Maggie May (folk song)

Common card · No. 288761

"Maggie May" (or "Maggie Mae") (Roud No. 1757) is a traditional Liverpool folk song about a prostitute who robbed a "homeward bounder", a sailor coming home from a round trip. John Manifold, in his Penguin Australian Song Book, described it as "A foc'sle song of Liverpool origin apparently, but immensely popular among seamen all over the world". It became widely circulated in a skiffle version from the late 1950s. In 1964, the composer and lyricist Lionel Bart used the song and its backstory as the basis of a musical set around the Liverpool Docks. The show, also called Maggie May, ran for two years in London. In 1970, a truncated version of the song performed by the Beatles was included on their album Let It Be.

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