Oh, Molly Bawn is my love’s name, the same I’ll ne’er deny,
She has two red and rosy cheeks, two dark and rolling eyes;
She is the primrose of this country, she is Venus, I declare,
And the brightest star that is in the land is Molly Bawn so fair.
For where my love goes she trips the rose and makes the valleys ring,
And all the little small birds in my love’s praises sing;
The cuckoo and the turtle dove, the nightingale also,
They seem to say, “Let us haste away to wait on Molly-O.”
I wish I was in Ireland sitting on the green grass,
And in my hand a bottle and on my knee a lass;
We’d drink good liquor merrily and pay before we’d go.
I would roll you in my arms, Molly, let the winds blow high or low.
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An organization in Ireland called the Bird Song Project is celebrating traditional songs about birds with a series of concerts and song sessions this month. I had a look through my to-do list of songs for something fitting and found this one from Minnesota singer Michael C. Dean’s songster The Flying Cloud. It is not a song about birds but, in the process of praising the beauty of “Molly Bawn” it does invoke three species that will be familiar to anyone who loves old songs: the cuckoo, turtle dove and nightingale.
The above song is not related to the other “Molly Bawn” song in which Molly is mistaken for a swan and shot by her deer hunter lover. It shares most of its poetry with versions of the broadside “The Irish Girl,” a ballad with many “floating” lines and images that turn up in other traditional songs (including “I wish my love was a red, red rose” which is missing here).
We don’t know what melody Dean used for this song as The Flying Cloud is text only. I chose to borrow an air from the song “Wee Paddy Molloy” as sung by Brigid Tunney which I think fits quite well.
‘Twas on a cold and frosty morning
When the sunshine was adorning
The boughs of ev’ry lofty pine,
Making them in radiance shine.
Through the forest lone I wandered
Where a little brook meandered,
Gurgling o’er the rocks below,
Wading deep through ice and snow.
On its banks and right before me
Stood a pine in stately glory.
The forest king he seemed to be.
He was a noble Big Pine Tree.
I gazed upon his form gigantic.
Thoughts ran through my head romantic.
These were my musings as I stood
And viewed that monarch of the wood.
“For ages you have towered proudly.
The birds have praised you long and loudly.
The squirrels have chattered praise to thee,
O ye noble Big Pine Tree.
“When the lumberjacks first spy you,
They’ll step up to you and eye you.
With saw and axe they’ll lay you down
On the cold snow-covered ground.
“Your fall will sound like distant thunder,
And fill the birds and squirrels with wonder.
The snow thy winding-sheet will be,
O ye noble Big Pine Tree.
“Were you punky, were you hollow,
You had been a lucky fellow;
Then they would have let you be,
O ye noble Big Pine Tree.
“But seeing you’re so sound and healthy,
You’ll make some lumberman more wealthy.
There’s scads of wealth concealed in thee,
O ye noble Big Pine Tree.
“They will measure, top, and butt you.
Into saw-logs they will cut you.
The woodsman’s chains will fetter thee,
O ye noble Big Pine Tree.
“When your branches cease to quiver,
They will haul you to the river,
And down the roll-ways roll you in
Where you’ll have to sink or swim.
“In spring the agile river-driver
Will pick and punch you down the river.
There’ll be little rest for thee,
O ye noble Big Pine Tree.
“Up the mill-slide they will draw you.
Into lumber they will saw you.
Then they’ll put you in a pile,
Where they’ll let you rest awhile.
“In spring, when gentle showers are falling,
And the toads and birds are squalling,
They will take and raft you in
Where once more you’ll have to swim.
“Over dams and falls they’ll take you,
Where the rocks will tear and break you,
You’ll reach the Mississippi’s breast
Before they’ll let you have a rest.
“Then they’ll sell you to some farmer
To keep his wife and children warmer.
With his team he’ll haul you home
To the prairie drear and lone.
“Into a prairie house he’ll make you,
Where the prairie winds will shake you.
There’ll be little rest for thee,
O ye noble Big Pine Tree.
“The prairie winds will sing around you.
The hail and sleet and snow will pound you,
And shake and wear and bleach your bones
On the prairie drear and lone.
“Then the prairie fires will burn you.
Into ashes they will turn you.
That will be the end of thee,
O ye noble Big Pine Tree.”
