D'ye ken John Peel (song)

"D'ye ken John Peel?" – which translates to "Do you know John Peel?" – is a famous Cumberland hunting song written around 1824 by John Woodcock Graves (1795–1886) in celebration of his friend John Peel (1776–1854), an English fox hunter from the Lake District. The melody is said to be a contrafactum of a popular border rant, "Bonnie Annie." A different version, the one that endures today, was musically adapted in 1869 by William Metcalfe (1829–1909), the organist and choirmaster of Carlisle Cathedral.^{[1][2][3][4][5]} The tune etymology has a long history that has been traced back to 1695 and attributed to adaptations – one in particular, from the 20th century, the 1939 jingle, "Pepsi-Cola Hits the Spot."^[2]

John Graves, who wrote it in the Cumbrian dialect, tinkered with the words over the years and several versions are known. George Coward, a Carlisle bookseller who wrote under the pseudonym Sidney Gilpin, rewrote the lyrics with Graves' approval, translating them from their original broad Cumberland dialect to Anglian; and in 1866, he published them in the book, Songs and Ballads of Cumberland.^[6][7] Another song written by Graves mentions one of John's brothers, Askew Peel (1789–1854), a horsedealer who also lived in Caldbeck.^[8]

"D'ye ken John Peel?" was first sung in 1824 in Gate House in Caldbeck in John Graves’ home to the tune of the Border rant "Bonnie Annie." A different musical version was composed in 1869 by William Metcalfe, a conductor, composer, and lay clerk of Carlisle Cathedral. His arrangement – lauded as more musical than the traditional melody – became popular in London and was widely published. In 1906, the song was published in The National Song Book, but with a tune closer to Bonnie Annie – and that version is the most widely known today.^[6][9] English counties have no official anthem. However, "D'ye ken John Peel?" is commonly regarded as a kind of unofficial anthem of Cumberland and the region.

British musicologist Ann Gilchrist (1863–1954) and Canadian folklorist Edith Fowke (1913–1996) trace the use of the tune and lyrics in other songs and poems, including:

1. "Red House," first published in 1695 by John Playford (1623–1686/7) in The Dancing Master (9th ed.)
   

   Aka:

   1. "Where will Our Good Man Lay?"
   2. "Where/Whar Wad Our Gudman/Bonny Annie Lye/Laye"
   3. "Where/Whar wad our Guidman Lie"

      "Where Will Our Goodman Laye," published in Oswald's Caledonian Pocket Companion for the Flute (Vol. 2) (c. 1750), published by James Oswald (1710–1769)

   4. From the 1729 opera, Polly, Act I, Scene VIII, Air 9, the song "Red House," being the same version published in The Dancing Master
2. "Address to the Woodlark," by Robert Burns (1759–1796)^[10]
3. "0! What Can Make My Annie Sigh?" by John Anderson^[11]
4. The words, "Where wad bonny Anne lye?," in the song, "The Cordial," sung to the tune "Where Should Our Goodman Ly?"

   Published 1 January 1724, in Allan Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany: Or A Collection of Choice Songs, Scots and English (11th ed.) (Vol. 1 of 4)^[12][13]

5. English-turned-American composer Austen Herbert Croom-Johnson (1909–1964), born in Hereford, imported the tune, "D'ye ken John Peel," and scored it for a 1939 jingle, "Pepsi-Cola Hits the Spot" (aka "Nickel, Nickel"). His Chicago-born lyricist partner, Alan Bradley Kent (né Karl Dewitt Byington, Jr.; 1912–1991), wrote the words.
   Main article: Austen Croom-Johnson

Verse 1 (best known; by Graves)^[6]

Chorus

‡  Some versions, according to The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations,^[14] show the phrase as " ... with his coat so gray," implying that his coat was likely made of local Herdwick wool, commonly gray. If so, the color of John Peel's coat would be in contrast to that of other huntsmen – traditionally brightly colored, often red or hunting pink.^[15][16]

Verse 2 (Coward's version)^[6]

Verse 3

Verse 4

Verse 5

 *  These were the real names of the hounds that Peel, in his old age, said were the very best he ever had or saw. – J.W.G.^[7]

As is common with songs often sung from memory, this has been recorded with other verses and minor differences in lyrics, such as in the third verse: "From the drag to the chase, from the chase to the view" and "From a view to a death in the morning":

Alternative verse 1

Coward's version of the last line was used for Matt Cartmill's book, A View to a Death in the Morning: Hunting and Nature Through History. The alternative version was used as a title to the short story From a View to A Kill, found in the Ian Fleming collection of short stories, For Your Eyes Only. This was in turn shortened to A View to a Kill, when applied to the fourteenth James Bond movie.

This verse was not in Coward's version:

Alternative verse 2

A number of parodies also exist. On BBC radio's I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again, a version parodied the British Radio DJ John Peel

1st parody

Another was used in the 1979 film Porridge, which saw Ronnie Barker as Fletch cheekily observe a new prison warden.

2nd parody

Several lines of the song are also parodied in the course of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake.

• "John Peel" was one of the quick marches of the King's Own Royal Border Regiment before it merged in 2004 with the Queen's Lancashire Regiment and the King's Regiment to become the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment.
• "John Peel" was the march of the 1st Cumberland Artillery Volunteers.^[17]
• "John Peel" is the authorized Regimental March (dismounted) of The Lorne Scots (Peel, Dufferin and Halton Regiment) and The Ontario Regiment (RCAC) of the Canadian Forces.
• "John Peel" is the regimental march of the Queen's Own Yeomanry, an armoured formation reconnaissance regiment of the British Army.

Wedgwood's creamware pitcher modelled with hunting scenes in low relief and with a handle modelled as a leaping hound, which was introduced in 1912, carried the pattern name "D'ye Ken John Peel".

• "D'ye ken John Peel," hunting song; words by John Woodcock Graves, music by William Metcalfe, London: J.B. Cramer & Co.; Carlisle: W. Metcalfe (1869); series: The Songs and Ballads of Cumberland (alternate link) (No. 1); OCLC 1061746988; British Library 004523817

1939 Pepsi-Cola jingle

• D'Ye Ken John Peel? a 1935 film
• Bellman and True, a 1987 film starring Bernard Hill, uses the lyrics to describe the various duties of bankrobbers (i.e., a Bellman, in the vernacular of the London underworld, is a person who "fixes" alarms). A version of the song plays during the closing credits, sung by Lonnie Donegan.
• Death in the Morning has been the title of several books and television episodes, among them:

"Death in the Morning" an episode from James Burke's television series Connections

"Death in the Morning", a story by John Monk Saunders

"Death in the Morning", an episode of television series Tales of the Unexpected

"Death in the Morning", an episode of television series The Mallorca Files

"A View to a Death in the Morning: Hunting and Nature Through History", a book by Matt Cartmill

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

D'Ye Ken John Peel

• An arrangement of the tune Archived 31 May 2016 at the Wayback Machine
• The Olde John Peel Inn public house