The Derby Ram


The Derby Ram or As I was Going to Derby is a traditional tall tale English folk song that tells the story of a ram of gargantuan proportions and the difficulties involved in butchering, tanning, and otherwise processing its carcass.

Commentary

Llewellyn Jewitt wrote about the song in his The Ballads and Songs of Derbyshire of 1867, asserting that song had been alluded to for at least a century before that. By some accounts, US President George Washington once sang "The Derby Ram" to the twin sons of Oliver Ellsworth, William Wolcott Ellsworth and Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, while staying at the Reeves - Wright mansion home in 1796 during one of his visits to Hartford, Connecticut.
The song and the association of a ram with the town of Derby and used by a number of groups based there. In 1855, the First Regiment of Derbyshire Militia adopted a ram as their mascot and the ballad as their regimental song, a tradition that continued into the 95th Derbyshire Regiment, and subsequently the Sherwood Foresters Regiment, Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regiment, and Mercian Regiment, through regimental amalgamations. Similarly, the football team, Derby County F.C. have taken the ram as their club mascot. There are a number of References to a ram throughout the architecture of Derby – perhaps the most notable is a large street sculpture on the junction of East Street and Albion Street by Michael Pegler.

Traditional variations

The following version is the one transcribed by Llewellynn Jewitt in The Ballads and Songs of Derbyshire. RealAudio and MIDI versions of the tune can be found at . The first three stanzas of this version are sung thus:
Helen Hartness Flanders collected versions of the song in both Shaftsbury and Springfield, Vermont, which featured an alternative nonsense-syllable refrain:
An alternative recording of the song is found on the Derbyshire Folk and Dialect Vinyl LP "Ey Up Mi Duck, A celebration of Derbyshire. This version was recorded by Derbyshire-based Folk group Rams Bottom in the 1970s. Unlike many traditional variations, this version contains a narrative refrain:

Other renditions

The song was adapted by the English composer John Wall Callcott into a 3 part glee .
Merle Travis recorded a version of the song which was called Darby's Ram.
The Kossoy Sisters also recorded a version titled The Darby Ram on their 1956 album Bowling Green.
British folk rock band Erland and the Carnival released a version of the song on their 2010 self-titled album, changing the lyrics to refer to a suicide which occurred in Derby in 2008.
Sweeney's Men released a version of the song as a single - The Old Maid in the Garrett / Derby Ram -- Pye 7N 17312
also available on The Legend of Sweeney's Men : Anthology 2004
The New Christy Minstrels released an adaptation based on the Darby Ram, "Down to Darby" on their 1963 album
The New Christy Minstrels Tell Tall Tales!
The song features as a sea shanty sung by pirates in the video game