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I'll tell me ma

from The Singles by Martin Praetorius

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about

I'll tell me ma...
a different take on the well known children's song

One night, about 25 years ago, I sat down in the recording room of the studio I was running back then, to work on a chord progression and melody that had been in my head all day. It matched beautifully with the lyrics of the well known children’s song “I’ll tell me ma”, so I married the two and recorded a version, which soon got forgotten.

In the summer of 2013 I found the tape, re-recorded the song and put it out on bandcamp. It sat there almost unnoticed, until I started playing it regularly at my weekly live-streams during the pandemic.
I recorded an updated version and released it as a b-side of the first single ‘All the travelling’, from the forthcoming album ‘It’s OK, I’m still laughing!’

For the past couple of months, I have been playing it in pubs around Ireland, and it seems to be the kind of song that attracts people’s attention and is able to quieten a room, so I decided to give it a proper – 'off the record' – Bandcamp-Friday release on September 02.

lyrics

I'll tell me ma
lyrics: traditional/music: Martin Praetorius

I'll tell me ma when I go home
The boys won't leave the girls alone
They pulled my hair, they stole my comb
But that's all right till I go home

She is handsome, she is pretty
She is the belle of Belfast city
She is courting one, two, three
Please, won't you tell me, who is she?

Albert Mooney says he loves her
All the boys are fighting for her
They knock at the door and they ring the bell
Saying, oh my true love, are you well?
Out she comes as white as snow
Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes
Old John Murray says she'll die
If she doesn't get the fellow with the roving eye

She is handsome, she is pretty
She is the belle of Belfast city
She is courting one, two, three
Please, won't you tell me, who is she?

Let the wind and the rain and the hail blow high
Let the snow come tumbling from the sky
She's as nice as apple pie
And she'll get her fellow by and by
When she gets a lad of her own
She won't tell her ma when she goes home
Let them all come as they will
It's Albert Mooney she loves still

credits

from The Singles, track released September 2, 2022
Martin Praetorius - vocals, harmonica, guitar

recorded at The Barn, SH, DE
mixed and mastered at the Aille River Hostel, Doolin, Co. Clare, IE

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Martin Praetorius

Give. Believe. Surrender. And dream.

Live dates here:
bnds.us/l3uy9h

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