Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau

Subject: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From:
Date: 02 Apr 99 - 11:30 PM

I can't believe the database doesn't seem to have Old Rosin the Bow. Does anybody have the words? I think I can supply the tune.

Subject: RE: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 02 Apr 99 - 11:51 PM

Do a search for [rosin the beau], using the box in the above right corner. As usual, spelling is everything! Wish search engines could work with "sounds like."

Sandy

Subject: RE: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: katlaughing
Date: 02 Apr 99 - 11:52 PM

Type in "Rosin the Beau" and it comes up. Also, you might do a forum search. I seem to recall a whole thread on this.

I do not recognise the words in the DT as the ones I grew up with, but I may be wrong.

katlaughing

Subject: RE: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: katlaughing
Date: 02 Apr 99 - 11:53 PM

Ah, Sandy, just a key stroke ahead o'me!

Subject: RE: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 02 Apr 99 - 11:54 PM

Nice to know we're both on-line tonight, Kat, m'luv! It's almost like having a conversation, ain't it?

Grandpa Paton

Subject: RE: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: katlaughing
Date: 03 Apr 99 - 12:06 AM

Well, we could, if anybody would go into the chat room that that wicked boy, Max, so nicely set up for us. The last few top of the hours I've gone in, it's just been me, myself, and I!

Still and all, I'm glad ta know yer there, and what's with the "Grandpa", your picture doesn't come anywhere near to portraying your age.....hope I can look as well at your stage of the game!

Love ya'

kat

Subject: RE: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 03 Apr 99 - 12:29 AM

Kat: You said I was a keystroke ahead of you. More accurately, if I did the arithmetic right, I'm about two and a half decades ahead of you! Hence, the "Grandpa." But I've gotten a bit off subject, haven't I? Something we old geezers are often known to do. :-)

Now what did I come into this room for?

Sandy

Subject: RE: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: Alan B
Date: 03 Apr 99 - 03:01 AM

Try also
An Ancient & old Irish COndom

in the database. Same tune, funnier words
alan B

Subject: RE: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: Banjer
Date: 03 Apr 99 - 04:34 AM

If you want more words to the same tune, Lincoln and Liberty is a favorite of many Civil War reenactors.

Subject: RE: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: Night Owl
Date: 03 Apr 99 - 04:44 AM

And then there was the aging gentleman, whose preacher warned him that he should be thinking about the "hereafter". He replied "I do think about it all the time....whenever I walk into a room I ask myself....now what did I come in 'hereafter'?

Subject: RE: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From:
Date: 03 Apr 99 - 01:27 PM

Ain't Rosin spelled Resin?

I used to hear this tune when I played in an Irish show band a few years back. They were not particularly devoted to folk music -- most Irish show bands are not -- but this one had a rootsy sound.

James.

Subject: ADD Version: Rosin The Bow
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Dec 02 - 11:20 PM

I was looking for something else, and came across this version of "Rosin the Beau" in Sam Henry's Songs of the People.
The notes date the song at 10 April 1937. Alternate titles are "Gentle Maiden," "rosin the Beau," and "Rosin-a-Beau."

ROSIN THE BOW

I've travelled this wide world over,
And now to another I'll go,
For I know what good quarters are waiting
To welcome old 'Rosin the Bow.'
To welcome old 'Rosin the Bow,'
To welcome old 'Rosin the Bow,'
For I know that good quarters are waiting
To welcome old 'Rosin the Bow.'

When I'm dead and laid out on the counter,
A voice you will hear from below,
Crying out, 'Whiskey and water
To drink to old "Rosin the Bow."
To drink...

And when I am dead, I reckon
The ladies will want to, I know,
Just lift off the lid of the coffin
And look at old 'Rosin the Bow.'
And look...

Then get a full dozen stout fellows
And stand them all round in a row,
And drink out of half-gallon bottles
To the name of old 'Rosin the Bow.'
To the name...

Then get half a dozen young fellows,
And let them all staggering go,
And dig a great hole in the meadow,
And in it toss 'Rosin the Bow.'
And in it...

Then get you a couple of tombstones,
Put one at my head and my toe,
And do not fail to scratch on it
The name of old 'Rosin the Bow.'
The name ...

I feel that great tyrant approaching,
That cruel implacable foe
That spares neither age nor condition,
Not even old 'Rosin the Bow.'
Not even...

Subject: RE: Help: Rosin The Beau
From: MartinRyan
Date: 17 Dec 02 - 06:12 AM

Joe

That "Gentle Maiden" reference is to anther song to the same air.

Regards

Subject: RE: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: GUEST,rank neophyte
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 11:45 PM

I can remember two verses:

I've travelled this whole world all over
And found mighty little of wealth
And now I am done as a rover,
While I still have some of my health

I'll build be a snug little cabin
Where hot dusty winds never blow
And I'll never more go a-ramblin'
A-ramblin' old rosin the beau.

Chorus:

A ramblin old rosin the beau
A ramblin old rosin the beau
And I'll never more go a-ramblin
A-ramblin old rosin the beau

Subject: RE: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: Blackcatter
Date: 27 Apr 03 - 12:19 AM

Jofield,

That's from where the confusion of the song always come.

It is properly Rosin the Beau and as far as I know it has nothing to do with resin and bows.

