Look Who it Was Random video

The Boys Of Bedlam - for ukulele

2,701 views · Published 15 March 2010 · 3:20 · Indexed 22 October 2026

Channel: Ken Middleton · 2010 · Music

Watch on YouTube

This is my arrangement of "The Boys Of Bedlam". I am playing my Kiwaya KTS4 soprano ukulele.

The photos were all taken in and around the village of Betley where I live.

The photos and the music are not at all connected. The song is in fact a traditional song about the horrors of the Bethlem Hospital, an infamous "madhouse" in London.

These words are from Steeleye Span's version of the song:

for to see mad tom of bed - lam
ten thousand miles i'd travel
mad maudlin goes on dirty toes
for to save her shoes from gravel.

still i sing bonnie boys bonnie madboys,
bedlam boys are bonnie.
for they all go bare and they live by the air
and they want no drink nor money.

i went down to satan's kitchen
for to get me food one morning,
and there i got souls piping hot
all on the spit a turning.

still i sing bonnie boys bonnie madboys,
bedlam boys are bonnie.
for they all go bare and they live by the air
and they want no drink nor money.

me staff has murdered giants
and me bag a long knife carries.
for to cut mince pies from children's thighs
with which to feed the fairies.

still i sing bonnie boys bonnie madboys,
bedlam boys are bonnie.
for they all go bare and they live by the air
and they want no drink nor money.

this spirit's white as lightning
would on me travels guide me.
the moon would shake and the stars would quake
when ever they espied me.

still i sing bonnie boys bonnie madboys,
bedlam boys are bonnie.
for they all go bare and they live by the air
and they want no drink nor money.

and when that i have murdered
the man in the moon to a powder.
his stall i'll break and his doct i'll shake
and they'll howl no demon louder.

still i sing bonnie boys bonnie madboys,
bedlam boys are bonnie.
for they all go bare and they live by the air
and they want no drink nor money.

for to see mad tom of bedlam
ten thousand years i'd travel.
mad maudlin goes on dirty toes
for to save her shoes from gravel.

still i sing bonnie boys bonnie madboys,
bedlam boys are bonnie.
for they all go bare and they live by the air
and they want no drink nor money.

More from this channel