Brian Miller - evergreentrad

15 Sep

The Farmer’s Boy

Oh the sun it sank behind a hill across the dreary moor,
Poor and lame there came a boy up to a farmer’s door,
Saying, “Please, will you tell me a man about here that would me employ,
To plough, to sow, to reap and to mow, to be a farmer’s boy?”

“My father’s dead, my mother lives with her five children small,
And what is the worst for mother dear, I’m the eldest of them all,
Although I am small, I fear no work if you’ll only me employ,
To plough, to sow, to reap, and to mow, to be a farmer’s boy.”

“Oh well,” says the farmer, “we’ll try the lad, no longer have him seek,”
“Yes, dear Papa,” his daughter cried, as the tears rolled down her cheek,
“For a man that can work, it’s hard for him to want, and to wander for employ,
Don’t send him away, but let him stay, and be your laboring boy.”

Well the years went by, the boy grew up and the good old farmer died,
He willed to the lad the farm that he had, and his daughter for a bride,
Now the lad that was once; he’s a farmer now. He often thinks with joy,
On the happy, happy day he came that way, to be a farmer’s boy.
—————–

This month’s song comes from Edith Fowke’s 1957 recording of Ottawa Valley singer Oliver John (O.J.) Abbott (1872-1962). Abbott was born in Enfield, England and came to Ontario as a 12-year-old with his brother but without their parents. As a young man in the Ottawa area, he boarded with and worked for two Irish families, the Whalens and the O’Malleys. He learned many songs from Mrs. Whalen and Mrs. O’Malley and more from his winter work in lumber camps. After being “discovered” by Fowke in his mid 80s, Abbott went on to appear alongside Pete Seeger at multiple folk festivals as a representative of the rich tradition of “woods” singing found in the Ottawa Valley region (here he is being interviewed by Ewan MacColl). “The Farmer’s Boy” must have resonated strongly with Abbott as someone who, himself, was taken as a “farmer’s boy” as a vulnerable young man.

Versions of this song were collected all over the US including in Wisconsin where it was sung by Crandon singer Warde Ford (I substituted Ford’s opening line for Abbott’s above). It has also been found throughout England where it likely originated as a mid-19th century broadside. The song must also be known in Ireland for, after singing it once in Chicago, Sligo-born flute legend Kevin Henry remarked “Where did you get ‘The Farmer’s Boy?’ I haven’t heard that since I was a boy!”

03 Aug

The Lament of the Irish Emigrant

I am sitting on the stile, Mary, where we sat side by side,
On a bright May morning long ago, when first you were my bride;
The corn was springing fresh and green and the lark sang loud on high,
And the red was on your cheeks, Mary, and the love light in your eye.

The place is little changed, Mary, the day is bright as then,
The Lark’s loud song is in my ear and the corn is green again,
But I miss the love glance of your eye, your breath warm on my cheek,
And I still keep listening for the words you never more will speak.

It’s but a step down yonder lane, and the little church stands near,
The church where we were wed, Mary, I see the spire from here;
But the church yard lies between, love, and my feet might break your rest,
For I’ve laid you, darling, down to sleep with your baby on your breast.

I am very lonely now, Mary, for the poor makes no new friends,
But, oh, we love them better far, the few our Father sends;
But you were all I had, Mary, my blessing and my pride,
There is little left to care for now since my poor Mary died.

I am bidding you a long farewell, my Mary, kind and true,
But I’ll not forget you, darling, in the land I am going to;
They say there’s bread and work for all and the sun shines ever there,
But I’ll not forget old Ireland, were it twenty times as fair.

And oft times in those grand old woods I’ll sit and close my eyes,
And my thoughts will travel back again to the grave where Mary lies;
And I’ll think I see the little stile where we sat side by side,
And the springing corn and bright May morn when first you were my bride.

_______________________

This heart-wrenching ballad of Irish immigration comes from Minnesotan Michael Dean’s Flying Cloud songster and I have married Dean’s text with the melody sung by John W. Green of Beaver Island, Michigan. You can hear Green’s version online via the Library of Congress. The recording, made in 1938 by Alan Lomax, captures Green’s wonderful ability to vary melody and ornamentation as he sings each verse… a characteristic that is hard to capture in a transcription. I tried to “loosen up” the melody a bit in singing the song myself.

A stile is a structure that allows people, but not animals, to pass over a wall or fence, often via steps or a ladder structure. A common feature in 19th century Irish farm country, one can imagine this as an attractive perch for courting.