Subject: Lyr Add: OLD SETTLER'S SONG / ACRES OF CLAMS
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 27 Apr 03 - 12:48 AM

One of my altime favorites to the same tune listing of

ROSINBOW

http://www.mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=4436
OLD SETTLER'S SONG or ACRES OF CLAMS

I've traveled all over this country
Prospecting and digging for gold
I've tunneled, hydraulicked and cradled
And I have been frequently sold

For each man who got rich by mining
Perceiving that hundreds grew poor
I made up my mind to try farming
The only pursuit that was sure

So, rolling my grub in my blanket
I left all my tools on the ground
I started one morning to shank it
For the country they call Puget Sound

Arriving flat broke in midwinter
I found it enveloped in fog
And covered all over with timber
Thick as hair on the back of a dog

When I looked on the prospects so gloomy
The tears trickled over my face
And I thought that my travels had brought me
To the end of the jumping-off place

I staked me a claim in the forest
And sat myself down to hard toil
For two years I chopped and I struggled
But I never got down to the soil

I tried to get out of the country
But poverty forced me to stay
Until I became an old settler
Then nothing could drive me away

And now that I'm used to the climate
I think that if a man ever found
A place to live easy and happy
That Eden is on Puget Sound

No longer the slave of ambition
I laugh at the world and its shams
As I think of my pleasant condition
Surrounded by acres of clams


Sincerely,

Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 27 Apr 03 - 12:51 AM

Missing from the DT version is the refrain:

Surrounded by acres of clams,
Surrounded by acres of clams,
As I think of my happy condition,
Surrounded by acres of clams

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 27 Apr 03 - 12:57 AM

Lots of information at Ceolas, The Fiddler's Companion. Tunes, words, etc. The Fiddler's Companion
I can't put the page directly, but click on Search the Index, type Rosin in Search, and scroll down. Apparently the tune has several names including "Old Rosin---, " Mrs. Kenny," etc.

Subject: RE: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 27 Apr 03 - 01:16 AM

The correct words to "The Old Settler," (Acres of Clams) are in the DT (mis-titled the "Old Settler's Song"). The chorus also is missing.

Chorus:
And I had been frequently sold,
And I had been frequently sold.
I'd tunneled, hydraulicked and cradled,
And I had been frequently sold.

Text first published 1902, with sheet music, by the composer, Francis D. Henry. Reproduced with music in Lingenfelter and Dwyer, "Songs of the American West," pp. 555-556. The tune, as stated by Gargoyle, is "Rosin the Beau."
I think all of this is in previous threads.

Subject: RE: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: masato sakurai
Date: 27 Apr 03 - 05:20 AM

"Sawyer's Exit" in The Sacred Harp (1860, p. 338) is the Rosin the Beau tune. The melody is in the middle staff.

~Masato

Subject: RE: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: Burke
Date: 27 Apr 03 - 01:45 PM

Masato, take at look at Help me to Sing p. 376 in the Sacred Harp. The words keep rolling in my head because we sing it much more than Sawyer's Exit.

The meter is the same, 9,8. They are both triple time with long held notes at the beginning & end of each line so they feel a lot alike. Are these major/minor variants of a basically similar tune, or am I being decived by the similar feel of it.

Sawyer's Exit, being in the 1st appendix, was first published in 1850, Help me to Sing is in the 1859 appendix.

PS, the E-sol (round note) in the 3rd measure should be d-sol. The shape is correct, the place on the staff is wrong.

Subject: Lyr Add: OLD MOLL ROE
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 27 Apr 03 - 02:38 PM

"Rosin the Beau" and "Old Moll Roe," or "Molly Monroe," all use the same tune.
Lyr. Add: OLD MOLL ROE

I met old Moll Roe in the mornin',
Her tail was all drabbled in blood.
I ask' her what was the matter,
She says she's been fucked by a stud.

I met old Moll Roe in the mornin',
Her tail was all drabled in dew,
I throwed my prick over my shoulder
An' my ballyx says how-do-ye-do?

If I had a prick like a stud horse,
And ballyx like mountains of snow,
I'd fuck all to hell an' damnation
To git to the cunt of Moll Roe.

Mr. L. K., Cyclone, MO, 1931. He heard his Irish father sing it in 1885. Known as "Lady Monroe" in Australia.
Vance Randolph, ed. G. Legman, "Roll Me in Your Arms," pp. 119-120, with music. He says the tune "Rosin the Bow" is also known as "Tarpaulin Jacket."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: Stewart
Date: 27 Apr 03 - 05:41 PM

I've always been cheerful and easy,
And scarce have I heeded a foe,
While some after money run crazy,
I merrily Rosin'd the Bow.

Cheers, S. in Seattle

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 27 Apr 03 - 06:30 PM

Verses from "Old Rosin the Beau" that appear in versions of the "Cowboy's Lament":

Wrap me up in my old stable jacket
And say a poor buffer lies low
And get six stalwart lancers to carry me
With steps mournful, sloemn and slow.

And then in the dusk of the twilight
When soft winds are whispering low
And darkening shadows are falling
Sometimes think of the buffer below.

XIII-K, From Gordon 569, reproduced in "Songs of the Cowboys," N. Howard (Jack) Thorp, added by Austin E. and Alta S. Fife. Robert W. Gordon was founder of the Archive of American Folksong, Library of Congress.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: kendall
Date: 27 Apr 03 - 06:48 PM

Buryl Ives sang one, I think it was called Tarpaulin Blanket about a dying sailor. Same tune.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 27 Apr 03 - 11:37 PM

An older version of "Tarpaulin Jacket" is in the DT. Some verses float, used in versions of "Rosin the Beau" and other songs. Other tunes used as well. Lancer, sailor, airman, cowboy have all been the poor buffer in this and other versions.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 12:21 AM

The earliest known copies, 1838, of "Rosin the Beau" are in the Levy sheet music collection. Just search for 'Rosin'.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 01:22 AM

The Burl Ives version Song in America Dual, Sloan and Pearc, 1962, p. 77 "Wrap Me Up in My Tarpaulin Jacket" while also a 3/4 waltz IS NOT the same tune as "Rosin the Beau"

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: Lyr Add: WRAP ME UP IN MY TARPAULIN JACKET
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 01:33 AM

Wrap Me Up in My Tarpaulin Jacket These verses are different than the DT's.

WRAP ME UP IN MY TARPAULIN JACKET
Easy-going Waltz ¾ time
Song in America Burl Ives, Dual, Sloan and Pearc, 1962, p. 77

Oh, had I the wings of a turtle dove, -
So high on my pinions I'd fly,
Slap! Bang! To the heart of my Polly love,-
And in her dears arms I would die.

CHORUS: Wrap me up in my tarpaulin jacket
And say a poor duffer laid low.
Send for six salty seamen to carry me
With steps mournful solemn and slow.

Oh then let them send for two holy stone –
And place then at head and at toe.
Up-on them write this – in – scrip – tion:
"Here lies a poor duffer below."

