New Brunswick - evergreentrad

01 Mar

Farewell to Nancy

*my source singer for this transcription, Carrie Grover, varies her pitch selection on the asterisk-marked notes throughout her beautiful performance. Consult the online recording to get a feel for this and other aspects of her singing. A transcription can’t do it justice!

I’ve travelled this country both early and late,
I’ve travelled this country when hard was my fate,
Fell in love with a pretty fair maid, but she does me disdain,
Oft times she has slighted me, but I’ll try her again.

Oh, your parents are rich, love, and you hard to please,
I would have you take pity on your heart-broken slave,
I would have you leave your father and your mother also,
And through this wide world with your darling boy go.

“Oh, Johnnie, dear Johnnie, such advice will not do,
For leave my own country and to go along with you,
My friends and old sweethearts they would mourn my sad fate,
If I’d leave my own country and go follow a rake.”

Now my love she won’t have me, and away I must go,
To the wide spreading ocean where the salt breeze does blow,
To seek a companion, it is all my design,
Fare you well, dearest Nancy, must I leave you behind?

Fare you well, dearest Nancy, and merry may you be,
I will always think of you wherever you be,
But since you’ve proved unloyal to the one that’s so true,
May the wide spreading ocean separate I and you.

We return to the wonderful repertoire of New Brunswick/Maine singer Carrie Grover this month for a song you can hear online via the Carrie Grover Project website. Grover’s singing is full of character and nuance and is definitely worth hearing. As I say above, the recording does a far better job of conveying her style than anything I can transcribe (or describe!) here.

Grover’s “Farewell to Nancy” contains some “floating” lines in the first verse that turn up in versions of other songs including “Green Grows the Laurel” and the Scottish Bothy ballad “Airlin’s Fine Braes.” Steve Roud classifies “Farewell to Nancy” along with a song called “Little Susie” that was sung in parts of the southern US. A version of “Little Susie” collected by Max Hunter in Arkansas does share many words with Grover’s song.

It is Carrie Grover’s striking melody that I find most attractive here. I love the big leaps and interesting pitch variances in her performance.

22 Oct

The Three Dreams

John Bull he was an Englishman and went to tramp one day,
With three pence in his pocket for to take him a long way,
He travelled on for many a mile, yet no one did he see,
’Til he fell in with an Irishman, whose name was Paddy Magee.

“Good morning Pat,” said John to him, “where are you going to?”
Says Pat, “I hardly know myself, I want a job to do,”
“Have you got any money about you?” said John Bull unto Pat,
Says Pat, “It’s the only thing I’m lacking for I haven’t got a rap.”

Then they overtook a Scotchman who like them was out of work,
To judge by his looks he was hard up, and as hungry as a Turk,
“Can you lend me a shilling Scotty?” at last said Paddy Magee,
“I am sorry I canna,” said the Scotchman, “for I hae nae got ane bawbee.”

Said the Englishman, “I three pence have, what can we do with that?”
“Buy threepenny worth of whiskey! It will cheer us up,” says Pat,
“Nae dinna do that,” said the Scotchman, “I’ll tell you the best to do,
We’ll buy threepenny worth of oatmeal, and I’ll make some nice burgoo.”

“I think we had better buy a loaf,” the Englishman did say,
“And then in yonder haystack, our hunger sleep away,
We can get a drink of water from yonder purling stream,
And the loaf will be his in the morning who has had the biggest dream.”

The Englishman dreamt by the morning, a million men had been,
For ten years digging a turnip up, the biggest ever seen,
At last they got that turnip up, by working night and day,
Then it took five million horses, this turnip to cart away.

Said the Scotchman, “I’ve been dreaming fifty million men had been,
For fifty years making a boiler, the largest ever seen,”
“What was if for?” said the Englishman, “Was it mad of copper or tin?”
“It was made of copper,” said the Scotchman, “for to boil your turnip in.”

