Monthly Archives: March 2020

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.

09 Mar

To Cork Once I Did Go

Source Recording from archive.org (song starts at 2:52):

To Cork once I did go, to view that ancient city,
It’s boats and ships also, as they set forth in beauty,
As through the town I went to view those ancient lassies,
The old maids with a frown they peeked at me through their glasses.

Chorus: Tau to the tau rah lau, tau ruh lau ruh laddie
Tau to the tau rah lau, whack fuh loh ruh laddie

Bill Morrisey for to have the sport, now he played both well and jolly,
He played some charming notes to banish melancholy,
When he put on the pipes he played Sweet Highland Mary,
You’d have laughed until you’d cried if you’d seen poor Paddy Carey.

Chorus

He played Noreen on the Road, and Maureen na Glanna,
Junior and Senior too and the Songs of Alabama,
He played Chief Moneymusk and Katie on to Glory,
The old Foxhunter’s Jig and a Sprig of the Sweet Shilleligh.

This month we have a fascinating song recorded in Bridgewater, Maine in 1942 for the Helen Hartness Flanders Ballad Collection (click to hear the recording!). The singer, Charles Finnemore, was born in western New Brunswick and moved across the border to Bridgewater as a child. He contributed dozens of songs to the Flanders collection which are now available to listen to online (CLICK HERE!) thanks to Middlebury College where the collection is housed.

Finnemore’s “To Cork Once I Did Go” is a variant of the song “The Piper’s Tunes” which appears in Colm O Lochlainn’s Irish Street Ballads (1960). An English version, “The Sporting Irish Piper” was printed as a broadside in London in the 1850s. Another Irish version is attributed to the famed Kerry uilleann piper James Gandsey (1767-1857) who personalized the song to himself and performed it for Thomas Crofton Croker who published it in 1831.

All variants name an impressive bagpipe player and list the tunes he plays. O Lochlainn’s piper is John Blake of Cobh, County Cork. The English version has piper John Murphy of Liverpool and Gandsey sings about himself in Killarney. The version that surfaced with Finnemore in Maine names the piper Bill Morrissey of Cork (possibly a relation of Cork Piper Molly Morrissey who was active around 1900?) Each variant lists various tune titles which are intriguing to those of us interested in Irish dance tunes. Fitting that the American version has the piper playing the “Songs of Alabama” along with the “Foxhunter’s Jig.” Finnemore’s melody for the song is similar to “The Rocky Road to Dublin” and its relative “Cam Ye O’er Frae France?”

09 Mar

The Peddler

Oh of all the trades that’s going sure a peddler’s my delight,
For if he rambles all the day he’ll comfort you at night,
With his little pack upon his back he’ll travel to and fro,
And he’s called the jolly rover wherever he will go.

He roams throughout the nation his pleasure to divert,
With youthful recreation for to delight his heart,
And courting pretty fair maids through market-town and fair,
His life it gaily passes free from all strife and care.

He’s a weaver in Londonderry-o, a shoemaker in Strabane,
Hair merchant in Limavady and a brewer in Coleraine,
Where he does brew good humming ale and love a pretty maid,
And when he gets in to Belfast, he’s a butcher by his trade.

In Lisburn he’s a joiner, a glazier in Lurgan town,
In Dromore he’s a brazier and a smith in Portadown,
In Armagh he’s a piper, a merchant in Newry town,
And when he comes to Drogheda he draws good ale that’s brown.

Oh as he does roam the nation, his fancy to pursue,
Changing his occupation for every place that’s new,
Oh kissing pretty fair ones wherever he will roam,
And still at night his love is true when he’ll return home.

This month’s song comes from a 1938 recording of Andrew E. Gallagher (1878-1939) of Beaver Island, Michigan. There were multiple Gallagher families on the island including that of the great singer Dominick Gallagher whose songs I’ve written about before and whose father came from Arranmore Island, Co. Donegal. Andrew’s father and mother (a Roddy) both came from Rutland Island (aka Inishmacadurn), a smaller island between Arranmore and the mainland. The musical Bonner family on Beaver Island also originated from tiny Rutland Island.

“The Peddler” appears as “The Jolly Rake of All Trades” in a London broadside published before 1844 and was printed later in the 1800s in Dublin. I have found no evidence of the song being collected from a singer anywhere other than Beaver Island. It is similar to, and may even have been the inspiration for, the more popular “Dublin Jack of All Trades.” Unlike that locally-focused song, the “Jolly Rake/Peddler” travels, works and womanizes all around Ireland. Gallagher only sang verses one, three and five above. Several more verses covering the breadth of Ireland appear in broadsides available online through the Bodleian Library and I chose two (“He roams…” and “In Lisburn…”) to fill out the version here.