Then send for six jolly foretopmen,
And let them a-rollicking go;
And in heaping two-gallow measures
Drink the health of the duffer below.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

BTW - Max Now Works on The Schemm Team

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: masato sakurai
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 02:33 AM

Burke, thanks. On "Help Me to Sing" George Pullen Jackson wrote in Down-East Spirituals and Others (1943; Da Capo, 1975, No. 50 [pp. 69-70]:

 We are fortunate in finding numerous close and distant relatives of this text and tune [from Original Sacred Harp 376]. We must first interpret B.F. White's claim to it in the Sacred Harp as pertaining merely to his harmonic arrangement of what he must have considered an "unwritten" song. The text seems to be of American origin. The tune stems from the British Isles. In England its close relatives appear under such titles as 'Sally Gray' and 'Ratcliffe Highway'; in Scotland as the old tune 'The Mucking o' Geordie's Byre' which Robert Burns used for his 'Tam Glen'.
 Its somewhat less close melodic kindred are in England 'Th Banks of the Lea', in Wales 'Llanarmon', a hymn version, 'The Green Pool', and 'The Pretty Girl Milking her Cow'. In Ireland they are 'The Rose of the Vale', 'The Lass With the Bonny Brown Hair', and 'The Pretty Girl that Milks the Cows' which was found in the Bunting Collection of 1796.
 Some members of this tune family, appearing in four-four time, tend to merge with the 'Gilderoy' melodies which reach back at least to 1719. Those with texts in iambic meter sometimes touch the 'Babe of Bethlehem' tune family, as does 'Enquire'; and major-keyed versions of this predominantly aeolian and dorian formula approach the popular 'Old Rosin the Bow' group of tunes. So the tune above [i.e., "Help Me to Sing"] may be said to swim in the middle of our broad stream of national melody.

Other songs to the tune of "Rosin the Beau/Bow" include:

1. "The Trumpet of Freedom" ("The Home of the Free") - No. 152
2. "The Liberty Ball" - No. 166
3. "The True Spirit" - No. 287
(In Vicki L. Eaklor, American Antislavery Songs, Greenwood, 1988)

4. "Little Vanity"
5. "Old Tippecanoe"
6. "Two Dollars a Day and Roast Beef"
7. "Lincoln and Liberty"
8. "Then It's Irishmen, What Are You Doing?"
9. "Straight-Out Democrat"
10. "Tippecanoe and Morton Too"
11. "Grandfather's Hat"
12. "The Hayseed"
(In Irwin Silber, Songs America Voted By, Stackpole Books, 1971)

13. "He's the Man for Me"
(In Richard A. Dwyer and Richard E. Lingenfelter, The Songs of the Gold Rush, University of California Press, 1965)

14. "The Agrarian Ball"
(In Philip S. Foner, American Labor Songs of the Nineteenth Century, University of Illinois Press, 1975)

15. "The Mill-Boy of the Slashes"
16. "Old Hal o' the West"
17. (= 7.) "Lincoln and Liberty"
(In Sinmund Spaeth, Read 'Em and Weep, Doubleday, 1927)

18. "Sherman's March to the Sea"
(In John Anthony Scott, The Ballad of America, Bantam, 1966)

19. Freemen, rally! (New York, New York: H. De Marsan, n.d.)
20. I cannot support him! Can you? (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: James D. Gay, 1864)
21. Brownell, the gallant Zouave (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: J. H. Johnson. n.d.)
(At America Singing: Nineteenth-Century Song Sheets)

~Masato

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: ooh-aah
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 03:13 AM

A.L Lloyd does a lovely version of 'Rosin the Beau' on his 1961 album 'English Drinking Songs', recorded in a pub with the wonderful name of 'The Eel's Foot'.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: masato sakurai
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 05:08 AM

Correction in my post just above:

4. "Little Vanny"

Addition:

22. "Democratic Ode"
(In Vera Brodsky Lawrence, Music for Patriots, Politicians, and Presidents, Macmillan, 1975)

~Masato

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 04:15 PM

Musicologists often disagree on the identities of tunes. The tune for Burns' "Tam Glen" is generally agreed to be a version of "My Name is old Hewson the Cobler". Burns friend Robert Riddell misidentified the tune as "Mall Roe (Irish)".

These two tunes and "Old Rosin the Beau" are all somewhat similar. Perhaps this explains why Moll Roe above got sung to "Old Rosin the Beau" instead of "Moll Roe in the morning".

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: Amos
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 04:24 PM

A verse I learned long ago -- I can't remnember whence -- that is not in the DT version:

I live for the good of my country
And my sons are all growing low
But I hope that the next generation
Will resemble old Rosin the Beau.

A

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 06:20 PM

"Wrap Me Up In My Tarpaulin Jacket," in Sandburg's The American Songbag, is different, but reminiscent, of "Rosin the Beau."
The tarpaulin jacket got around, appearing in versions of St. James-Streets of Laredo.
Singers often varied tunes to suit their voices or mood.

Subject: Lyr Add: OL' ROISIN LE BEAU (from Bob Dylan)
From: GUEST,Willem Lindeboom / The Netherlands
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 07:09 PM

OL' ROISIN LE BEAU
(Incomplete)
Traditional / Arranged by Bob Dylan

Recorded: The Big Pink, West Saugerties - 1967
By Bob Dylan & The Band
Release: The Genuine Basement Tapes - Volume 5 (bootleg)

I traveled all over this world
And now to another I'll go
An' I know I should find good quarters
To wait an' welcome Le Beau.
Welcome ol' Roisin Le Beau
To welcome ol' Roisin Le Beau
I know how good quarters are waitin'
For to welcome ol' Roisin Le Beau.

When I'm dead an' laid out on the counter
A voice you will hear from below
Say, "Send out a hogshead of whiskey
To drink with ol' Roisin Le Beau."
To drink with ol' Roisin Le Beau
To drink with ol' Roisin Le Beau
Say, "Send out a hogshead of whiskey
To drink with ol' Roisin Le Beau."

Then get you half a dozen smart fellows
Let them all staggerin' go
An' dig a great hole in the meadow
An' in it put Roisin Le Beau
An' in it put Roisin Le Beau
An' in it put Roisin Le Beau
Go dig you a hole in the meadow
An' in it put Roisin Le Beau.

