One Penny A Tune

	Home Back to OldTimeTim's Home Page
	Songs Back to Songs intro page
	* NEW * The Liar's Bench ...the times of our lives....
	A Prayer for Leadership ...and so deliver Albion....
	One Penny A Tune I'm scraping a living.....
	The Head Gardener In his little red weskit....
	Five New Heads A Music Hall style song
	The Migrant The fate of Charlotte Kimpton in 1845
	The Melancholy Wreck of the Gossamer The sad story, as described in a display at the Salcombe Maritime Museum.
	Down In The Dark The song of the badger
	Nothing that's left but the Squeal Celebrating the role of the pig in UK culture
	Dark Ember A country style song of unrequited love
	The Devil in York Traditional style chorus song based on a true story
	So Far From Home The Marching Song of the ghosts of the Ninth Legion
	Steam Again in Goathland Written at the time of the re-opening of the North Yorkshire Moors railway
	The Tale of the Christmas Tree fairy An epic seasonal monologue

I am a poor tailor, as everyone knows
I spend all my day at the buttons and bows,
But when evening comes round, as money is short,
Soon I'm dragging a bow of a different sort.

One penny a tune, one penny a tune,
All they will pay me's one penny a tune.
One penny a tune, one penny a tune,
I'm scraping a living, one penny a tune.

Be it Saturday dance, wedding or wake,
Be they wealthy or poor, their money I'll take,
But though I'm much vaunted, I won't get rich soon,
For all they will pay me's one penny a tune

One penny a tune, one penny a tune,
All they will pay me's one penny a tune.
One penny a tune, one penny a tune,
I'm scraping a living, one penny a tune.

One penny a hornpipe, one penny a jig,
One penny a strathspey at every gig,
One penny a polka, one penny a reel,
But nobody asks how the fiddler feels.

One penny a tune, one penny a tune,
All they will pay me's one penny a tune.
One penny a tune, one penny a tune,
I'm scraping a living, one penny a tune.

Now words got around, there's new folks at the Manse,
And they want me to play for their welcoming dance,
Oh with such a patron, I'll shoot for the moon,
And I'll ask 'em to pay me three ha'pence a tune.

Three ha'pence a tune, three ha'pence a tune,
I'll ask 'em to pay me three ha'pence a tune.
Three ha'pence a tune, three ha'pence a tune,
I'll make a good living living at three ha'pence a tune.

The melody I use for the song is 'Coppertop', a waltz in mixolydian mode, which I adapted from the well known hornpipe/reel 'The Red Haired Boy' some years ago.

About the image

A Netherlands 'Penny' - Juliana, Queen of the Netherlands on a one cent coin!

Origin of the Song

We were being taken round 'Hindeloopen' , an old city on the Ijsselmeer in Friesland in the north of the Netherlands, by our good friends, Nanne Kalma and Ankie Van Der Meer, and Nanne told us this anecdote about a local fiddler notorious for only ever playing each tune once through before changing to another.

Supposedly the reason behind this was that he was always paid one penny for each tune he played, so naturally tried to get through as many different tunes as he could!

In response to the story Lesley commented ' Now that's what I call scraping a living' - and the idea for the song was born!

That ws October 2016, and it took until August 2018 to finish the song!

I had several attempts to set a tune to the words, but they were all dreadful, until eventually I hit on the idea of using my tune 'Coppertop', which is actually a waltz time version of 'The Red Haired Boy' (normally a hornpipe or reel in A)

Media files of One Penny A Tune

Media files marked *** are not yet available - to be added soon!

Audio files

Here is an mp3 recording of One Penny A Tune made at a lunch-time session at the Risng Sun pub in Berkhamsted on 7th October 2018

Printable Song Sheets.

pdf of the lyrics

Melody notation and suggested chords

pdf copy of the melody line with suggested chords