northwoods songs - evergreentrad

05 Jul

My Dear Irish Boy

My Connor’s cheeks are as [a] ruddy as morning,
The brightest of pearls but mimic his teeth,
And nature with ringlets his mild brow adorning,
And love’s* Cupid’s bow strings, and roses his breath.
Smiling, beguiling, cheering, endearing,
Together oft over the mountain we strayed,
By each other delighted and fondly united,
And I’d listen all day to my dear Irish boy.

Now the war is all over and my love has not returned,
I’m afraid that some envious plot has been laid,
And that some cruel goddess has him captivated,
And left me to mourn a dear Irish maid.
And smiling, beguiling, cheering, endearing,
And together oft over the mountain we strayed,
By each other delighted and fondly united,
I would listen all day to my dear Irish boy.

*most broadside versions have “his hair” instead of “and love’s”—makes a little more sense to me.

This month I chose a Beaver Island, Michigan version of a song that is often played as an air by instrumentalists: “My Dear Irish Boy.” This version comes from the prolific singer Johnny W. Green of Beaver Island who sang it for Alan Lomax in 1938. The Lomax recording was recently digitized and made available online by the American Folklife Center (along with all the other fascinating recordings made by Lomax in Michigan that year). You can listen to Green himself sing it here.

The recordings made by Lomax in Beaver Island include a wealth of rare Irish songs. They also include chat about local singers, travelling to the “main land” for lumbering and other work and family connections to Ireland (mostly Donegal). It is a collection well worth checking out!

There’s a beautiful video of Clare fiddler Joe Ryan playing the air version of this song here. The air has some extra parts to how Green sang it.

27 May

Molly Bawn (The Irish Girl)

Oh, Molly Bawn is my love’s name, the same I’ll ne’er deny,
She has two red and rosy cheeks, two dark and rolling eyes;
She is the primrose of this country, she is Venus, I declare,
And the brightest star that is in the land is Molly Bawn so fair.

For where my love goes she trips the rose and makes the valleys ring,
And all the little small birds in my love’s praises sing;
The cuckoo and the turtle dove, the nightingale also,
They seem to say, “Let us haste away to wait on Molly-O.”

I wish I was in Ireland sitting on the green grass,
And in my hand a bottle and on my knee a lass;
We’d drink good liquor merrily and pay before we’d go.
I would roll you in my arms, Molly, let the winds blow high or low.
______________________________

An organization in Ireland called the Bird Song Project is celebrating traditional songs about birds with a series of concerts and song sessions this month. I had a look through my to-do list of songs for something fitting and found this one from Minnesota singer Michael C. Dean’s songster The Flying Cloud. It is not a song about birds but, in the process of praising the beauty of “Molly Bawn” it does invoke three species that will be familiar to anyone who loves old songs: the cuckoo, turtle dove and nightingale.

The above song is not related to the other “Molly Bawn” song in which Molly is mistaken for a swan and shot by her deer hunter lover. It shares most of its poetry with versions of the broadside “The Irish Girl,” a ballad with many “floating” lines and images that turn up in other traditional songs (including “I wish my love was a red, red rose” which is missing here).

We don’t know what melody Dean used for this song as The Flying Cloud is text only. I chose to borrow an air from the song “Wee Paddy Molloy” as sung by Brigid Tunney which I think fits quite well.

More info on variants of this song from the Traditional Ballad Index

07 Apr

Caroline of Edinburg Town (Laws P27)

Come, all young men and maidens, come listen to my rhyme,
It is all about a nice young girl that was scarcely in her prime,
She beat the blushing roses, admired all around,
Was lovely little Caroline of Edinburg town.

Young Henry was a Highland man, a-courting her he came,
And when her parents came to know they did not like the same;
Young Henry was offended and this to her did say,
“Rise up, my lovely Caroline, and with me run away.”

Persuaded by young Henry, she put on her finest gown,
And soon was traveling on the road from Edinburg town;
She says to him, “Oh, Henry, dear, pray never on me frown,
Or you’ll break the heart of Caroline of Edinburg town.”

They had not been in London scarcely half a year
When hard-hearted Henry he proved to be severe;
Says Henry, “I’ll go to sea, your parents did on me frown,
So without delay go beg your way to Edinburg town.

The fleet is fitting out and to Spithead is dropping down,
And I will join in that fleet to fight for King and Crown;
“The gallant tar might feel the scar or in the waters drown,
But,” says she, “I never will return to Edinburg town,”

Filled with grief without relief, this maiden she did go,
Right into the wood to eat such food as on the bushes grew;
Some strangers they did pity her and more did on her frown,
And some did say what made you stray from Edinburg town?

It was on a lofty jutting cliff this maid sat down to cry,
A-watching of King Henry’s ship as they were sailing by;
She says, “Farewell, oh, Henry dear,” and plunged her body down,
And that’s what became of Caroline of Edinburg town.

A note was in her bonnet that was found along the shore,
And in the note a lock of hair and those words, “I am no more;
I am fast asleep down in the deep, the fishes are watching ’round,
What once was lovely Caroline of Edinburg town.”

This version of the well-travelled traditional song “Caroline of Edinburgh Town” was sung by Minnesota singer Michael C. Dean and printed in Dean’s 1922 songster The Flying Cloud. Franz Rickaby transcribed the above melody from Dean’s singing in 1923 at Dean’s home in Virginia, Minnesota. Dean told Rickaby that his Irish immigrant mother Mary McMahon Dean used to sing the grim (but beautiful) song to him as a lullaby. This song was one of fifteen transcriptions Rickaby made from Dean’s singing that didn’t get published in Rickaby’s Ballads and Songs of the Shanty-Boy. I was able to access it via copies of Rickaby’s song notebooks held by the Mills Music Library at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Unfortunately, unlike other songs of Dean’s, “Caroline” was not recorded when Robert Winslow Gordon made a series of wax cylinders of Dean’s singing in 1924 so we don’t know if his misspelling of “Edinburgh” was any indication of his pronunciation of the name of Scotland’s capital city.

I learned Dean’s melody and text in 2008 and sang it for the Minnesota Heritage Songbook project – a collection of old songs once sung in Minnesota. That recording (along with the full songbook) is available online at http://mnheritagesongbook.net.

My wife Norah Rendell sings this version as well and she even arranged it and recorded it with her band The Outside Track for their album “Curious Things Given Wings.” Much to my delight, Norah has also taught this Minnesota-sourced song to students at the Center for Irish Music.