An' get you a half dozen barrels
Put water at me head an' me toes
With a diamond ring scratch in upon it
With the name of ol' Roisin Le Beau.
With the name of ol' Roisin Le Beau
With the name of ol' Roisin Le Beau
With a diamond ring scratch in upon it
With the name of ol' Roisin Le Beau.

I hear that old tyrant approachin'
That cruel d.........?
An' I lift up me glass in his honor
Take a drink with ol' Roisin Le Beau.
Take a drink with ol' Roisin Le Beau
Take a drink with ol' Roisin Le Beau
An' I lift up my glass in his honor
Take a drink with ol' Roisin Le Beau.

Converted from all caps. --JoeClone, 1-May-03.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 01:23 AM

Mr. Q. -

Sincerely sorry, but aside from 3/4 time the tunes are NOT similar based on the Ive's book cited. First four bars. Rosin goes UP and Tarpalin DOWN

ie. both placed in key of C L:1/8

"Rosin the Bow" G2/C2C2C2/E3D2DC2/E2g4

"Tarpaulin" g2/e2e2e2/f2g2f2/efG4

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 01:29 AM

WHOOPS - CAPS came off on Tarpaulin Tune.

Mr. Q. -

Sincerely sorry, but aside from 3/4 time the tunes are NOT similar based on the Ive's book cited. First four bars. Rosin goes UP and Tarpalin DOWN


ie. both placed in key of C L:1/8


"Rosin the Bow" G2/C2C2C2/E3D2DC2/E2g4


"Tarpaulin" G2/E2E2E2/F2G2F2/EFG4


Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 06:54 AM

Wrap Me Up in My Tarpaulin Jacket in Sandburg is similar to Old Rosin the Beau in Randolph, vol. 4, Ozark Folk Songs. In turn this is similar to Old Moll Roe in Randolph ed. Legman in Roll Me in Your Arms. How similar is similar and where do you cut?

First line:
I live for the good of the nation (ending high)- Randolph, Rosin...
Wrap me up in my tarpaulin jacket (rising, but not as high)- Sandburg, Tarpaulin Jacket.
I met old Moll Roe in the mornin' (ending high)- Randolph-Legman.

2nd line:
My sons they are all growing low (ending low)- Randolph, Rosin.
And say a poor buffer lies low, lies low (ending low)- Sandburg, Tarpaulin
Her tail was all drabbled in blood (ending low)- R-L

3-4 lines:
Third lines end high, 4th lines start high, then drop low in all three songs.

Haven't seen Ives. Randolph-Legman, commenting on Old Moll Roe, says "Tune identified as "Tarpaulin Jacket" or "Rosin the Beau" by J. S. Manifold."
Music for "The Old Settler," first two lines, is similar to Sandburg's Tarpaulin Jacket. It is identified as "Rosin the Beau." (Lingenfelter and Dwyer).

Where do you make the cut? Sounds to me like some do and some don't separate the tunes. How much variance is "allowed"?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 11:17 AM

I've travelled this wide world over
And now to another I'll go
For I know that good quarters are waiting
To welcome old Rosin the Bow
Giok

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: masato sakurai
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 11:29 AM

Editions at Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads are:

rosin the beau [title]

rosin the beau. followed by encore verses [title]

rosin the bow [tune]

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 04:51 PM

Yes Masato that 1st version is the one I learned.
Thank-you.....Giok

Subject: Lyr Add: ROSIN, THE BEAU (from Bodleian)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 01 May 03 - 10:49 PM

Wow! That Bodleian is a great resource!

Transcribed by me from the broadside image at Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads catalog # Johnson d.1773(p. 120v)

ROSIN, THE BEAU.

I have travelled this wide world over,
And now to another I'll go;
I know that good quarters are waiting,
To welcome old Rosin, the beau.
    To welcome old Rosin, the beau,
    To welcome old Rosin, the beau,
    I know that good quarters are waiting,
    To welcome old Rosin, the beau.

When I'm dead and laid out on the counter,
A voice you will hear from below,
Singing out whiskey and water
To drink to old Rosin, the beau.
    To drink, &c.

And when I am dead, I reckon
The ladies will all want to know--
Just lift the lid off the coffin,
And look at old Rosin, the beau.
    And look, &c.

You must get some dozen good fellows,
And stand them all round in a row,
And drink out of half gallon bottles,
To the name of old Rosin, the beau.
    To the name, &c.

Get four or five jovial young fellows,
And let them all staggering go
And dig a deep hole in the meadow,
And in it toss Rosin, the beau.
    And in it, &c.

Then get you a couple of tombstones,
Place one at my head and my toe;
And do not fail to scratch on it
The name of old Rosin, the beau.
    The name, &c.

I feel the grim tyrant approaching,
That cruel implacable foe,
Who spares neither age nor condition,
Nor even old Rosin, the beau.
    Nor even, &c.

Subject: Lyr Add: ROSIN THE BEAU
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 01 May 03 - 11:25 PM

All of the items listed under "rosin" in the Bodleian Library seem to be mid-19th century or later. I was amused by this one, printed in London, but obviously based on an American parody. Harding B11 (3340).

Lyr. Add: ROSIN THE BEAU

I'm a Yankey boy seeking my fortin,
I knows where for fodder to go,
And as I've just began my promotion
I'll tip you Rosin the Beau,
I'll tip you old Rosin the Beau, oh,oh,
I'll tip you old Rosin the Beau,
And I'll show you how I shall keep rising
To the tune of old Rosin the Beau.

Of a bank then I'll be a director,
While my paper shall be all the go,
And if there's a run for the specie
I'll tip 'em old Rosin the Beau,
I'll tip 'em old Rosin the Beau, oh, oh,
I'll tip 'em old Rosin the Beau,
And I'll show you how I shall keep rising
To the tune of old Rosin the Beau.

For the president's chair nominated
Like a rooster I'll jump up and crow,
And when Congress is waiting my message
I'll tip 'em old Rosin the Beau,
I'll tip 'em old Rosin the Beau,
I'll tip 'em old Rosin the beau,
The ditty will please every party
As they all sing old Rosin the Beau.

