roud (and is appropriately cited in the article), which is a collection of folk songs from oral tradition. You are unlikely to be able to determine the original author of a 200-year old folk song passed on in oral tradition, unless you make it a project for your doctoral dissertation. And even then, I wish you luck.

74.95.43.253 (talk) 23:07, 31 March 2021 (UTC)