Mudcat Café message #3002343 The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #132641   Message #3002343
Posted By: GeoffLawes
08-Oct-10 - 06:44 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: The Black Cockerel (Spanish Civil War)
Subject: Lyr Add: THE BLACK COCKEREL (Spanish Civil War)
Does anyone know anything about a song concerned with the Spanish Civil War called THE BLACK COCKEREL?

I am running a MUDCAT permathread called SONGS IN ENGLISH ABOUT THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR and in connection with this have been contacted by Jonathan Carritt enquiring/informing about this song. The song was probably not originally written in English and therefore does not really come within the essential concern of the SONGS IN ENGLISH thread - which is why I am starting a new thread for this song. Below , with his consent, I am reproducing Jonathan Carritt's email about the song.
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Dear Geoff Lawes,
                         I am a member of the IBMT and sometime ago had an email from Mary Greening about Spanish Civil War Songs in English.
          Have you ever come across a song called 'The Black Cockerel' . I don't know if it had ever been recorded in English but it has been recorded in Swedish on a LP ' En Sang Ett Vapen' INTERDISC Stereo ILPS 152. It also featured in a TV programme in Sweden which was initially banned for fear of offending Franco. My partner who is Swedish has translated the song into English but, if it was originally in Spanish, it has probably changed somewhat along the way.

       THE BLACK COCKEREL

1. Black cockerel, when you are heard crowing
   it becomes dark, the night has come.
   But when the red cockerel crows
    then the hour of the morning dawns.

chorus:
Wind, the wind shall carry my song away
if I have said what no-one should hear.
Wind, what shall we do?
To the wind I give my song
that nobody might hear.

2. And they meet in an arena
   beak against beak, opposed to each other.
   Spur of iron has the one
   but couage has the other.

3. Black cockerel, do you think you have won?
   Tell me who sharpened the spur?
   The red cockerel never died
   maybe we meet tomorrow.

4. Black cockerel, black as the night
   soon it's time for you to bleed to death.
   The black cockerel is big
   but will never conquer the red one!

         I hope this might be of some interest.

With best wishes

Jonathan Carritt
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Any further information would be interesting.