Ireland - evergreentrad

12 Sep

Lovel (Laws L13B)

As Lovel was walking a walking one morning
He espied two pedlers two pedlers a coming
He boldley stept up to them and called them his honey
Saying stand and deliver boys for all I wants your money.

Lol te de a de um, Lol te de a dum.

O we are two pedlers two pedlers are we sir
And you are Mr. Lovel we take you to be sir
O we are two pedlers that have lateley cam from dublin
And all that we have in our box is our bedin and our clothing.

As Lovel was walking up kinsberry mountain
He espied two rich misers their guines they were counting
First he cocked his blunderbus and then he drew his rapier
Saying stand and deliver boys for I’me a money taker.

O Lovel O Lovel my poor harts a breaking
For little did I think my love you ever would ben taken
And if I had ave knawn that the enemy was a coming
Ide have fought like a hero although Ime but a woman.

O Polly O Polly my poor harts a breaking
If it had not been for you my love I never would been taken
For while I was a sleeping not thinking of the matter
You discharged my pistols and loded them with water.

As Lovel was walking all up the galos lader
He called to the sherif for his irish cap and fether
Saying I have robed money but never killed enny
I think it hard that I must die just for grabing money.
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From 1923 through 1927, folklorist and song collector Robert Winslow Gordon edited a column in the pulp magazine Adventure called “Old Songs That Men Have Sung.” Each column included folksong texts sent in by readers from their own memories, personal song notebooks and singing friends and family members. Gordon received over 3000 letters from readers, many in search of words to half-remembered songs and many contributing songs themselves.

During my trip to the American Folklife Center this past June I was able to sift through these letters and Gordon’s typed responses to them – all of which are in the AFC’s amazing archive. Going through the letters (the AFC staff allowed me to work with the brittle originals!) gave me insight into the lives and motivations of singers from that era. Many writers lamented the changing times and the loss of the traditional singing cultures they grew up with.

The words to this version of “Lovel” appear in a set of songs sent in to Gordon in 1924 by singer Reuben Waitstell Phillips of Akeley, Minnesota (see N.S. Oct. 2013). Phillips’ accompanying letter began:

Dear Sir,
I am an old man and my hand shakes so that I am compeled to use a pencil insted of pen and ink but I am going to send you a few old songs that men have sung if you can use them well and good if not why just a little time spent.

Gordon was delighted by the 22 song texts sent in by Phillips and he chose “Lovel” to print in his next “Old Songs” column. He introduced the column saying:

A MOST valuable contribution arrived last week from Mr. R. W. Phillips of Akeley, Minnesota—a forty-six-page manuscript of twenty-two songs, every one of them worth while! I have sent Mr.Phillips, in your name and mine, our heartiest thanks. May his voice be heard often!

Above, I have given the text as Phillips supplied it, complete with unconventional spellings. The transcription is my own based on a wax cylinder recording made by Gordon of Phillips during a visit to Akeley (from what I can tell in researching the family, the Phillipses lived south of Akeley near Chamberlain, MN) the same year he received the letter.

The song is a distant variant of “Whiskey in the Jar.” Similar versions were collected in Vermont and Maine but Phillips’ melody is quite unique… and fun to sing!

More on this song and its more well-known variant “Whiskey in the Jar” here.

16 May

Drummond’s Land

At the foot of David’s mountains where the waters they run calm,
And purling streams do gently glide down by my father’s land,
All covered o’er with a linen cloth that was wrought near Tendersgay*
And was purchased by one Kinnedy*, a man of high degree.

As I roved out one morning all for to take the air,
I being a clever young man with a fusee in my hand,
I might have shot a score or more had I but known my fate,
For my name is McCallum from the falls, and you know my fortune’s great.

As I roved out one evening down by the watchman’s dam,
The Belleville coach came rolling in all loaded to the ground,
[I put my spyglass to my eye, I viewed it all around]
And in one of the front seats sat a lady of renown.

I boldly stepped up to her for to help her from the coach,
I took her by the lily-white hand as we stood on the beach.
I showed her all my father’s ships that were bound for Cheshire fair,
Saying, “Only for you, lady, I am sure I would be there.”

I says, “My pretty fair maid, will you come to yonder inn,
And there we’ll have a bottle of wine our joys for to begin.
For I have lost a diamond more precious far than gold.
And you are the one that found it, fair lady, I am told.”