Then I'll live like a jolly old trojan
While the wine and the whisky shall flow
For to play a good tune on life's fiddle
We should now and then Rosin the Beau,
Now and then Rosin the Peau (sic), oh, oh,
We should now and then Rosin the Beau
'Tis but giving a help to old nater
When we now and then Rosin the Beau.

Encore verses (4) are given:
Then I'll slick myself out in my fixins,
And courting a girl I will go,
I'll buss her as loud as a musket,
And tip her old Rosin the Beau,
I'll tip her old Rosin the Beau, oh, oh,
I'll teach my whole dozen of babbies
To chirrup old Rosin the Beau.

Next to a volunteer's company captain,
If ever I'm fighting the foe,
I'll sing out, make ready - present
And tip 'em old Rosin the Beau,
I'll tip 'em old Rosin the Beau, oh, oh,
My band shall march home from the battle
All playing old Rosin the Beau.

Of my State Legislature then member
With eloquence how I shall glow,
And should that fail to carry my measure
I'll tip 'em old Rosin the Beau,
I'll tip 'em old Rosin the Beau, oh, oh,
Till the governor, senate, and member
All chorus old Rosin the Beau.

An Ambassador next sent to London,
A smart go ahead Pleuipo,
Should they touch on reputation,
I'll tip 'em old Rosin the Beau,
I'll tip 'em old Rosin the Beau, oh, oh,
They'll cancel our bonds in a jiffy
As I sing them old Rosin the Beau.

Subject: Lyr/Chords Add: ROSIN THE BOW
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 02 May 03 - 05:35 AM

This is the arrangement that I sing. I compiled it from several different versions and added some of my own wording.
The song is PD and I would never claim copyright on my version so feel free to use it. However what would piss me off is to see anyone else put a copyright mark on this. :-}
I suppose that by posting this it at least puts a date on it.
Slainte,
Sandy

ROSIN THE BOW

I (D) traveled this whole world all over and soon to another I'll (G) go
I (D) know that good quarters are waiting (G) to (D) welcome old (A7) Rosin The (D)Bow
To welcome old Rosin The (A7)Bow-o-o; To welcome old Rosin The (D)Bow
I know that good quarters are waiting (G) to (D) welcome old (A7) Rosin The (D) Bow

And when I'm laid out in my coffin, the people all making a show
Then send down a hogshead of whiskey to drink to old Rosin The Bow
To drink to old rosin the Bow-o-o; To drink to old Rosin the Bow
Just send down a hogshead of whiskey to drink to old Rosin The Bow

Then pick me out six trusty fellows and let them all stand in a row
And dig a big hole in the meadow and in it toss Rosin The Bow
And in it toss Rosin the Bow-o-o; And in it toss Rosin The Bow
Just dig a big hole in the meadow and in it toss Rosin The Bow

Then take down my two little brown jugs; place on at my head and my toe
And do not forget to scratch on them the name of old Rosin the Bow
The name of old Rosin The Bow-o-o; The name of old Rosin The bow
Do not forget to scratch on them the name of old Rosin the bow

As we stood 'round that spot in the meadow; A voice we all heard from below
Saying sprinkle some whiskey and water on the grave of old Rosin The Bow
The grave of old Rosin The Bow-o-o; The grave of old Rosin The Bow
Just sprinkle some whiskey and water on the grave of old Rosin The Bow

As the shadows of evening grew darker and the sun in the west sinking low
We drank the last drop in the bottle to the memory of Rosin The Bow
To the memory of Rosin The Bow-o-o; The memory of Rosin The Bow
We drank the last drop from the bottle to the memory of Rosin The Bow

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: masato sakurai
Date: 02 May 03 - 10:19 AM

Two folk versions:

Rosin and Beau, As sung by Ollie Gilbert, Mountain View, Arkansas on October 26, 1971 (The Max Hunter Collection)

ROSIN THE BOW, Sung by: Mrs. E.P.J. Garrott; Recorded in Batesville, AR, 7/18/52 (The Wolf Collection)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 02 May 03 - 11:51 AM

Sorry but I made an error on the chords. The last two lines should be:

To welcome old (A7) Rosin The (D)Bow-o-o; To welcome old Rosin The (G)Bow
I (D) know that good quarters are waiting (G) to (D) welcome old (A7) Rosin The (D) Bow
   
          Sandy

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: GUEST,Marq
Date: 03 Aug 05 - 07:30 PM

Subject: Lyr Add: ROSIN THE BOW
From: GEST
Date: 04 Aug 05 - 11:40 AM

Newfoundland's Sharecropper Trio did a rousing 2003 variant in which Rosin the Bow is apparently the name of the singer.

Rosin The Bow

When I'm dead and laid out on the counter,
A voice you will hear from below;
Sayin' send down a hogshead of whiskey,
To drink with old Rosin the Bow.

To drink with old Rosin the Bow-o,
To drink with old Rosin the Bow;
Sayin' send down a hogshead of whiskey,
To drink with old Rosin the Bow.

And get ye a half dozen stout fellows,
And line them all up in a row;
Let them drink out of half gallon bottles,
To the memory of Rosin the Bow.

To the memory of Rosin the Bow-o,
To the memory of Rosin the Bow;
Let them drink out of half gallon bottles,
To the memory of Rosin the Bow.

And get this half dozen stout fellows,
And let them all stagger and go;
And dig a great hole in the meadow,
And in it put Rosin the Bow.

And in it put Rosin the Bow-o,
And in it put Rosin the Bow;
And dig a great hole in the meadow,
And in it put Rosin the Bow.

And get ye a couple of bottles,
Put one at me head and me toe;
With a diamond ring scratched upon them,
The name of old Rosin the Bow.

The name of old Rosin the Bow-o,
The name of old Rosin the Bow;
With a diamond ring scratched upon them,
The name of old Rosin the Bow.

I feel that old tyrant approaching,
That cruel, remorseless old foe;
And I lift up me glass in his honour,
Take a drink with old Rosin the Bow.

