AS I WAS WALKIN' DOWN WEXFORD STREET

collected by Carl Sandburg

As I was walkin' down Wexford Street
Me father's house I chanc't to meet;
Me aged father stood in the dure,
An' me sister stood on the flure,
While me tender mother her hair she ture.

Sandburg's note:
This should be sung easily and casually to begin with, but in the end it is a Celtic "crying out loud." The mood or tone seems to be of that important Irish drama, "The White Headed Boy," where there is trouble for everybody with nobody to blame, or all at fault. This lilt, too, is from Mother McKinley, formerly of McKinley, Iowa, and later of Chicago.
Arr. L. R. G.

L.R.G. is Lillian Rosedale Goodman.

In Carl Sandburg's The American Songbag he has some orphan lyrics and tunes. This is one of them, appearing on page 35 under the title "As I Was Walkin' Down Wexford Street." Clearly he recognized that this verse was part of something, but didn't know what.

I discovered the connection to The Croppy Boy via an Internet search that took me to another version with an error by the transcriber, but since it is a variation, I'll post that version and those links next.

MD