“For the keeping of young men’s company, kind sir, I’m not exposed,
Nor yet am I a lady, although I wear fine clothes,
I am but a farmer’s daughter that dwells near Hamilton’s band*;
And for further information, I dwell on Drummond’s land.”

Oh, it’s “Kind and honored lady, won’t you take the coach with me,
And we’ll go down to Drummond’s land your father for to see.
Five thousand pound in ready gold to your father I’ll bestow,
And I’ll crown you queen of Drummond’s land this night before we go.”

“I am sorry for you, young man. Your suit must be denied,
For I’m already promised to be a young man’s bride,
For I’m already promised these seven long years and more.
He is but a linen weaver, the lad whom I adore.”

*These are all as printed in the Rickaby manuscript. Based on versions from Eddie Butcher and one printed in Sam Henry’s “Songs of the People” I sing “Tandragee” (Co. Armagh) in place of Tendersgay, “Kennedy” in place of Kinnedy, and “Hamiltonsbawn” (Co. Armagh) in place of Hamilton’s band.

**line missing in the Ross text. I used text from Eddie Butcher recording and Sam Henry published version.
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[the following has been edited due to mistakes and omissions in the print version that appeared in the May IMDA newsletter]

The text of this version of “Drummond’s Land” (aka “David’s Flowery Vale”) was sent by Andy Ross of Charlevoix, Michigan to collector Franz Rickaby in August 1922. Rickaby had met with Ross and transcribed his singing in 1921 and hoped to make it back to Charlevoix to get Ross’s melody for Drummond’s Land at a later date. Unfortunately, Rickaby’s failing health caused him to leave the Upper Midwest for good in 1923 and Ross’s melody was never obtained.

I have paired Ross’s text with a melody used for another version of “Drummond’s Land” that appears in Sam Henry’s wonderful Songs of the People. There is a nice recording of Derry singer Eddie Butcher singing another version which you can hear at the Irish Traditional Music Archive website here. Yet another version was sung by Co. Antrim singer Robert Cinnamond which you can hear on the album Not a Word of No Surrender.

Cinnamond’s version holds the key to the song’s origin as the wealthy suitor’s name is there McCance (instead of McCallum as in Ross’ version). John McCance (1772-1835) was a wealthy landowner, politician and owner of linen operations whose large estate was, indeed, at the foot of Divis (not David’s) Mountain just west of Belfast in County Antrim.

Another version of this song’s text from the Lisburn Historical Society along with biographical info on John McCance.

More background on this song from the Traditional Ballad Index

26 Mar

Ned McCabe

I’m a fine old Irish laborer, from Ireland I came,
To try me luck on Columbia’s shore, and Ned McCabe’s my name.
I’ve had me days of sunshine, although I can’t complain,
But those good old days for laborers will never come back again.

Chorus:
’Tis boys, be gay and hearty, and never ye be afraid,
But bear misfortunes with a smile like poor old Ned McCabe

But when I landed in Quebec, I had nary a red at all,
I hired out to a contractor, boys, to work upon a canawl.
I’d eighty cents a day, me boys, and whiskey too had I,
But when I think of those good old days, it almost makes me cry. Chorus

*I’ve cleared the lands in the far-off west, and many a mile I’ve trod,
And many’s the snake, and wild beast, I’ve laid beneath the sod. Chorus

Now the winter time is coming on, and away down south I’ll go,
To secure myself a winter’s job away from frost and snow.
Old Canady being by favorite whenever there I went,
I could drink my twenty jiggers a day and never step off o’ the plank. Chorus

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Folk song collector Franz Rickaby made the above transcription of this very rare song from the singing of George Hankins (1849-1934) of Gordon, Wisconsin in the early 1920s. Earlier in his life, Hankins worked as a lumberjack and railroad man in Minnesota before making his home in Gordon, about 45 miles southeast of Duluth. Hankins told Rickaby that he learned the song when he first came to live in Wisconsin.

The song itself illustrates a familiar storyline for the first Irishmen to come to Minnesota and Wisconsin. It was common for Famine-era immigrants who sailed to Canada to find work as lumberjacks, railroad men, Great Lakes sailors or canal workers. Many of these men and their sons followed those jobs, or sometimes seasonal farm work, over the border into the US. So it was with many of the men who built Stillwater, Minnesota and other St. Croix Valley towns.

*I took some liberty with the words of this verse in what I published in the IMDA newsletter and in what I sing myself. The original as transcribed by Rickaby reads:

I’ve cleared the lands in the far-off west where no white man ever trod,
And many’s the snake, and red man too, I’ve laid beneath the sod.