Take a drink with old Rosin the Bow-o,
Take a drink with old Rosin the Bow;
And I lift up me glass in his honour,
Take a drink with old Rosin the Bow.

[spoken] Let's hear ya now!

Take a drink with old Rosin the Bow-o,
Take a drink with old Rosin the Bow;
And I lift up me glass in his honour,
Take a drink with old Rosin the Bow.

####.... Variant of a traditional. Arr by the Sharecroppers (Home, Boys! © 2003 John Harvey Newman Publishing SOCAN) ....####

Liner note: Here's a great old tune that tells a fine story of everyone raising a glass even after you're dead.

From: GEST Songs of Newfoundland and Labrador

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: R. Padgett
Date: 04 Aug 05 - 12:39 PM

Check out 'Walter Pardon' on Google ~ specifically 'Put a bit of Powder on it Father'

CD 2 set of words makes it clear that the song is being sung from a personal point of view

Old Rosin the Bow

Ray

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anybody know 'Old Rosin the Bow'?
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 05 Sep 10 - 09:54 AM

I first learned the tune as a song at school in the late 80's, as an australian folk song 'bottany bay', which I think is the same tune as rosin the bow, just a faster more jig like tempo.

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Lighter
Date: 17 Sep 19 - 07:00 PM

Re the late, great Frank Taplin ("Q")'s report on "Old Moll Roe" above (2003), Alan Lomax recorded a stanza and refrain under the title "I Met Miss Monroe in the Morning" from a lumberjack at Round Lake, Mich., in 1938:

https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1939007_afs02322b/

The tune he uses is neither "Rosin the Beau" or "Tarpaulin Jacket." It's closer, in fact, to that associated with "Four Old Whores from Baltimore."

Rudyard Kipling, in The Light That Failed (1891):

'What shall I sing?' said [Dick], turning in the chair.
'Moll Roe in the morning,' said Torpenhow, at a venture.
'No,' said Dick, sharply....The old chanty whereof he, among a very few, possessed all the words, was not a pretty one, but Dick had heard it many times before, without wincing."

Kipling also wrote (in a letter,) "“The noble tune of ‘I met Moll Roe in the morning’. The original words thereof are long-shore bawd pure and simple but the air is a cyclone as I once heard it. There’s a hymn tune that fits it as well and there are about twenty tunes to Moll Roe."

It must have been widely known among men. There's a stanza in the American "Immortalia" (1927).

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Lighter
Date: 17 Sep 19 - 07:09 PM

As early as 1797 (long before the known popularity of "Rosin the Beau"), a writer made reference to "that highly obscene and ridiculous song, beginning with,

    I met Moll Roe in the morning,
    Her tail it was draggled with dew, &c.

Don't you hate those pesky "&c.'s"?

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: meself
Date: 17 Sep 19 - 08:54 PM

Has anyone ever actually been named "Rosin"? Just wondering.

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 18 Sep 19 - 07:50 AM

The other week somebody tried to convince me that the song was actually about a girl called Roisin (pronounced Rosheen) and the bow was 'beax' French for beautiful. But it would be 'belle' for a female. Roisin means Rose, apparently.

The word is said to have been used as a symbol for Ireland as a way of singing 'outlawed' patriotic songs. The rose symbolised Ireland.

But how much truth there is in all this I do not know.

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 18 Sep 19 - 07:51 AM

Sorry beau not beax

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Lighter
Date: 18 Sep 19 - 08:44 AM

Everything becomes an allegory when you think hard enough about it....

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Billy Weeks
Date: 22 Sep 19 - 12:35 PM

Old Rosin the Beau may have had an earlier life and it certainly passed into oral tradition, but it was published in the UK in 1844 as a theatre song in a play called ‘the Belle of the Hotel’. The sheet music shows it as written by actor and playwright, J B Buckstone, and composed by Edward Fitzwilliam Jr. The cover has a portrait of the singer, Mrs Fanny Fitzwilliam. She was an accomplished actress who was also well known for singing ‘in character’, anticipating the style of music hall singers of the following decades. I hesitate to claim this as the first appearance of the song in print, but it is certainly a pretty early showing. Some of the earliest music hall songs in the 1850s (for example ‘Villikens’) had had a previous life in the regular theatre.

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Sep 19 - 01:55 PM

Francis C. Sheridan 's diary (published as "Galveston Island," ed. W. W. Pratt, Austin: U.T. Press, 1954) identifies "Rosin the Beau" as a new song, of US origin though known in England, and wildly popular in Louisiana & Texas in 1842 (p. 91).

Pratt even supplies an illustration of the sheet music of "Old Rosin the Bow!" [sic] depicting a chubby fiddler taking a bow (with his bow).

An anonymous "Old Rosin the Beau: Favourite Comic Song, " arranged by J. C. Beckell, was published in Philadelphia "c1838."

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Sep 19 - 05:54 PM

I've got copies of the Levy site American ones, Jon, but John could you please send me a copy of the 1844 sheet music? Love to Val.

There was a predecessor of RTB from the mid 18th century called The Brisk Fellow (a.k.a.The Rakish Fellow in oral tradition and later printings, Roud 829). It also appears to be the predecessor of the Tarpaulin Jacket. Here's the 5th stanza.

I'll have none but sailors to carry me,
Let them be all damnable drunk,
And as they go along for to bury me,
May they fall down with my trunk;
Let there be no sighing and sobbing,
But one single favour I crave,
take me up in my tarpaulin Jacket,
And fiddle and dance to my grave.

Last st refers to Admiral Hawke and was obviously written when Hawke was still an admiral and fighting sea battles.

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Sep 19 - 07:22 PM

Steve, would you post that 18th century text?

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 23 Sep 19 - 04:23 AM

Whether or not "Rosin" (as distinct from Roisin, Little Rose) was ever someone's name, the phrase "rosin the bow" makes perfect sense (and despite what someone said way up thread, what a string player uses is rosin, not resin). I'm inclined to regard "Rosin the beau" as a pun. I can imagine a fiddler who is a bit of a character being heard to mutter "I need to rosin the bow" so often that "rosin the bow/beau" became his nickname.

Not that this tells us anything about when, where or by whom the song was first made.