The last verse of this song text (which appears in some, but not all, British broadside versions as well) is intriguing in that it describes the emigrant’s destination as among the “grand old woods.” This seems to hint at the immigration pattern I so frequently discuss in this column–Irishmen coming to the north woods of North America and, often, working in the woods as lumbermen. Both singers I sourced this song from were born to Irish immigrant fathers who pursued this type of work and settled in small lumber-based communities in the Great Lakes region.

The original text of this ballad was written by Lady Helena Selina Blackwood Dufferin (nee Sheridan) who was born in Ireland in 1807 and died in England in 1867. It was printed as a broadside frequently on both sides of the Atlantic throughout the mid-late 1800s. It appears in Halliday Sparling’s 1887 book Irish Minstrelsy: A Selection of Irish Songs and Ballads. Though a member of English high society her whole life, Sparling writes that Lady Dufferin’s poems “were the genuine outcome of a deep and understanding love of the people.” This poem was clearly inspired by the Great Famine. Halliday prints two verses not sung by Dean:

Yours was the good, brave heart, Mary, that still kept hopin’ on,
When the trust in God had left my soul, and my arm’s young strength was gone;
There was comfort ever on your lip, and the kind look on your brow—
I bless you, Mary, for that same, though you cannot hear me now.

I thank you for the patient smile when your heart was fit to break,
When the hunger pain was gnawin’ there, and you hid it for my sake;
I bless you for the pleasant word, when your heart was sad and sore—
O! I’m thankful you are gone, Mary, where grief can’t reach you more!

29 Jun

Lovely Minnesoty

I’ve taken some liberties with text and melody in the above performance!

Come all ye noble emigrants that feel inclined to roam,
Into this western country, to seek a pleasant home,
Just take a pioneer’s advice, he’ll point you out the best,
Go to lovely Minnesoty, that Lily of the West.

In eighteen hundred and fifty four, I left my native shore,
My worthy friends and native home never to see them more,
Besides, my aged parents I left among the rest,
And sailed for Minnesoty, the Lily of the West.

When I viewed this pleasant country, it filled me with surprise,
To see those spreading prairies, and fields of grain likewise,
You call into a cabin, you are always a welcome guest,
That’s the fashion of Minnesoty, the Lily of the West.

I viewed those jolly farmers, a-toiling at their ploughs,
Likewise the pretty fair maid, a-milking of the cows,
I viewed those lovely house-wives with tempers of the best,
They’re the darlings of Minnesoty, the Lily of the West.

Our lands they yield spontaneously potatoes, corn, and grain,
The climate’s also healthy, with cooling showers of rain,
There is plenty of fish in every stream, and game in the forest,
We have pleasures in Minnesoty, the Lily of the West.

Our pleasant burgs and villages they decorate the soil,
The architect, mechanic most manfully doth toil,
We have churches here of every sect, and schooling of the best,
We’ve industry in Minnesoty, the Lily of the West.

We have a flowing commerce upon our inland seas,
Where lofty ships and steamboats do sail continually,
We have mariners here both stout and bold, and masters of the best,
We have all things in Minnesota, the Lily of the West.

O, Michigan is not the place, nor Illinois the same,
The soil and climate can’t compare in raising of the grain,
A land of milk and honey, and temperature of the best,
And they call it Minnesoty, the Lily of the West.
____________

Again this month we have one of the very few songs I’ve found that mentions my beloved home state. In this case, it’s a song of praise, advertising the wonders of pioneer-era Minnesota to prospective “emigrants.” Bessie M. Stanchfield collected a version of the song, titled “The Beauty of the West,” from Mrs. Elma Snyder McDowell of St. Cloud in 1936. Stanchfield went on to gather three other Minnesota-sourced versions and all four texts were published in her article “‘The Beauty of the West’ A Minnesota Ballad” in the September 1946 issue of Minnesota History. The Snyder McDowell version was the only one collected by Stanchfield that came complete with a melody.

The above melody comes from the singing of Ezra “Fuzzy” Barhight who was recorded by song collector Ellen Stekert at his home in Cohocton, New York in the 50s. The text is primarily one of the texts published by Stanchfield that she found in the Saint Peter Courier of June 26, 1857. It is quite different than the other three published by Stanchfield but similar to Barhight’s fragment. I mixed in some lines from Barhight and the other Stanchfield texts to create the version above.

In her Minnesota History article, Stanchfield wrote that “this song, and others collected later, made me realize the fallacy of the belief that there is no Minnesota folk music.”