Every year at Chippenham Folk Festival Rosie Upton runs a ballad session, where the great story songs of death, suffering, revenge and cruelty are sung. The sessions often unintentionally develop a theme, and in one of the 2012 sessions, it was noticed that a number of songs had been sung which all involved a drowning. As is often the case there was a discussion about how the ballads are generally full of misery, grief and woe. When someone sang a ballad which was actually rather cheerful, Rosie lamented that there was no ballad concerning a ‘happy drowning’, and indeed she laid down a challenge for anyone who could find such a song and bring it to the festival the next year.

I had the germ of an idea for a ‘Happy Drowning’ song, but never managed to put one together before the festival in 2013. I was unable to attend the ballad sessions on the Saturday nor Sunday of the festival due to dancing commitments. On the Monday morning however, the first line of the song came to me. Once I had this, and a tune for it, the whole song came very quickly, the bulk of it probably in about an hour or so. I didn’t really have time to practice it at all, so I sang it rather badly at the ballad session that afternoon.

The song is a sequel to the Grimm fairytale Snow White and The Seven Dwarves. The names of the dwarves being taken from the 1937 Walt Disney animated motion picture. Although on subsequently checking this I realise that I have inadvertently substituted a new dwarf Greedy for the original Sleepy.

In this version, although Snow White and her handsome prince may live happily ever after, the dwarves, including the eponymous Happy, unfortunately do not.

Happy Drowning

© Phil Preen 2013

Oh there were seven dwarven men
Who hewed the mountain stone
And with them lived a sweet young maid
A beauty pale as snow

But then one day she did fall ill
The young prince made her well
Their wedding day it brought great joy
But alone the seven now dwell

Then came the day their mine played out
And all the work was gone
These seven lonely dwarven men
Were forced to move to town

The first dwarf, his name was Doc
As a medic, could not find work
From the register he’d been struck off
And he to the bottle took

The second dwarf, it was Dopey
He liked to smoke the weed
But no-one there would him employ
and he slowly went to seed

Now Grumpy, it was the name
Of dwarf number three
It is so hard to find a job
When you suffer from PTSD*
* Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Another dwarf was Bashful
And everyone thought him shy
But he was really a serial killer
And is now condemned to die

And Greedy he became a cook
He was a chef so fine
But his restaurant, it was closed down
When he served poisoned wine

Now I don’t think I told you why
Poor Doc had been struck off
He tried to cure poor Sneezy
Who now also has a cough

Now we have sung of these dwarves six
Each one suffered till they died
But what about dwarf number seven?
Has fate upon him smiled?

Well, in the castle on the hill
Employment he found there
As a jester to the new crowned King
And his Queen, Snow White the fair

And then one day, it was decreed
There would be a river race
And a prize of a fine golden boat
To the one who’d take first place

It was a great and joyful day
All before the Queen and King
But then it went all horribly wrong
And ended with Happy drowning.