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 23 Sep 19 - 12:59 PM

Hi Jon,
John has just sent me a copy of his sheet music which is just a song that mentions them singing 'Rosin the Beau'. It has the same title and is set in NY but is obviously based on an earlier song. My gut feeling says all of these 1838 onwards pieces are very likely based on an earlier RTB, be it British (Irish) or American.

The other piece to follow. The 1838 again is obviously a new version of an older song.

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 23 Sep 19 - 01:16 PM

The Lover's Magazine; or Cupid's Decoy, printed at Aldermary Churchyard
c1760

The Brisk Fellow

I am a jolly brisk fellow,
delight in all manner of sport,
And when I'm in liquor I'm mellow,
The girls I do naturly court;
But love has surrounded my passion,
And put such thoughts in my head,
Is this not a very sad story,
that love should strike a man dead.

I have been in stormy weather,
I have been in heat and cold,
I've been with fellows that ventur'd,
Their lives boys for money and gold;
But now the wars they are over,
And I am safe moor'd on the shore,
The de'il may have me for ever,
If e'er I weigh anchor any more.

Here's to the girl that will love me,
And lie with me every night,
That will frisk it away with a fiddle,
A country dance or hornpipe.
Let the weakest not go with the strongest,
But let them be equally yok'd,
For the strongest may last out the longest,
Here's a jacket that values no strokes.

Here's to my friends and acquaintance;
When death upon me does come,
Let them behave in their station,
And send me a cask of good rum;
Let it be good royal stingo,
With full three barrels of beer;
To make my friends the more welcome,
To meet me at Tarry down fair.

I'll have none but sailors to carry me,
Let them be all damnable drunk,
And as they go along for to bury me,
May they fall down with my trunk;
Let there be no sighing and sobbing,
But one single favour I crave,
take me up in my tarpaulin Jacket,
And fiddle and dance to my grave.

Here's to the youth on the throne,
And send him long for to reign,
And likewise to Admiral Hawke,
And every true heart on the main.
Come tip us the other can boys,
Of liquor we have great store;
The De'il may have me for ever,
If e'er I weigh anchor any more.

The 'youth on the throne' should also help to date it. I'll check it out.

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 23 Sep 19 - 01:26 PM

Bang on date. George III was 22 when he came to the throne in 1760. The wish for a long reign was certainly fulfilled!

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Lighter
Date: 23 Sep 19 - 01:55 PM

Thanks, Steve. (A search of ECCO for the phrase "I am a jolly brisk fellow" went nowhere.)

With numerous 19th century printings, I fully agree that it's the forebear of both "RTB" and "TJ."

If "RTB" was already called a "Favourite" in 1838, it's likely to be somewhat older.

Unless "Favourite" was just a sales ploy.

The 1838 text seem not to be viewable on line.

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 23 Sep 19 - 02:28 PM

I have another copy also printed at Aldermary Churchyard, in the Choice Spirits Delight (23 songs) ref. BL 11621 e 2 (3) song number 10, but here the title is given as 'The Jolly Brisk Fellow'. I'm going off to look at the shorter later printings to see how they differ. Will report back.

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: weerover
Date: 23 Sep 19 - 03:55 PM

Rosin is a resin.

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 23 Sep 19 - 04:42 PM

A little irony before I give further info, my grandmother can be heard singing RTB on the BL Sound Archive website. Her name is Annie Sykes. In Britain the song is seen as more of a 'community song' than a traditional folk song because it was so well-known, and so I hadn't taken much notice of her singing it, to my shame.

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 23 Sep 19 - 04:50 PM

The printed versions of The Rakish Young Fellow can be traced as they move about the country by some of the alterations here and there. After what is probably the London original of about 1760, it seems to have gone up to York, then Newcastle and then Edinburgh, before returning back to London where it was printed by both Catnach and Pitts and their successors in very close versions. This is a pattern that can be found in other ballads of the mid 18th century that continued to be printed into the 19th when they become standardised in a shorter form. It is usually, but not always, this standard form that goes into oral tradition, as one would expect, to be collected at the end of the century.

I will look at the oral versions soon and see if this in fact the case with this song.

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 26 Sep 19 - 10:54 AM

Some more observations. Clearly the usual tune for The Rakish Young Fellow (Tarpaulin Jacket) and the well-known standard tune for ORTB are related. Both are quite simple, though ORTB rather more theatrical and with a greater compass. TJ's tune is usually quite plaintive and slow, more serious, and ORTB much more robust. If RYF did inspire ORTB then the latter might be considered a burlesque of the former. From at least 1838 onwards, as a theatrical piece, various versions of ORTB were extremely popular and constantly parodied into new versions. What for now I'll call the British version was printed almost verbatim by English printers of about the same period, the 1840s, mainly by Successors to the Pitts/Catnach dynasties, but not apparently by Pitts or Catnach themselves. I think it a fair conclusion that ORTB probably did not exist in its standard form during the Pitts-Catnach era up to about 1835.
The language of all versions I've seen is generally, though not wholly, of the theatre of the time, i.e., a certain sophistication, not normally found on street lit or in oral tradition of the period.
e.g., 'That cruel implacable foe'.

The 2 identical versions on the Lester Levy site with no images available start off with the standard British first line but must deviate quite quickly as the subjects ascribed to it on the site do not completely tally with the standard version, although they appear to have the funeral and burial verses in some form.

The Southern Ballad version on Levy which is available has a new first verse but all of the other verses appear somewhere in the 1848 Forget-me-Not Songster version from America reprinted by Louise Pound in American Ballads and Songs.

This American version has a lot in common with the British version but has 3 extra verses and some other verses are shunted around.

What we need to draw any useful conclusions is information prior to 1838, mentions in magazines and newspapers perhaps. The song appears in several musicals in one form or another on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1840s.

On one of the pieces of sheet music the air (the standard one) is described as a 'Tippecanoe' air. Tippecanoe is in Indiana and I'm not sure what they mean by this.

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Lighter
Date: 26 Sep 19 - 11:03 AM

I assumed "Tippecanoe" referred to this (semi-famous), but it looks as though the tune is different and the words don't scan :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tippecanoe_and_Tyler_Too

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 26 Sep 19 - 02:00 PM

John's sheet music is note for note the standard ORTB. However if it was a big election issue c1840 then there are usually several songs about it.

