“Cat's Eye”

Description

"I was going up the hill, I met a girl on a bicycle, Run her into the garden wall, Smashed her tire and broke her fall," and more rhymes like that. The chorus likens Jim to a cat eating fish-bones, scratching, on the fence at night, a "cat's eye"

Supplemental text

Cat's Eye
  Partial text(s)

          *** A ***

From MacEdward Leach, Folk Ballads & Songs of the Lower Labrador Coast,
#108, pp. 270-271. "Sung by Ned Odell, Pinware, June 1960."

The verse length is irregular, with the first two lines of the tune
repeated as needed: the first verse is five lines long, the second
four, the remaining three are of eight lines.

I was going up the hill, I met a girl on a bicycle,
Run her into a garden wall,
Smashed her tire and broke her fall,
With a ha-ha-ha and a he-he-he,
Jim's a cat's eye, now you'll see.

When young Liz first saw the sea,
"We'll get some sea water," said she;
So a bottle he fetch from the old Brown Bull,
And he went and put it three parts full,
With a ha-ha-ha and a he-he-he,
"Why not fill 'em up?" said she.
"For if I do," said Harry to Liz,
"The bottle will burst and the tide run out."

(stanzas 1, 3 of 5)

References

1. Leach-Labrador 108, "Cat's Eye" (1 text, 1 tune)
2. ST LLab108 (Partial)
3. Roud #9972
4. BI, LLab108