Michigan - evergreentrad

22 Aug

Once More A-Lumbering Go

Come all you sons of freedom in Minnesot-i-ay,
Come all you roving lumberjacks and listen to my strain,
On the banks of the Rum River where the limpid waters flow,
We will range the wild woods over and once more a-lumbering go,

And once more a lumbering go,
We will range the wild woods over and once more a-lumbering go.

With our cross-cut saws and axes we will make the woods resound,
And many a tall and stately tree will come crashing to the ground,
With cant-hooks on our shoulders to our boot tops deep in snow,
We will range the wild woods over and once more a-lumbering go,

And once more a lumbering go,
We will range the wild woods over and once more a-lumbering go.

You may talk about your farms, your houses and fine places,
But pity not the shanty boys while dashing on their sleigh,
For around the good campfire at night we’ll sing while wild winds blow,
And we’ll range the wild woods over and once more a-lumbering go,

And once more a-lumbering go,
We will range the wild woods over and once more a-lumbering go.

Then when navigation opens and the water runs so free,
We’ll drive logs to St. Anthony once more our girls to see,
They will all be there to welcome us and our hearts in rapture flow,
We will stay with them through summer then once more a-lumbering go,

And once more a-lumbering go,
We will stay with them through summer, then once more a-lumbering go.

When our youthful days are ended and our stories are growing old,
We’ll take to us each man a wife and settle on the farm,
Enough to eat, to drink, to wear; content through life we go,
We will tell our wives of our hard times, and no more a-lumbering go,

And no more a-lumbering go,
We will tell our wives of our hard times, and no more a-lumbering go.

I am working this month with St. Paul playwright Jeremiah Gamble of the Bucket Brigade Theater on a new play called Shanty Boys of Pine County that will feature songs and stories from my research. One song we were considering for the play is “Once More A-Lumbering Go” (sometimes called “The Logger’s Boast”) as recorded by Alan Lomax in St. Louis, Michigan in 1938 from the singing of Carl Lathrop. I learned Lathrop’s version years ago. It features place names of the Saginaw area and, as I am always drawn to Minnesota-specific songs, I stopped singing it at some point.

Much to my delight, when I started looking around for other versions, I came across a fragment localized to the Rum River here in Minnesota! It turns up in an intriguing article published April 27, 1947 in the Minneapolis Journal about the establishment here of a Folk Arts Foundation of Minnesota. The article references the Finnish and Scots Gaelic songs recorded by Sidney Robertson in northeastern Minnesota (see Laura MacKenzie’s wonderful From Uig to Duluth project!) and calls for more field recording to be done in Minnesota.

The article includes a fragment of “Once More A-Lumbering Go” submitted by Elizabeth Sadley of Minneapolis. Sadley writes:

…I am sending you the words, as far as I can recall, of a lumberjack song that my mother used to sing.

My mother has been dead several years, and the verses here are only a fragment of the entire song. Perhaps some one of my mother’s generation can complete the words. The tune is very simple.

My family moved to Princeton, Minn., about 1875. My father operated two grist mills and supplied the lumber camps in the Mille Lac lake area. This song was sung by the lumberjacks who floated the logs down both branches of the Rum river to the saw mills.

Sadley’s fragment is lines 3 & 4 of the first and last verses above along with the chorus of verse one. I created lines 1 & 2 of the first and fourth verses to further localize the song to the Rum River story and transcribed the rest of the text and melody from Lomax’s recording of Lathrop.

10 Jan

Why Don’t My Father’s Ship Come In?

It was on a Christmas evening as I lay down to sleep,
I heard a boy of six years old on his mother’s knee did weep,
Saying “once I had a father dear who did me kind embrace
And if he was here, he would dry those tears flowing down my mother’s face”

Oh where is that tall and gallant ship that first bore him away,
With topsails soft and painted decks born by the breeze away,
While other ships are coming in splitting the icy foam,
Oh why don’t my father’s ship come in, and why don’t he come home?

Oh, dear son, your father has tarried for to cross the stormy sea,
The ocean and the hurricane sweeps he’ll never come back to me,
Dear son your father’s dead and gone to the home of the brave,
The stormy ocean and winter winds sweep o’er your father’s grave

Oh well I do remember when he took me on his knee,
And gave me all the fruits he bore from off that India tree,
He said six months he would be gone and here leave us alone,
But by those stormy winter winds, twelve months are past and gone.

Oh hush my darling little son your innocent life is done,
Now you and I are all that’s left for to lament and mourn,
You are the darling of my heart I will press you to my side,
And they rose their eyes to heaven and the son and mother died.

