Help: Rosin The Beau

Subject: Rosin The Beau
From: Sourdough
Date: 01 Sep 99 - 02:09 AM

As I was looking through the lyrics of Soldier's Joy and came across the phrase "rosin the bow", I started wondering where the song title, "Rosin The Beau" came from. It seems as though it must have an interesting, and venerable, history. Well, with so many venerable and interesting people here, I thought I'd ask if any I&V Mudcatters could shed any light on this.

Courious Sourdough

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Subject: RE: Help: Rosin The Beau
From:
Date: 01 Sep 99 - 02:51 AM

Do Forum Search for Rosin, setting age for two years

Subject: RE: Help: Rosin The Beau
From: Sourdough
Date: 01 Sep 99 - 03:08 AM

Thanks for the lead. It makes interesting reading. The song certainly has been duplicated, twisted and reshaped for a lot of circumstances but the discussion is more about the song rather than the meaning of Rosin The Beau.

I after I read through the file in "Rosin the Bow" (no wonder I couldn't find it before) I did go to the OED and found that the phrase Rosin-the-bow was used to refer to a violinist or a fiddler. The relationship of that to the vitality of the lyric is hinted at by the OED which says that "rosin" was a euphamism for drink, I guess "Some rosin for the fiddler" was like a fiddler's dram.

It's a small thing but with just this little bit of light on the old words of the song, they seem, to me anyway, to glow lot brighter.

Sourdough

Subject: RE: Help: Rosin The Beau
From: Allan C.
Date: 01 Sep 99 - 09:19 AM

Oh, I thought this was part of the "euphemistic for sex" thread.

Subject: RE: Help: Rosin The Beau
From: Frank Howe
Date: 01 Sep 99 - 09:34 AM

This is one of my favorite tunes. I love the multiple meanings drawn from the phrase "rosin the bow" as it refers to this itinerant musician who he finds himself at the end of his life. Early on, he travels around and all call out for him to "rosin the bow" to give them a lively tune and also call out "rosin the bow" meaning buy him a drink of praise and reward. Later as drink perhaps becomes more the pleasure sought than the playing, and as hands become rusty and head a bit addled. Those in the pub may well have called out "rosin the bow" as a sarcastic suggestion to improve the playing or called out "rosin the bow" meaning get the old one a drink so he'll stop scraping on that fiddle. Still in the end he faces death with courage (and a glass!).

Subject: RE: Help: Rosin The Beau
From: paddymac
Date: 01 Sep 99 - 10:45 AM

At slight risk of thread creep, Pete Seeger called this tune the "universal folksong". It's an apt description when you think of the gazillion parodies done thru the years.

Subject: RE: Help: Rosin The Beau
From: kendall morse (don't use)
Date: 01 Sep 99 - 04:34 PM

The line .I know that the next generation will resemble Old Rosin the beau? bow? clearly, he did more than play the fiddle.

Subject: RE: Help: Rosin The Beau
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Sep 99 - 04:57 PM

From Lomax's book, Cowboy Songs & Other Frontier Ballads, first copyrighted in 1910:

This must have been a very popular song throughout the middle of the nineteenth century, for its melody was used for no fewer than four political songs between 1840 and 1875. The origin of "Old Rosin" is not clear, but it must have been English or Scottish or Irish, and it probably dates from the opening of the century.

Curiously enough, the name of the hero was generally given as "Rosin, the Bow", and it is quite possible that this was considered a descriptive title for a fiddler or some other type of minstel. But the authentic spelling is unquestionably "Beau", and there is still nothing to prove that old Rosin was anything more than popular ladies' man with alcoholic tendencies.

Subject: RE: Help: Rosin The Beau
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 01 Sep 99 - 06:45 PM

I suspect that this all started out as a bow/beau pun and went on from there.

Subject: RE: Help: Rosin The Beau
From:
Date: 01 Sep 99 - 07:01 PM

There are two copies of 1838 in the Levy sheet music collection (Mudcat's Links) plus others. Search for Rosin.

Subject: RE: Help: Rosin The Beau
From: WyoWoman
Date: 02 Sep 99 - 01:15 AM

Well, heck. I think rosinin' the beau would be a heckuva lot more fun than the bow -- depending, of course, on the beau...

ww

Subject: RE: Help: Rosin The Beau
From: WyoWoman
Date: 02 Sep 99 - 01:15 AM

And the rosin...

Subject: RE: Help: Rosin The Beau
From: EBarnacle1
Date: 17 Dec 02 - 01:04 AM

As with almost everyone who has written lyrics, I've also used Rosin the Beau, aka Men of the West, aka Acres of Clams, etc. I have often wondered whether Streets of Laredo derived from it lyrically.