Mike Dean - evergreentrad

02 Feb

Wearing of the Green

Oh, Paddy, dear, and did you hear the news that’s going ’round?
The shamrock is forbid by law to grow on Irish ground;
Saint Patrick’s day no more we’ll keep, his color can’t be seen,
For there’s a bloody law agin’ the Wearin’ o’ the Green.
I met with Napper Tandy and he tuk me by the hand,
And he said, “How’s poor auld Ireland, and how does she stand?”
She’s that most distressful country that ever you have seen,
They’re hanging men and women there for wearing of the green.

Then since the color we must wear is England’s cruel red,
Sure, Ireland’s sons will ne’er forget the blood that they have shed;
You may take the shamrock from your hat, and cast it on the sod,
But ’twill take root and flourish still, tho’ under foot ’tis trod;
When the law can stop the blades of grass from growing as they grow,
And when the leaves in summer time their verdure dare not show,
Then I will change the color I wear in my caubeen,
But till that day, please God, I’ll stick to wearing of the green.

But if at last our color should be torn from Ireland’s heart
Her sons in shame and sorrow from the dear old soil will part,
I’ve heard whisper of a country that lies far beyant the say,
Where rich and poor stand equal in the light of freedom’s day;
Oh, Erin, must we lave you, driven by a tyrant’s hand,
Must we seek a mother’s welcome from a strange but happy land!
Where the cruel cross of England’s thralldom never shall be seen,
And where, in peace, we’ll live and die, a-wearing of the green.

We have a Minnesota text this month for the long-popular Irish patriotic song “The Wearing of the Green.” Dublin-born stage singer and theatrical innovator Dion Boucicault composed this song in 1865, borrowing the “wearing of the green” refrain, the last half of the first verse and possibly the melody from an existing song dating to the 1798 rebellion. The earlier song, as printed by H. Halliday Sparling in Irish Minstrelsy (c. 1887), has the protagonist fleeing to France where Napoleon himself asks “How is old Ireland and how does she stand?” Boucicault moved the land of refuge to America: the land “far beyant the say, where rich and poor stand equal in the light of freedom’s day.”

Though lovers of traditional songs sometimes lose interest when a song is revealed to have originated on the commercial stage, there is much to be learned and appreciated from the context of these songs. The late, great scholar of Irish-American song Mick Moloney says Boucicault, an international superstar in his day, “single-handedly upgraded the popular image of the Irish male in this country during the 1860s.” At a time when stereotypical, buffooning Irish characters dominated American popular theater, Boucicault was on a crusade against this brand of what Dr. Eoin McKiernan would dub “shamroguery” a century later. Stephen Watt quotes Boucicault as saying:

The fire and energy that consists of dancing around the stage in an expletive manner, and indulging in ridiculous capers and extravagances of language and gesture, form the materials for a clowning character, known as the ‘Stage Irishman,’ which it has been my vocation to abolish.
Watt Stephen. 1991. Joyce, O’Casey and the Irish Popular Theater. 1st ed. Syracuse N.Y: Syracuse University Press.

Minnesota singer Michael Dean sang a few songs that reveled in stereotypes denigrating Irish immigrants alongside many other songs that preserved the dignity of his fellow Irish-Americans. His repertoire is a fascinating blend of older traditional songs and stage hits from his lifetime. He left only the above text for his version of this one so I have adapted it to a version of the usual melody as printed by Alfred Perceval Graves in The Irish Songbook.

02 Feb

Michael James

I’m as happy as can be, faith, there is merriment in me,
And I’ll try and tell you everyone,
When I came home from work this morn,
I found I was the father of a son.
Ten years we’ve been married this very day,
And we never had a chick or a child,
The thought of this gives me such joy,
Take me word for it, I think I’m going wild.

Chorus—
For he has a puggy little nose, and there’s dimples in his toes,
And we’re going to give a party and a ball,
And we’ll name him Michael James, put his picture in a frame,
And we’ll hang it in the parlor on the wall.

When a man he grows you’ll see, a president he’ll be,
I would never let him run for Alderman,
I’ll buy a horse and dray, and we’ll drive it every day,
You would never find his equal in the land.
He’ll not be a fool, for we’ll send him off to school,
Where they’ll teach him how to row and play ball,
And when he gets some money, we’ll have his picture taken,
And we’ll hang it in the parlor on the wall.

As I have discussed in this column before, logging era singers like Minnesotan Mike Dean typically sang recently composed songs from the American stage alongside older ballads from communities on both sides of the Atlantic. Dean’s repertoire, based on his own self-published songster, seems to have been about half and half. His stage songs are mainly on Irish-American themes common in the late 1800s including: nostalgia for Ireland, stereotypes of urban Irish American life and songs of Irish laborers.

