22 Aug

Once More A-Lumbering Go

Come all you sons of freedom in Minnesot-i-ay,
Come all you roving lumberjacks and listen to my strain,
On the banks of the Rum River where the limpid waters flow,
We will range the wild woods over and once more a-lumbering go,

And once more a lumbering go,
We will range the wild woods over and once more a-lumbering go.

With our cross-cut saws and axes we will make the woods resound,
And many a tall and stately tree will come crashing to the ground,
With cant-hooks on our shoulders to our boot tops deep in snow,
We will range the wild woods over and once more a-lumbering go,

And once more a lumbering go,
We will range the wild woods over and once more a-lumbering go.

You may talk about your farms, your houses and fine places,
But pity not the shanty boys while dashing on their sleigh,
For around the good campfire at night we’ll sing while wild winds blow,
And we’ll range the wild woods over and once more a-lumbering go,

And once more a-lumbering go,
We will range the wild woods over and once more a-lumbering go.

Then when navigation opens and the water runs so free,
We’ll drive logs to St. Anthony once more our girls to see,
They will all be there to welcome us and our hearts in rapture flow,
We will stay with them through summer then once more a-lumbering go,

And once more a-lumbering go,
We will stay with them through summer, then once more a-lumbering go.

When our youthful days are ended and our stories are growing old,
We’ll take to us each man a wife and settle on the farm,
Enough to eat, to drink, to wear; content through life we go,
We will tell our wives of our hard times, and no more a-lumbering go,

And no more a-lumbering go,
We will tell our wives of our hard times, and no more a-lumbering go.

I am working this month with St. Paul playwright Jeremiah Gamble of the Bucket Brigade Theater on a new play called Shanty Boys of Pine County that will feature songs and stories from my research. One song we were considering for the play is “Once More A-Lumbering Go” (sometimes called “The Logger’s Boast”) as recorded by Alan Lomax in St. Louis, Michigan in 1938 from the singing of Carl Lathrop. I learned Lathrop’s version years ago. It features place names of the Saginaw area and, as I am always drawn to Minnesota-specific songs, I stopped singing it at some point.

Much to my delight, when I started looking around for other versions, I came across a fragment localized to the Rum River here in Minnesota! It turns up in an intriguing article published April 27, 1947 in the Minneapolis Journal about the establishment here of a Folk Arts Foundation of Minnesota. The article references the Finnish and Scots Gaelic songs recorded by Sidney Robertson in northeastern Minnesota (see Laura MacKenzie’s wonderful From Uig to Duluth project!) and calls for more field recording to be done in Minnesota.

The article includes a fragment of “Once More A-Lumbering Go” submitted by Elizabeth Sadley of Minneapolis. Sadley writes:

…I am sending you the words, as far as I can recall, of a lumberjack song that my mother used to sing.

My mother has been dead several years, and the verses here are only a fragment of the entire song. Perhaps some one of my mother’s generation can complete the words. The tune is very simple.

My family moved to Princeton, Minn., about 1875. My father operated two grist mills and supplied the lumber camps in the Mille Lac lake area. This song was sung by the lumberjacks who floated the logs down both branches of the Rum river to the saw mills.

Sadley’s fragment is lines 3 & 4 of the first and last verses above along with the chorus of verse one. I created lines 1 & 2 of the first and fourth verses to further localize the song to the Rum River story and transcribed the rest of the text and melody from Lomax’s recording of Lathrop.

22 Aug

The Dublin Dancing Master

In Dublin city once there lived a cratur gay and hearty,
A dancing master he by trade his name was Teddy McCarthy,
He taught the girls and boys to dance and none could do it faster,
He always danced so neat and nice, the Dublin dancing master.

            Down the middle, hands across, go a little faster,
            In and out and round about, the Dublin dancing master.

Now Teddy taught both reels and jigs and all the other dances,
From highland fling to plain quadrille to please the ladies’ fancies,
Patsy Whelan, Mickey Flynn and a boy called Kit McAstor,
Came to learn a highland fling from the Dublin dancing master

Thus Teddy got the boys and girls proficient in their dances,
Polkas, jigs and schottisches, mazurkas, reels and lancers,
No matter what the dance he taught, none could go it faster,
And none could dance an Irish jig like the Dublin dancing master.

I happened on this song in my monthly search and thought it was the perfect choice as I am thinking this week about the passing of Séamus O’Shea. Séamus was a true modern day Dublin dancing master whose son Cormac carries on the family tradition here in St. Paul. Rest in Peace Séamus.

