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The Sally Army

© Stephen William Gray

Last night there may have been four Maries, but there are also an army of Sally's in folk and traditional song. I first noticed this when I typed in Sally for the third time when putting together a set-list. Surely there are more Sally's in folk-music than there are in real life? (I thought folk-music was real-life! - ed.)

The first of the Sally's in the set-list was Sally Wheatley: "well, I'm most depressed and sad..." The reason for the angst of course was that Sally had "gone with Mr.Black" - the motto being: if you fancy Sally, don't hang about, she's a popular lass.

In fact she was a popular girl with the sailors in Sally Free and Easy, but she broke their hearts too: "took a sailor's loving, for a nursery game".

She was rumoured to like her ale too. In Three Drunken Maidens the titular girls from the Isle of Wight did not really get into their stride until:

"In came dancing Sally with her cheeks as red as a bloom
Saying 'move over jolly sisters and give young Sally some room'
And I will be your equal before the evening's out
And these four drunken maidens they pushed the jug about".

Perhaps memory of these songs inspired Shane McGowan to give his emigrating hero hope to cling to:

"Sad to say I must be on me way
So buy me beer and whiskey 'cause I'm going far away
I'd like to think I'll be returning when I can
To the greatest little boozer and to Sally McLennane".

I know I have mentioned this in a previous Suite 101 article, but my own Sally-song was about a shy folk-songstress who lit the room up whenever she sang. I called her Sally Racket, for no other reason than I liked the idea of a quiet girl making a racket. It was years later performing it in a folk-club that one of the regulars asked if I knew the sea-shanty "Sally Racket". He kindly sang it and later sent me a copy of the lyrics. It is a typical bawdy, nonsensical sailors song. I couldn't remember hearing it before. Is this what you call folk-memory?

Perhaps where I had heard the name was in Richard Thompson's song "God Loves a Drunk", a bleak picture of a repressed spirit who's only release was to drink to excess, fall in a gutter and sing "the Sally Racket".

Returning to my set-list, we have a song written by Malcolm which proves she was still a catch despite her free and easy hard-drinking background: "Sally O'Lally, Sally O'Lally, Sally O'Lally got married today."

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