Another category could be “the Irish in American politics.” Three of Dean’s stage songs reference the pursuit of public office and a fourth, “Muldoon, the Solid Man” has its protagonist “called upon to address the meeting” where he “read the Constitution with elocution.” During Dean’s lifetime (1858-1931) Irish-Americans did find success in American politics. Dean lived in Hinckley, Minnesota where Kilkenny native and fellow saloon owner James J. Brennan was the first town president when it was incorporated in 1885. James’ brother Thomas owned the lumber mill in Hinckley and was himself an alderman in St. Paul.

The story behind the song “Michael James” has eluded me for a long time but I recently found the song in an 1881 songster (complete with musical transcriptions!) of compositions by Charles R. Dockstader (1847-1907). Dockstader tried his hand at recycling all the popular song motifs of his day including many riffs on the stage Irishman character. He wrote another song that Dean sang and called “I Left Ireland and Mother Because We Were Poor.”

Dean’s “Michael James” was titled “In the Parlor on the Wall” by Dockstader and was sung on stage by R. M. Carroll, “The Champion Irish Singing Humorist” Harry Kernell and John Sheehan. It appears in the Dockstader Songster published by Philadelphia publisher and music instrument dealer J.W. Pepper in 1881.

The song turns out to have a fine example of the dynamic sort of melody that energized music hall audiences. It also paints a reasonably dignified picture (for its time) of the immigrant father exuberantly pouring his aspirations into his newborn son. I found a March 15, 1902 piece in the The Intermountain Catholic newspaper in Utah about an Ancient Order of Hibernians event in Park City where the chairman of the evening sang the song to an approving crowd. Interestingly, the newspaper wrote: “The programme was appropriate to the occasion and of a nature to please the most critical, while mainly Irish in character there was nothing of the boisterous stage Irishman kind to be seen.”

31 Oct

Young Monroe

Come all you jolly shanty boys, wherever you may be,
I hope you’ll pay attention and listen unto me,
Concerning a young shanty boy so manfully and brave,
It was on a jam at Garray’s rocks where he met with a watery grave.

It was on a Sunday morning as you will quickly hear,
Our logs were piling mountain high, we could not keep them clear,
When the boss he cries, “Turn out, me boys, with hearts devoid of fear,
To break the jam on Garry’s rocks and for Eagantown we’ll steer.”

Some of them were willing, while others they hung back,
To work upon a Sunday they did not think was right,
Until six of our young Canadians they volunteered to go,
And break the jam on Garry’s rocks with their foreman, young Munroe.

They had not rolled off many logs when the boss to them did say,
“I would have you to be on your guard, for this jam will soon give way.”
Those words were scarcely spoken when the jam did break and go,
And carried away those six young men with their foreman, young Munroe.

When the rest of those young shanty boys they came, the news to hear,
In search of their dead bodies for the river they did steer,
When one of their lifeless bodies found to their sad grief and woe,
All cut and mangled on the rocks was the form of young Munroe.

They took him from his watery grave, combed down his coal-black hair,
There was one fair form among them whose cries did rend the air;
There was one fair form among them, a girl from Saginaw town,
Her tears and cries would rend the skies for her lover that was drowned.

Miss Clara was a noble girl, likewise a raftsman’s friend,
Her mother was a widow living by the river’s bend,
The wages of her own true love the boss to her did pay,
And a liberal subscription she received from the shanty boys next day.

They took and buried him decently, being on the tenth of May,
And the rest of you young shanty boys, it’s for your comrade pray!
It is engraved on a little hemlock tree, close by his head it does grow,
The day and date of the drowning of this hero, young Munroe.

Miss Clara did not survive long to her sad grief and woe;
It was less than two weeks after she, too, was called to go,
It was less than two weeks after she, too, was called to go,
And her last request was granted her, to be laid by young Munroe.

Now, any of you shanty boys that would like to go and see,
On a little mound by the river side there grows a hemlock tree;
The shanty boy cuts the woods all round, two lovers here lie low,
Here lies Miss Clara Dennison and her lover, young Munroe.

This month marks the 100-year anniversary of Irish-Minnesotan singer Michael Cassius Dean sending a copy of his song book, The Flying Cloud, to song collector Robert Winslow Gordon. Accompanied by a brief note on a postcard featuring Virginia, Minnesota’s 10-year-old high school building, this parcel led to one of the earliest audio recordings of traditional music in Minnesota. Twelve months later, inspired by this collection of 166 songs from Dean’s repertoire, Gordon went in search of Dean with his wax cylinder recording machine in tow.

Dean’s version of “Young Monroe” was one of the songs recorded by Gordon in September 1924 and the above transcription is my own made from the Gordon recording. The full text above comes from Dean’s book.

“Young Monroe,” often titled “The Jam at Gerry’s Rocks,” was one of the most widely sung come-all-ye type songs about logging work. Versions were collected all over the US and Canada. For a nice recording, check out this one of Ted Ashlaw. Ashlaw lived in a similar part of northern New York to where Dean grew up and his melody, though similar to Dean’s, has some nice twists to it.