Said the Irishman, “I’ve been dreaming an awful great big dream,
I dreamt I was in a haystack, by the side of a purling stream,
I dreamt that you and Scottie were there, as true as I’m an oaf,
By the powers, I dreamt I was hungry so I got up and ate the loaf.”

This month we have a great “punchline” song from the repertoire of Angelo Dornan of New Brunswick. I transcribed the above from Helen Creghton’s 1956 recording of Dornan’s singing. Creighton’s collection titles the song “Johnny Bull.” Broadside versions, which date it to the latter half of the 19^th century, usually use the title “Paddy Magee’s Dream” or “The Three Dreams.” A version from Donegal singer Jim Doherty titled “John Boiler” is available via the Inishowen Song Project collection on at itma.ie. I heard it sung at with great effect by Pennsylvania singer Steve Stanislaw at a session at a festival out east.

The caricature of the “Scotchman” in the song references his desire to make “burgoo.” According to Anthony Willich’s 1802 Domestic Encyclopaedia, burgoo was the name for the oatmeal porridge “eaten by mariners, and much used in Scotland.”

09 Mar

Black-Eyed Susan

Source Recording from archive.org (song starts at 19:21)

All in the Downs the fleet lay moored,
The streamers waving in the wind,
When black-eyed Susan came on board,
Saying “Where shall I my true-love find?
Tell me you jovial sailors, tell me true,
Does my sweet Willy, does my sweet Willy sail among your crew?”

Willy who high upon the yard,
Rocked by the billows to and fro,
Soon as her well-known voice he heard,
He sighed and cast his eyes below.
The cord glides slides swiftly through his glowing hands,
And quick as lightning, and quick as lightning on the deck he stands.

“Oh Susan, Susan, lovely dear,
My vows will ever true remain,
Let me kiss off those falling tears,
We only part to meet again,
The noblest captain of all that British fleet,
Might envy Willy, might envy Willy’s lips those kisses sweet.

Believe not what the landsmen say,
They’ll tempt with thee thy constant mind,
They’ll say that sailors, when away,
In every port a mistress find,
Yes, yes, believe them when they tell thee so,
For thou art present, for thou art present whereso’er I go.”

“If to fair India’s coast I sail,
Thine eyes are seen in diamonds bright,
Thy breath is Africa’s spicy gale,
Your skin is ivory so white,
The pleasant breezes whereso’er they blow,
They bring me memories, they bring me memories of my lovely Sue.”

The boatswain gave the dreadful word,
The sails their swelling bosom spread,
No longer could she stay on board,
He turned, she sighed, and hung her head.
Her little boat unwilling rowed to land,
“Adieu”, she cried, “Adieu”, she cried and waved her lily hand.

We have another fascinating song from the repertoire of Charles Finnemore of Bridgewater, Maine this month. Again, Finnemore’s 1943 singing of this song is available online here via the Helen Hartness Flanders Ballad Collection on archive.org. The above is my own transcription of Finnemore’s melody and words. The timing in the transcription is only an approximation so listening to the actual recording online is advised.

Black-Eyed Susan began as a poem by English poet and playwright John Gay (1685-1732) who wrote the famous Beggar’s Opera and was a friend of Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope. Gay’s poem was put to music by English singer and composer Richard Leveridge and printed (complete with sheet music) in 1750. It became a much-printed and quite popular song in England.

The song has a long history in Ireland as well where Leveridge’s melody was reworked and popular as an instrumental air. Cork-born collector William Forde took down a version played on the uilleann pipes in 1846 by Hugh O’Beirne of Mohill, Co. Leitrim. Perhaps concerned about the melody’s origins, Forde wrote that “O’Beirne swears that this is Irish.” When Scottish-born musicologist Alfred E. Moffat used the air for a song in his 1898 Minstrelsy of Ireland he commented that “a century’s residence in the Emerald Isle has by no means proved a drawback to it.” Indeed, an additional century in the north woods of Maine and New Brunswick may have made it even better! Finnemore’s air, though certainly a variant of the 270-year-old original, is unique and quite compelling.