The Canadian Maritimes are, again, my source for this music hall song that migrated from the vaudeville stage to the voices of singers in their communities. The song was sung at Tony Pastor’s famous New York theater in 1866 by singer William Carleton (not to be confused with the author of the same name). In Eastern Passage, Halifax County, Nova Scotia, it was sung by Ben Henneberry (with fiddle by Ken Faulkner) for Helen Creighton’s recording machine in 1948. You can hear the Henneberry/Faulkner recording at the Nova Scotia Archives site.

The melody above is my transcription of Henneberry’s singing and the text is adapted from Henneberry with additional words from a version printed in Will Carleton’s Dandy Pat Songster (1866).

10 Mar

Saint Kevin and the Gander

As Saint Kevin once was travelling through a place called Glendalough,
He met with King O’Toole and he asked him for a shough,
Says the King “You are a stranger and your face I’ve never seen,
But if you want a taste of weed I’ll lend you my duidin.

While the Saint was kindling up his pipe the monarch gave a sigh,
“Is there anything the matter” says the Saint, “that makes you cry?”
Says the King “I had a gander, that was left me by my mother,
And the other day he cocked his toes with some disease or other.”

“Are you cryin’ for the gander? You unfortunate old goose,
Dry up your tears, in frettin’, sure, there’s ne’er a bit o’ use,
As you think so much about the bird, if I make him whole and sound?
Will you give to me the taste o’ land the gander will fly around?”

“In troth I will, and welcome,” said the king, “give what you ask,”
The Saint bid him bring out the bird and he’d begin the task,
The king went into the palace to fetch him out the bird,
Though he’d not the least intention of sticking to his word.

Saint Kevin took the gander from the arms of the King,
He first began to tweak his beak and then to stretch his wing,
The gander he rose in the air, flew sixty miles around,
“I’m thankful to your majesty for that little bit of ground.”

The King to raise a ruction he called the saint a witch,
And he sent for his six big sons to heave him in the ditch,
“Ná bac leis,” says Saint Kevin, “I’ll soon settle these young urchins,”
So he turned the king and his six sons into the seven churches.

Thus King O’Toole was punished for his dishonest doings,
The Saint he left the gander there to guard about the ruins,
If you go there on a summer’s day between twelve and one o’clock,
You’ll see the gander flying round the Glen of Glendalough.

Now I think there is a moral attached unto my song,
To punish men is only right whenever they do wrong,
For poor men they may keep their word much better than folks grander,
For the King begrudged to pay the Saint for curing his old gander.

This is one of two Saint Kevin of Glendalough songs that made their way into tradition. The other, sometimes called “The Glendalough Saint,” (Roud 8001) was sung by the Dubliners and Brendan Behan. The story of Saint Kevin, King O’Toole and the gander (Roud 17152) was sung by legendary Clare musician Micho Russell and others.

The only North American version I am aware of is a very small fragment, a bit of verses five and six above, sung in New Brunswick by the great woods singer Angelo Dornan. Dornan told Helen Creighton his father used to sing the complete song. You can hear Dornan’s fragment under the title “Gander and the Saint” at the wonderful Nova Scotia Archives site. From the fragment, his melody seems to be a version of that used by Limerick singer Con Greaney for “Carlow Town” so I used Greaney’s melody to fill in the blanks here.

Versions of this text were printed in Dublin as early as 1845 (Dublin Comic Songster). A writer with the initials F. P. R. put the text in the “Questions and Answers” section of the New York Times of January 5, 1908 with the following attribution:

The poem of Saint Kevin and King O’Toole was written by Thomas Shalvey, a market-gardener in Dublin, who used to write poems for James Kearney, a vocalist who used to sing at several music-halls and inferior concert rooms in Dublin a good many years ago. Kearney was very popular and some of his best songs were written by Shalvey.

It appears, with the same attribution, in The Humour of Ireland which was published in New York that same year. I incorporated Dornan’s fragment into the New York Times text above.

The song seems certain to have originated among street singers in Dublin in the mid 1800s. Dr Catherine Ann Cullen, a UCD Postdoctoral Fellow with Poetry Ireland, is currently researching and writing about Shalvey, Kearney and other fascinating 19th century Dublin street poets and balladeers and her excellent blog gives more details on the world in which this song emerged.