Another point worth mentioning, the Southern Ballad version surely must be the source for the American songster version as it has the same verses in the same order but in the songster version some of the pairs of verses have been shunted into one, a typical shortening in broadside fashion.

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 26 Sep 19 - 02:09 PM

Jon, have you any idea what the text to the 2 identical Levy pieces of sheet music look like? bridges, boating etc. As they are the earliest dated copies we have they would be useful, even to just compare the funeral/burial/wake verses.

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Lighter
Date: 27 Sep 19 - 01:23 PM

Steve, I haven't been able to call up the"Levy" lyrics from anywhere.

But I did email you something of interest, which may or may not be worth summarizing here.

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Lighter
Date: 27 Sep 19 - 05:28 PM

Professor G. C. Broadhead gave Belden two versions in 1910. One was the version beginning "I live for the good of my nation." The second, below, Broadhead recalled that he had heard “as long ago as 1839," though he thought it might be the younger of the two.

Broadhead, a former Missouri State Geologist, was born in Albemarle Co., Va., 1827. and died in 1912. The family moved to Missouri i n 1836.


Come, fellows, and pledge me a bumper
And drink me one toast ere we go;
Fill high, let the wine cup now sparkle,
And drink to old Rosin the Bow.

Chorus:
And drink to old Rosin the Bow,
And drink to old Rosin the Bow,
Fill high, let the wine cup now sparkle,
And drink to old Rosin the Bow.

A fiddler he was of renown,
Who traveled through sunshine and snow;
And slowly and dull went the town
When absent old Rosin the Bow.

Soft eyes, soft speeches and glances
Belong to a lover, you know,
But nothing its pleasure enhances
Like the notes of old Rosin the Bow,
    Like the notes of old Rosin the Bow.

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Lighter
Date: 27 Sep 19 - 05:44 PM

Steve, I find the following among some notes from about 15 years ago:

"Earliest known pub. appears to be 'Old Rosin the Beau: Comic Song,' arr. by J. C. Beckell (Philadelphia : Osbourn’s Music Saloon, 1838), in Levy Sheet Music Collection (Box 10, Item 24) [I printed a copy]; text & tune essentially Lloyd version."

So the Levy version was once online. What happened to it?

I must have my copy somewhere.

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 30 Sep 19 - 02:55 PM

Neither of the 2 copies were there when I started printing them off about 10 years ago.

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 30 Sep 19 - 04:51 PM

I've now checked all of the versions I have available to me and as I suspected, apart from the odd fragmentary version, they are all almost verbatim one of 3 versions. In other words there is very little variation once you get past the 3 c1838 published versions. All British oral versions follow the standard broadside almost verbatim and American oral versions follow either the 'Southern' version, the songster version, or indeed the British version, right down to the use of the word 'implacable'(one version transposing to 'impeccable').

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 01 Oct 19 - 02:02 PM

Another point worth making about the Beckell version is that if the list of subject matter is anything to go by this version does not relate to any later versions other than with the funeral verses. It obviously contained much matter not found elsewhere.

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Oct 22 - 11:50 AM

When Ifirst had my own band with my friend Martin I played the accordion and he was the main singer, it was called Braveheart. He said that the writer of this song was by a Glasgow born singer named Matt McGinn... when I look at this song myself I know the words that were written in 1877 by Francis D. Henry whereas McGinns' were from 1966. The song was about a pub in Glasgow which was where he first heard it sung.This is great information and I can use it to do a review myself, thanks - Joe

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Oct 22 - 03:10 PM

I was looking through 1880's newspapers which have some discussion of the origins of Rosin the Beau, and the tune it is set to. "I lo'e nae a laddie butane" was being cited as the melody used.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWeqvAI1zTs

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Mar 23 - 06:24 PM

The Beckell version of 1838 has reappeared:


https://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/collection/026/073


Another text, anonymous, undated but seemingly of the same period, begins "I live for the good of my Nation." It's described as "A Southern Ballad":


https://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/collection/042/101

On Jan. 18, 1838, the "Ripley [Miss.] Transcript" published a text of 9 four-line stanzas much like Beckell's but with some notable differences. Unlike Beckell's, this version features "Rosin the Bow," not "Beau."

It would seem to be the earliest datable text.

Various U.S. newspapers of the late 19th C. averred that the tune was an "old Methodist hymn tune," but nobody seemed able to recall what it was called (assuming it existed at all).

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Rex
Date: 13 Mar 23 - 03:59 PM

Thank'ee Lighter for pointing this out. It is good to see these gems.

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Lighter
Date: 13 Mar 23 - 04:18 PM

My pleasure.

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Rex
Date: 13 Mar 23 - 05:59 PM

Seeing this revered song in its original trappings has been a long held desire.

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Haruo
Date: 17 Mar 23 - 04:17 PM

Sawyer's Exit (338 in the 1991 Denson Sacred Harp) was mentioned a couple times twenty years ago, but the words were not given. They are

How bright is the day when the Christian
Receives the sweet message to come,
To rise to the mansions of glory,
And be there forever at home.

The angels stand ready and waiting,
The moment the spirit is gone,
To carry it upward to heaven,
And welcome it safely home.

The saints that have gone up before us,
All raise a new shout as we come,
And sing hallelujah the louder
To welcome the travelers home.

We sang it at my wife Paula's memorial service. The score, robotic teachers, and a couple of YouTube links are available at the Sacred Harp Bremen site: https://sacredharpbremen.org/338-sawyers-exit/

The first and second verses are set to a different tune ("Rise to the Mansions of Glory" by W. M. Cooper) in the Cooper Sacred Harp, also at page 338.

Subject: RE: Origins: Old Rosin the Bow / Rosin the Beau
From: Lighter
Date: 17 Mar 23 - 04:45 PM

Thanks for the ID, Haruo. The tune of "Sawyer's Exit" seems to have been arranged in 1850 - after a dozen years of Rosin the Bow's popularity.

https://fasola.org/indexes/1991/?p=338