Our Goodman

Song

"Our Goodman" (Child 274, Roud 114) is a Scottish and English humorous folk song. It describes the efforts of an unfaithful wife to explain away the evidence of her infidelity. A version of the song, "Seven Drunken Nights", was a hit record for The Dubliners in the 1960s.

Album/Single Performer Year Variant Notes Earl Johnson Vol. 1 1927 Earl Johnson 1927 Three Nights Experience Document DOCD 8005 Anthology of American Folk Music Vol 1. Ballads Coley Jones 1929 Drunkards Special Wife's logic fails to explain strange bedfellow to drunkard Complete Recordings Blind Lemon Jefferson 1929 Cat Man Blues JSP Record JSP7706. Contains one verse and chorus Serenade The Mountains: Early Old Time Music On Record Gid Tanner & Riley Puckett 1934 Three Nights Drunk JSP Records JSP7780 Deep River of Song: Black Texicans Percy Ridge 1943 Western Cowboy Rounder CD 1821 Blind Boy Fuller Remastered 1935–1938 Blind Boy Fuller 1936 Cat Man Blues JSP Records JSP7735. Contains one verse and chorus Cajun Rare & Authentic, Disc D, 1935 – 1939 Jolly Boys of Lafayette 1937 Old Man Crip (Nights 1 & 5) JSP Records JSP77115D 1947–1948 Tom Archia 1948 Cabbage Head Part 1 and Cabbage Head Part 2 The Folk Songs of Britain, Child Ballads Vol 2 Harry Cox, Mary Connors, Colm Keane 195319521951 Our Goodman Caedmon TC 1146 / Topic 12T 161 Track composed of three fragments from different field recordingsColm Keane's version is in Irish Gaelic 78 record Douglas Kennedy 1954 Hame Cam Oor Guidman at 'Een HMV B 10836 Blood, Booze 'N' Bones Ed McCurdy 1956 Four Nights Drunk Elektra – EKL 108 Down and Out Blues Sonny Boy Williamson 1959 Wake Up Baby Checker LP 1437 Morrissey and the Russian Sailor and Other Irish Songs (EP) Joe Heaney 1960 The Good Man Collector Records (UK) JEI 5 Traditional Music of Beech Mountain 1 Hattie Presnell 1961 Five Nights Drunk Folk Legacy FSA 22 The English and Scottish Popular Ballads: Vol. 1 – Child Ballads Ewan MacColl 1961 Oud Goodman (Our Gudeman, Child 274) Folkways Records FG 3509 Sing Out! The Limeliters 1962 Pretty Far Out Modernized American version, Cadillac is a freezer with fins Folk Balladeer John Jacob Niles 1965 Our Goodman or Old Cuckold Compilation LP later reissued as My Precarious Life in the Public Domain. Single The Dubliners 1967 Seven Drunken Nights Major Minor MM506. Jack Elliott of Birtley, The songs and stories of a Durham miner Jack Elliott 1969 The Blind Fool Recorded in a club. Jack is persuaded by the audience to sing the final verse. Ten Man Mop, or Mr. Reservoir Butler Rides Again Steeleye Span 1971 Four Nights Drunk Pegasus PEG 9House Party New Orleans StyleProfessor Longhair1971Cabbage HeadComposer: Henry Roeland Byrd/Mac Rebennack The Voice of the People Vol 13 George Spicer 1972 Coming Home Late Digital Library of Appalachia Jenes Cottrell 1973 Four Nights Drunk Recorded at the Mountain Heritage Festival in Carter County, Kentucky. Mrs 'Ardin's Kid Mike Harding 1975 The Drunken Tackler Updated with a Lancashire theme Daft Ditties Alex Beaton 1987 Seven Drunken Nights Goin' Back to New Orleans Dr. John 1992 Cabbage Head Irish Beer Drinking Favorites The Kilkenny Brothers 1998 Seven Drunken Nights Digital Library of Appalachia Sheila K. Adams 1998 Four Nights Drunk Recorded at the Berea College Celebration of Traditional Music 10 22 98. Murder, Misery and Then Goodnight Kristin Hersh 1998 Three Nights Drunk Going Up the Missouri: Songs & Dance Tunes from Old Fort Osage Jim Krause 1999 Cabbagehead The Dickel Brothers Vol 1. Dickel Brothers 1999 Three Nights Experience EMPTY 376 Debasement Tapes Tom Smith 1999 Seven Drunken Nights In Space Science Fiction filk version Морщина времени Alexander Tkachev 2003 Пьяный ковбой (The Drunk Cowboy) Russian version Underneath The Stars Kate Rusby 2003 The Goodman The Continuing Tradition, Vol 1: Ballads, A Folk Legacy Sampler Max Hunter 2004 Five Nights Drunk Folk Legacy CD75 –The Birds Upon the Tree and other traditional songs and tunes Alice Francombe 2004 The Old Drunken Man Musical Traditions Records MTCD333