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Burying Davy Lyrics
Bring out your weeping weeds
Put on your ten-pint bowlers
Bring out your weeping weeds
We're burying Davy
We're burying Davy
Gather the screws and spades
Oil up your mud-brown slicker
Gather the screws and spades
We're burying Davy
We're burying Davy
Who'll plane the old pine boughs?
Who'll set his legs uncrooked?
Who'll plane the old pine boughs?
For burying Davy
For burying Davy
Mother wept no tears
Brother grew unruly
Mother wept no tears
At burying Davy
At burying Davy
Bring out your weeping weeds
Put on your ten-pint bowlers
Bring out your weeping weeds
We're burying Davy
We're burying Davy
Put on your ten-pint bowlers
Bring out your weeping weeds
We're burying Davy
We're burying Davy
Oil up your mud-brown slicker
Gather the screws and spades
We're burying Davy
We're burying Davy
Who'll set his legs uncrooked?
Who'll plane the old pine boughs?
For burying Davy
For burying Davy
Brother grew unruly
Mother wept no tears
At burying Davy
At burying Davy
Put on your ten-pint bowlers
Bring out your weeping weeds
We're burying Davy
We're burying Davy
Song Info
Submitted by
mellow_harsher On Nov 10, 2011
More The Decemberists
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This song really reminds me of Rox in the Box, from the King is Dead, but this is clearly set in Britain. (No American would call a hat a "ten-pint bowler").
In some nondescript, working class, likely rural area, a logger named Davy has died. His friends, working as a cohesive group, are putting on his funeral. Their lack of emotion implies that they've done this before. Davy's mother doesn't cry at the funeral, and during the ceremony his brother gets upset and becomes rowdy.
The whole song reeks of coldness, poverty, and alcoholism. I love it.
I've heard rural Americans, particularity in the Northwest and in the eastern part of the 'Midwest' (mining and logging areas, as opposed to agriculture) called them ten-pint bowlers'. It's not uncommon.
I've heard rural Americans, particularity in the Northwest and in the eastern part of the 'Midwest' (mining and logging areas, as opposed to agriculture) called them ten-pint bowlers'. It's not uncommon.
I was thinking that Davy might be a bit of a town bully. No one really cares that he's gone, but they're observing his death with a familiar and almost mechanical formality.
I was thinking that Davy might be a bit of a town bully. No one really cares that he's gone, but they're observing his death with a familiar and almost mechanical formality.
For somoene to have a set of widows weeds, or weeping weeds, they would have to be middle class or better. Making do with anything black would be the standard for working class and working poor. Often...
For somoene to have a set of widows weeds, or weeping weeds, they would have to be middle class or better. Making do with anything black would be the standard for working class and working poor. Often only the close family would go into mourning in rural communities, borrowing items of black clothing from friends and neighbors.
Maybe davy is not even dead. The song never explicitly says that he is, it just says that they're burying him. It certainly seems feasible with the sort of pitch-black cautionary songs that the Decemberists seem to like.