The time passes over more cheerful and gay
Since we've learnt a new act to drive sorrows away
Sorrows away, sorrows away, sorrows away
Since we've learnt a new act to drive sorrows away.

Bright Phoebe awakes so high in the sky
With her red rosy cheeks and her sparkaling eye
Sparkaling eye, sparkaling eye, sparkaling eye
With her red rosy cheeks and her sparkaling eye.

If you ask for my credit you?ll find I have none
With my bottle and friends you will find me at home
Find me at home, find me at home, find me at home
With my bottle and friends you will find me at home.

Although I'm not rich and although I'm not poor
I'm as happy as those that?s got thousands or more
Thousands or more, thousands or more, thousands or more
I'm as happy as those that?s got thousands or more.


abc | midi | pdf

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Source: Copper R, 1976, Early to Rise, William Heinemann Ltd

Notes:
Songs in this book by Bob Copper are simply listed as "Songs from Rottingdean." It is one of the songs in the Copper Family Songbook, oringally created by James "Brasser" Copper in 1922 (and subsequently extended.)

Only two traditional versions are listed at present which don't come from the Copper Family; one recorded by Peter Kennedy at Boscastle in 1975 and another, with a different first line, in Mervyn Plunkett's MS collection (text only).

Kennedy (Folksongs of Britain and Ireland p.631) comments:

"This song is one of our finest drinking songs, yet it has not appeared in any of the well-known published collections. It has much in common with and may well be a version of Drive the Cold Winter Away which William Chappell included in National English Airs (1838) [and in Popular Music of the Olden Time, 1859, I, p.193], the tune of which appeared in Playford's English Dancing Master (1650-90). The song was also published in D'Urfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy (1707) [and 1719-20, IV, p.241]."

Kennedy's comments should be treated with a degree of caution in this case.



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