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In the early 1920s, the above song text was sent in to collector Franz Rickaby (then English professor at UND in Grand Forks, North Dakota) by the song’s writer, Billy “Shan T. Boy” Allen of Wausau, Wisconsin. Allen, a 2nd-generation Irish-Canadian from New Brunswick, fed the northwoods song tradition of the Upper Midwest by composing new ballads based on old song types and repurposing old melodies for stories about his work as a lumberman. His song “The Banks of the Little Eau Pleine” became quite popular in the lumbercamps across the northwoods region.
Rickaby was unsure if “Ye Noble Big Pine Tree” entered tradition at all. However, I found a reference to it in an article about life in northern Minnesota logging camps written by J.C. “Buzz” Ryan:
During the winter of 1918-1919 in a camp north of Mizpah, Patty McLaughlin, a witty Irishman from Northome who could play the violin and loved to sing, would go into the bunkhouse on Sundays and some evenings and would play and sing and get the boys singing with him. He knew all the old songs and sang them very well. However it was “The Banks of the Little Eau Plaine,” “Ye Noble Big Pine Tree” and “The Foreman Young Monroe” that the boys liked the best.
I did some census research on Patty McLaughlin and discovered that he, like Allen (and many others), was also a 2nd-generation Irish-Canadian from New Brunswick who followed lumbering jobs to the St. Croix Valley region. It’s possible that the two men even met eachother and swapped songs in the Wisconsin woods. McLaughlin was a foreman in a camp near Hayward, WI in 1900 (according to the 1900 US Federal Census). Unlike Allen, who stayed in the Wausau area, McLaughlin followed his employment further north to the woods north of my hometown of Bemidji, MN.
Allen sang Rickaby a melody he said came from the song “Will the Weaver.” I heard a recording of Catskills singer Walter Wormuth doing “Bill the Weaver” and preferred it so I took the liberty of swapping it in for my own version above.
We have a flash packet, she’s a packet of fame,
She belongs to New York and the Dreadnaught’s her name;
She is bound for the ocean where the stormy winds blow,
Bound away on the “Dreadnaught” to the Westward we’ll go.
Now we are laying at the Liverpool dock.
Where the boys and the girls on the pier-heads do flock,
And they gave us three cheers while their tears down did flow,
Bound away on the “Dreadnanght” to the Westward we’ll go.
The “Dreadnaught” is lying in the river Mersy,
Waiting for the tug “Constitution” to tow us to sea,
She tows around the Black Rock where the Mersy does flow,
Bound away on the “Dreadnaught” to the Westward we’ll go.
And now we are howling on the wild Irish sea,
Where the sailors and passengers together agree,
For the sailors are perched on the yard arms, you know,
Bound away on the “Dreadnaught” to the Westward we’ll go.
Now we are sailing on the ocean so wide,
Where the great open billows dash against her black side,
And the sailors off watch are all sleeping below,
Bound away on the “Dreadnaught” to the Westward we’ll go.
And now we are sailing off the banks of New Foundland,
Where the waters are deep and the bottom is sand,
Where the fish of the ocean they swim to and fro,
Bound away on the “Dreadnaught” to the Westward we’ll go.
And now we are howling off Long Island’s green shore,
Where the pilot he bards us as he’s oft done before,
Fill away your main top sails, port your main tack also,
She’s a Liverpool packet, Lord God, let her go.
And now we are riding in New York Harbor once more,
I will go and see Nancy, she’s the girl I adore,
To the parson I’ll take her, my bride for to be,
Farewell to the “Dreadnaught” and the deep stormy sea.
___________________
This month we are back to Minnesota singer Michael Cassius Dean with another song where I have taken the text from Dean’s 1922 Flying Cloud songster and transcribed the melody from Dean’s singing on a 1924 field recording made by Robert Winslow Gordon. The Gordon recording of this song is quite hard to hear so I was also aided by Franz Rickaby’s 1923 transcription of Dean singing “The Clipper Ship Dreadnaught.”
The Dreadnought (originally spelled with an “o”) was a famous packet ship that carried both goods and passengers (including many immigrants to the US) between Liverpool and New York in the 1850s and 60s. She was celebrated for her great speed.
from the book From the Forecastle to the Cabin (1887) by Captain Samuel Samuels (the Dreadnought’s captain)
The song seems to be of American origin though it was no doubt modeled on similar English songs. Dean was one of many Great Lakes region singers who sang “The Dreadnaught” and it was also popular in the maritime provinces of Canada. The only version I have found from outside North America is one collected by Sam Henry from a Co. Donegal singer where the ship’s name has been changed to “The Zared” and the port of origin is “Londonderry” instead of Liverpool.
