During my first summer in Ireland, 1982, when I was still a regular runner, one of my singing acquaintances mentioned that they had heard a song about a runner. Tantalized, I kept my ear out for that song for years, never hearing it once in Ireland (or stateside, for that matter) until about 25 years later when I was browsing the Irish section of the Vinyl Resting Place in Portland and came across Mick Moloney's album with Eugene O'Donnell--and there it was! Go raibh maith agat, a Mhick!
But I felt there was something not quite right about it--it sounded too heavy and plodding, more like a marching song than a running one. Never being bashful about changing a song to make it my own, I decided that it needed to be sped up, both in tempo and spirit. So I changed it from 4/4 time to 6/8, giving it a bounce and the bit of pep I felt it needed to sound like a true running song. My apologies to Mick and especially to Pete Coe, the composer, of Backshift Music, who generously and unreservedly gave me permission to record his song. He based the song on fragments of a broadside ballad from the nineteenth century. Thank you, Pete, for a glimpse into the past before sports were a major commercial enterprise, and for a good story and a good song!
My interpretation of the opening lines of the song hails from when I started singing Irish songs as a busker at Saturday Market in Eugene thirty five years ago. In the market without a stage you need a bit of grandiloquence at the beginning to sort your audience: to firmly attract those who want to hear you, as well as to give a bit of time to those who don't so they can move away. Then you can get into the true swing of the song.
You sporting men of Chester, I'll have you all to hear
Of a man named Joseph Baker, who lived near Delamere.
He ran faster than the old red fox and farther than the hound,
And of all the men who challenged him, no equal could be found.
He rose up every morning before the day was clear,
And through the shady forest he pursued the royal deer.
He chased the wind across the heath, the mist right o'er the hill,
He raced the dust along the road and the stream down to the mill.
Now sportsmen came from near and far to challenge Baker's speed,
And in every case and every race they swore to do the deed.
A baker came from Frodsham, a soldier came from Hale,
And a sailor came from Birkenhead and a butcher came from Sale.
But he never was beaten in any race until that fateful day,
When death at last defeated him and took his breath away.
But if you go out on a Winter's night, you can see him running still,
As his ghost runs down from Kensall Church, right up to Helsby Hill.
David entertains in the old-fashioned way, with warmth and wit, as if he were sitting with the audience around the turf fire
in an Irish cottage long ago. David has been singing old-style Irish songs for 40 years and is deeply invested in collecting, researching, and performing them authentically and entertainingly....more
