Ireland - evergreentrad

02 Jun

The Banks of Brandywine

One morning very early in the merry month of May,
As I walked forth to take the air, all nature being gay,
The moon had not yet veiled her face but through the trees did shine,
As I wandered for amusement on the banks of Brandywine.

At such an early hour I was surprised to see,
A lovely maid with downcast eyes upon those banks so gay,
I modestly saluted her, she knew not my design,
And requested her sweet company, on the banks of Brandywine.

“O leave me sir do leave me my company forsake
For it is my real opinion you’re nothing but a rake,
My love’s a valiant sailor and he’s out on the brine,
While comfortless I wander on the banks of Brandywine.”

“My dear, why do you thus give up to melancholy cries?
I pray leave off your weeping, and dry those lovely eyes,
For sailors in each port, my dear, they do a mistress find,
He will leave you still to wander on the banks of Brandywine.”

“O leave me, sir, do leave me, why do you me torment?
My Henry won’t deceive me, therefore I am content,
Why do you thus torment me, and cruelly combine,
To fill my heart with horror on the banks of Brandywine?”

“I wish not to affect your mind but rather for to ease,
Such dreadful apprehensions that soon your mind will see,
Your love, my dear, in wedlock bands, another one has joined.”
She swooned into my arms on the banks of Brandywine.

O the lofty hills and craggy rocks re-echoed back her strain,
And the pleasant groves and rural shades gave witness to her pain,
“How often has he promised me in Hymen’s chains to join,
Now I’m a maid forsaken on the banks of Brandywine.”

“O no, my dear, that ne’er shall be, behold your Henry now,
I clasp you to my bosom, love, I have not forgot my vow,
It’s now I know you’re true, my dear, in Hymen’s chains we’ll join
And hail the happy morn we met on the banks of Brandywine.”

We return to the deep well of beautiful songs recorded by collector Helen Creighton in the Canadian Maritimes this month. While browsing around the recently accessible audio collection at the Nova Scotia Archives site I came across this one from singer Berton Young of West Petpeswick, Nova Scotia. Creighton recorded him in 1945.

This song appears in Creighton’s book Folk Songs of Nova Scotia in a slightly different form but I made my own transcription of Young’s singing here. He has trouble remember the words so the recording jumps around a bit but he is another singer from that region who exhibits a fantastic light, ornamented style full of interesting twists and turns. The story is a classic example of a “Riley Ballad” where the returned lover disguises himself and tests the woman’s faithfulness before revealing his identity.

The Brandywine River (creek) referenced is most likely the one in Pennsylvania/Delaware that was the site of an important battle in the American Revolutionary War. That place name points to a North American origin for the song but it does turn up in Ireland as well. Irish song authority John Moulden guesses that it came back with someone who returned to Ireland after working over here.

02 Jun

New York Bay

I’m an Irishman from Monaghan,
In the North Country I was born,
It was manys the pleasant hour I spent,
On the banks of Sweet Lough Erin,
But to live poor I could not endure,
As others in my station,
With a heart full sore, I quit the shore,
Of the once loved Irish nation.

CHORUS:
Laddly-tar-i-are, laddly-tar-i-a
Laddly-tar-i-air-o-laddie

It was early on one Sunday morn,
As Phebus was arising,
We set sail away for New York Bay,
In the stout brig call Elizie,*
And four or five of our best men,
When hunger was confounded,
And seven more jumped overboard,
And willfully was drowned.

And when we landed in New York Bay,
To see how they were dancing,
There were lads and lassies dancing around
And ’round each other prancing,
And each lass to see how she was dressed
With white petticoats and long flounces,
And linked with each lass there was a lad,
With blue jackets and white trousers.

And when we landed in New York Bay,
We were both stout and hearty,
We were ready for any emergency,
That’s how the police force started,
Then we gave three cheers for Ireland,
Where friends lay broken hearted,
And like a flock of sheep, we strayed away,
And from each other parted.

Max Hunter collected this wonderfully unique variant of the well-known “Rambling Irishman” song in 1961 from Bertha Lauderdale of Fayetteville, Arkansas. I heard it first from singer Julie Henigan when she visited St. Paul to sing at the Traditional Singers Club 20 years ago. Julie spent time with the Max Hunter collection and she says Bertha Lauderdale, learned her songs from her grandfather Thomas Alexander Mulvagh who “emigrated from County Monaghan to Canada in 1836, bringing with him songs of broadside origin.”

The verse about “how the police force started” draws on the familiar trope of the Irish-American policeman.

You can hear Bertha’s unique, drawn out singing style on the Max Hunter page of the Missouri State University website. Julie Henigan’s singing of the song can be found on the Eoin McKiernan Library’s site in the Traditional Singers Club digital archive.

*Lauderdale inserts the chorus after every four lines starting here.

01 Sep

The Rose of Ardee

When first to this country a stranger I came,
I placed my affections on a comely fair dame,
She was proper, tall and handsome in every degree,
She’s the flower of this country and the Rose of Ardee.

I courted lovely Mary at the age of sixteen,
Her waist it was slender, her carriage genteel,
’Til at length a young weaver came there, her to see,
And stole the flower of the country, the Rose of Ardee.

My curse may it light on you, by day and by night,
You’ve fled with my true love, far, far from my sight,
And left me to mourn in a strange country,
For the loss of my darling the Rose of Ardee.

I’m bound to the city for months two or three,
And perhaps on my journey some pretty girl I’ll see,
In a short space of time she may prove kind to me,
But I never can forget the sweet Rose of Ardee.

When I get my week’s wages to the ale house I’ll go,
And there I’ll sit drinking with my heart full of woe,
I’ll sit there lamenting, expecting to see,
Once more my own true love, the Rose of Ardee.

I swear, lovely Mary, by the powers above,
Though inconstant you’ve been, I no other can love,
Oh if we could meet my sweet bride you should be,
And I should be blest with the Rose of Ardee.

Oh, lovely Mary you have been severe,
To slight your own true love that loved you so dear,
I must weep in despair until death I do see,
For the loss of my darling the Rose of Ardee.

Farewell lovely Mary though fled from my sight,
For you I am weeping by day and by night,
But I fear my sweet angel, I never shall see,
So adieu evermore to the Rose of Ardee.

The “Old Songs Exchange” column that ran in the Minneapolis Journal from October 1923 to January 1925 drew many active readers/correspondents from outside Minnesota. Newman Van Deusen/Dusen of Brunswick, Ohio may have contributed the words to last month’s song “My Emmett’s No More.” On October 5, 1924, the column ran Van Dusen’s request for the words to “The Rose of Ardee.” Curiously, Newman Van Deusen of Brunswick, Ohio is credited with sending in the words to the song when they were published on November 9, 1924.

It could be that Van Deusen found the text in a songster. His lengthy version closely matches (though not exactly) that printed by Henry De Marsan in New York in the 1868 New Comic and Sentimental Singer’s Journal. A much shorter, fragmentary text for the song appears in a western New York family songbook (circa 1841-1856) published by Harold W. Thompson as A Pioneer Songster so it does seem plausible that the song made it in to tradition in the Lakes states.

“The Rose of Ardee” is sung in the north of Ireland and I have married the Minneapolis Journal text to the air used by Desi Wilkinson on his album The Three Piece Flute.