07 Apr

Caroline of Edinburg Town (Laws P27)

Caroline of Edinburg Town

 

Come, all young men and maidens, come listen to my rhyme,
It is all about a nice young girl that was scarcely in her prime,
She beat the blushing roses, admired all around,
Was lovely little Caroline of Edinburg town.

Young Henry was a Highland man, a-courting her he came,
And when her parents came to know they did not like the same;
Young Henry was offended and this to her did say,
“Rise up, my lovely Caroline, and with me run away.”

Persuaded by young Henry, she put on her finest gown,
And soon was traveling on the road from Edinburg town;
She says to him, “Oh, Henry, dear, pray never on me frown,
Or you’ll break the heart of Caroline of Edinburg town.”

They had not been in London scarcely half a year
When hard-hearted Henry he proved to be severe;
Says Henry, “I’ll go to sea, your parents did on me frown,
So without delay go beg your way to Edinburg town.

The fleet is fitting out and to Spithead is dropping down,
And I will join in that fleet to fight for King and Crown;
“The gallant tar might feel the scar or in the waters drown,
But,” says she, “I never will return to Edinburg town,”

Filled with grief without relief, this maiden she did go,
Right into the wood to eat such food as on the bushes grew;
Some strangers they did pity her and more did on her frown,
And some did say what made you stray from Edinburg town?

It was on a lofty jutting cliff this maid sat down to cry,
A-watching of King Henry’s ship as they were sailing by;
She says, “Farewell, oh, Henry dear,” and plunged her body down,
And that’s what became of Caroline of Edinburg town.

A note was in her bonnet that was found along the shore,
And in the note a lock of hair and those words, “I am no more;
I am fast asleep down in the deep, the fishes are watching ’round,
What once was lovely Caroline of Edinburg town.”

This version of the well-travelled traditional song “Caroline of Edinburgh Town” was sung by Minnesota singer Michael C. Dean and printed in Dean’s 1922 songster The Flying Cloud. Franz Rickaby transcribed the above melody from Dean’s singing in 1923 at Dean’s home in Virginia, Minnesota. Dean told Rickaby that his Irish immigrant mother Mary McMahon Dean used to sing the grim (but beautiful) song to him as a lullaby. This song was one of fifteen transcriptions Rickaby made from Dean’s singing that didn’t get published in Rickaby’s Ballads and Songs of the Shanty-Boy. I was able to access it via copies of Rickaby’s song notebooks held by the Mills Music Library at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Unfortunately, unlike other songs of Dean’s, “Caroline” was not recorded when Robert Winslow Gordon made a series of wax cylinders of Dean’s singing in 1924 so we don’t know if his misspelling of “Edinburgh” was any indication of his pronunciation of the name of Scotland’s capital city.

I learned Dean’s melody and text in 2008 and sang it for the Minnesota Heritage Songbook project – a collection of old songs once sung in Minnesota. That recording (along with the full songbook) is available online at http://mnheritagesongbook.net.

My wife Norah Rendell sings this version as well and she even arranged it and recorded it with her band The Outside Track for their album “Curious Things Given Wings.” Much to my delight, Norah has also taught this Minnesota-sourced song to students at the Center for Irish Music.

25 Feb

Ye Noble Big Pine Tree

‘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.”

_______________________

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.

 

20 Jan

The Pitcher of Beer

The Pitcher of Beer

I’m a friend of the poor man wherever I roam, no matter what countryman he,
I will share in my loaf and the meat on the bone, with a gra machree welcome for thee.
Each night in the week, each week in the year, with our hearts and our conscience both clear,
We will fill up the glass for to help the time pass, and drink from the pitcher of beer.
(Gallagher repeats these last two lines here with the same melody)

The child in the cradle, the dog at the door, the fireside cheerful and bright,
The old folks at the table with plenty galore will welcome you in with delight.
Their blessings they’ll give, it’s “Long may you live, and merrily pass over each year,”
They will hand you their glass for to help the time pass, and drink from the pitcher of beer.

Oh be cheerful and merry for life’s but a day, we’ll die and leave others behind,
For to fret and to worry, to weep and to pray, when relief we can easi-lye find.
Just pull up a chair and drive away care, and that will turn sorrow to cheer,
Tell a story or two, let it be old or new, and drink from the pitcher [spoken:] of beer.

_______________________________

We are back to Beaver Island, Michigan this week with a song I transcribed from the singing of Dominick Gallagher as recorded by Ivan Walton in 1940. Gallagher (1867-1954), like many other Beaver Islanders of his generation, was the son of a man from Arranmore, County Donegal. Gallagher’s father, “Big Dominic” was himself a great singer with many songs imported from Arranmore. However, the younger Gallagher did not get this song from his father. He told Walton:

“I learned that song in the lumber woods when I was 17 years of age [ca. 1884], the first winter I left home, from an old French Canadian… …I was up in a camp called Camp Three. It was built new that fall ..up at Grand Marais on Lake Superior shores and that winter the snow was about five feet and a half on the level and I shoveled snow all winter for 16 dollars a month and put in 14 hours some days.”

As with “Barney Blake” (See Northwoods Songs, Oct. 2014), the Grand Marais mentioned is almost certainly Grand Marais, Michigan. And, like “Barney Blake,” “The Pitcher of Beer” is a song that began on the Irish music hall stage and then entered the unaccompanied tradition in the northwoods lumbercamps. The original was written by Edward Harrigan, one of the most renowned Irish songwriters of the 19th century for the 1880 play The Mulligan Guard’s Christmas… so there is a seasonal connection. The Library of Congress has a copy of a sheet music version printed the year of the play. It’s interesting to compare the original with the way the song was sung by Gallagher.