We return to Beaver Island, Michigan this month for a song from the repertoire of singer Johnny Green recorded by Alan Lomax during his 1938 visit to the island.

This dark and sorrowful lament for a father lost at sea appears in several collections across the north woods from the Canadian Maritimes to Ontario. Lomax’s recording of John Green is accessible via the Library of Congress website under the title (probably resulting from a mishearing of the first line) “Christmas Eve.”

Anita Best and Genevieve Lehr printed a version from Annie Green of Newfoundland in their book Come & I Will Sing You. Annie Green closed the song this way:

“My boy you’re the pride of all my heart,” as she pressed him to her breast,
And closed her eyes to the yonder skies where the weary ones find rest.

22 May

Lost Jimmie Whalen

Slowly and sadly I strayed by the river,
A-watching the sunbeams as evening drew nigh,
All alone as I rambled I spied a fair damsel,
She was weeping and wailing with many a sigh.

Sighing for one who is now lying lonely,
Mourning for one who no mortal can save,
As the dark foaming waters flow sadly around her,
As onward they roll o’er young Jimmie’s grave.

“Jimmie,” said she, “won’t you come to my arms,
And give me sweet kisses as oft times you gave?
You promised you’d meet me this evening my darling,
O come dearest Jimmie, love, come from the grave!”

Slowly there rose from the depths of the river,
A vision of beauty far fairer than sun,
While red robes of crimson encircled around him,
Unto this fair maiden to speak he’s begun.

“Why did you rise me from the realms of glory,
Back to this place where I once had to leave?
To clasp you once more in my fond loving arms?
To see you once more I have come from my grave.”

“Jimmie” said she, “why not stay on earth with me,
Don’t leave me here for to weep and to rave,
But if you won’t mind me and bide here beside me,
Oh Jimmy take me to your cold silent grave.”

“Darling to me you are asking a favor
That no earthy mortal can grant unto thee.
For death is the dagger that holds us asunder,
And wide is the gulf, love, between you and me.”

“One fond embrace, love, and then I must leave you
One loving kiss, pet, and then we must part.”
And cold were the arms he encircled around her,
While cold was the bosom she pressed to her heart.

Then straightway the vision did vanish before her,
Straightway to the sky he then seemed to go,
Leaving his loved one distracted and lonely,
Weeping and wailing in sadness and woe.

Throwing herself on the banks of the river,
Weeping and wailing her poor heart would break,
Sighing “My loved one, my lost Jimmie Whalen,
I will lie down and die by the side of your grave.”

Norah Rendell and I have been singing this beautiful song for several years but somehow it has never made it onto Northwoods Songs!

It is one of two songs that commemorate the tragic drowning of a raftsman named James Phalen around 1878 in Ontario. Collector Franz Rickaby, who prints both songs in his book Ballads and Songs of the Shanty-Boy, corresponded with multiple informants who knew the details of the Phalen drowning. It happened at King’s Chute on Ontario’s Mississippi River–a tributary of the Ottawa where the rafting crew was working for a boss named Peter McLaren who went on to be a senator. Phalen and two others were attempting to break a log jam at the “Upper Falls” section of the Chute. Phalen fell in and was swept under the logs.

Rickaby’s informants told him that the other popular “Whalen” song, “Jim Whalen,” was definitely based on the Phalen tragedy (apparently the name was pronounced “Whalen” in that part of Ontario). They said it was written and sung “with much pathos” by a local songsmith in Lanark, Ontario named John Smith.

Rickaby was not certain that the ghost-visiting narrative of “Lost Jimmie Whalen” referred to the same drowning victim as the more journalistic “Jim Whalen.” Rickaby collected only a three verse fragment “Lost Jimmie Whalen” from Will Daugherty of Charlevoix, Michigan in 1919. A version collected in the 1950s in Ontario from Martin Sullivan by Edith Fowke clearly makes the Phalen connection by including an additional verse:

“Hard, hard were the struggles on the cruel Mississippi,
But encircled around her on every side,
Thinking of you as we conquered them bravely,
I was hoping some day for to make you my bride.”

The above-transcribed melody comes from yet another Great Lakes region singer named Robert Walker who lived in Crandon, Wisconsin (Walker’s version appears on this wonderful Folkways album). Walker’s melody, a relative of the one frequently used for “Lass of Glenshee,” is similar to that used by Sullivan but I prefer the way Walker sings the opening bar. The text above is primarily from Walker with a few lines borrowed from the Daugherty and Sullivan versions and a couple changed of my own in the sixth stanza.