02 Feb

Wearing of the Green

The Wearing of the Green sheet music cover

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

Dockstader Songster cover

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

The Storm at Sea

Cease rude Boreas blust’ring railer, list ye landsmen all to me,
Messmates hear a brother sailor, sing the dangers of the sea,
From bounding billows first in motion, when the distant whirlwinds rise,
To the tempest-troubled ocean, where the seas contend with skies.

Hark the boson hoarsely bawling, by top sailyards and halyards stand,
Down top gallants quick be hauling, man the top sail hand boys hand,
Now it freshens, set the braces, now the top sail sheets let go,
Luff boys luff don’t make wry faces, up the top sail nimbly clew.

Lovers who on down beds sporting, fondly locked in beauty’s arms,
Fresh enjoyments wonton courting, free from all but love’s alarms,
Round us roars the tempest louder, think what fear each mind appalls,
Harder yet it yet blows harder, now again the boson calls.

The top sail yards point to the wind boys, see all clear to reef each course,
Let the fore sail go, don’t mind boys, though the weather may prove worse,
Fore and aft the main sail sprit set, reef the mizzen see all clear,
Up and each preventer brace get, man the fore sail cheer lads cheer.

Now the dreadful thunder roaring, peal on peal continual crash,
On our heads fierce rainfall pouring, in our eyes blue lightning flash,
One wide water all around us, all above us one black sky,
Different deaths at once surround us, hark what means that dreadful cry?

“The fore mast’s gone” cries every tongue out, o’er our lee twelve feet ’bove deck,
A leak beneath the chest tree’s sprung out, call all hands to clear the wreck,
Quick the land yards cut in pieces, come, my hearts, be stout and bold,
Plum the well the leak increases, four foot water in the hold.

While o’er the ship wild waves are beating, we for wives and children mourn,
Alas, from hence there is no retreating, alas to them there is no return,
Still the leak is gaining on us, both chain pumps are choked below,
Heav’n have mercy here upon us! Only that can save us now.

O’er the lee beam lies the land boys, let the guns o’er board be thrown,
To the pumps come every hand, boys, see our mizzen mast is gone.
The leak we’ve found she cannot poor fast, we’ve lightened her a foot or more,
Up and rig a jury fore mast, she rights she rights, boys we’re off shore,

Now once more on joys we’re thinkin’, since kind fortune spared our lives,
Come the can boys lets be drinkin’, to our sweethearts and our wives.
Fill her up a bout ship wheel it, close to the lips a brimmer join,
Where’s the tempest now who feels it? Now our dangers drown in wine.

This month’s song comes from the repertoire of Reuben Waitstell Phillips (1850-1926) who sent its text to the “Old Songs That Men Have Sung” column of Adventure Magazine in March, 1924. “Old Songs” editor Robert Winslow Gordon later visited Phillips at his home in Chamberlain, Minnesota with his wax cylinder recording machine that same year but no recording of Phillips singing “The Storm at Sea” seems to have survived.

I found the above melody on a recording made in 1939 of singer John Campbell in Underhill, Vermont that is part of the (now digitized) Flanders Ballad Collection. Underhill is just east of Lake Champlain. Phillips grew up in Hopkinton, New York some 70 miles west of that lake. The text above is Phillips’ with many spelling edits (I also filled in the last half of the 7th verse using the Roundelay book mentioned below).

Most of Phillips’ songs are traceable to early 19th or 18th century balladry from England or Scotland that came to New England. “The Storm at Sea” fits this pattern. It appeared in several printed sources in England and Scotland in the 1800s. The song likely originated in the 1700s. For an early printing of the text that some scholars date to the 1780s, see page 125 of the digitized version of the book Roundelay or the New Syren on Google Books.