Origins: Its a Long Way To Tipperary

Subject: Lyr/Chords Add: IT'S A LONG, LONG WAY TO TIPPERARY
From: chico
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 01:32 PM

  (G F° F#° D7, Em G/B Am G D7 G)
  
  G                          F°    F#°   D7   (d d# e f#)
  Up to mighty London came an Irishman one day,
  G                     G°                  Bb°      F#7  Bm Am D7
  As the streets  are paved with gold, sure ev'ryone was gay!
   G                            Bb°                     Bm   (f# g a)
  Singing songs of Piccadilly, Strand, and Leicester Square,
       B7                         A7              D7
  Till Paddy got excited, then he shouted to them there:
  
           G         (D7   G)     7     C          G  (E° D7)
  It's a long way to Tipperary, it's a long way to go,
                                        A7             D7  (a b a f# e d
  It's a long way to Tipperary to the sweetest girl I know!
    G              (g f# f)  C             7    B7   (f# f f# >  d# b)
  Goodbye Piccadilly,      farewell Leicester Square!
         G                   G°   Em      A7          D7      G
  It's a long, long way to Tipperary, but my heart's right there.
  
  Paddy wrote a letter to his Irish Molly O',
  Saying, "Should you not receive it, write and let me know!
  If I make mistakes in spelling, Molly dear, said he,
  Remember it's the pen, that's bad, don't lay the blame on me."
  
  Molly wrote a neat reply to Irish Paddy O',
  Saying, "Mike Maloney wants to marry me, and so
  Leave the Strand and Piccadilly, or you'll be to blame,
  For love has fairly drove me silly, hoping you're the same!"
  
  [WWI Verse]
  That's the wrong way to tickle Marie, that's the wrong way to kiss!
  Don't you know that over here, lad, they like it best like this!
  Hooray pour le Francais! Farewell, Angleterre!
  We didn't know the way to tickle Marie, but we learned how, over there!
  
  [1912 by Jack Judge and Harry Williams, English vaudevillian actors]/
 




	

Subject: Folklore: Its a Long Way To Tipperary
From: Leadfingers
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 03:20 AM

One Hundred years ago today Jack Judge wrote the song that so many men sang on their way to the front line in WW1 .

Subject: RE: Folklore: Its a Long Way To Tipperary
From: scouse
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 03:33 AM

So you listen to "Radio Four." as well. I do it here in "Dear Cloggieland." (Holland)

As Aye,

Phil

Subject: RE: Folklore: Its a Long Way To Tipperary
From: Mick Tems
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 03:59 AM

Bill Caddick wrote "The Writing Of Tipperary" way back in the 1970s, about the struggling music hall musician Jack Judge, who wrote in the day for a bet. Jack wrote the sequel, "It's A Long Way No Longer". which bombed.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Its a Long Way To Tipperary
From: Leadfingers
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 04:07 AM

The Writing of Tipperary is on Bill Caddick's Album 'Sunny Memories'
all the songs were inspired by a Photograph Album of Photographs
all predating WW1 , and is one of Bills better collections of songs in one place .

Subject: RE: Folklore: Its a Long Way To Tipperary
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 04:39 AM

But how far exactly? Fortunately in this day and age we have Google Maps to tell us these things. For example, should one enquire how far is it from Cromer to Tipperary? The answer can quickly be provided as: 397.386 miles (ATCF).

Subject: RE: Folklore: Its a Long Way To Tipperary
From: Mick Tems
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 04:58 AM

The Writing Of Tipperary is also on Unicorns, a double-CD of 36 new recordings of Bill's "greatest hits", plus six previously unrecorded by Bill (Folk Sound FSCD82).

Subject: RE: Folklore: Its a Long Way To Tipperary
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 05:13 AM

He thought about writing the song a little before going to bed, and then 'slept on' the idea. The next day, he arose, ate a fish breakfast; and then went to a public house (bar) called The New Market Inn, in Corporation Street, Stalybridge.


Have a read of this

L in C#
Clog dancin 25 Feb The Beech

Subject: RE: Folklore: Its a Long Way To Tipperary
From: breezy
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 05:46 AM

I asked Bill to sing it at the Windward Folk in St Albanswhere he opened for us in 2001 ish.

He did it for us, it was a treasured moment

I asked him how long it took him originally to perform it.
His reply was
'About eleven minutes but I've had managed to get it down to seven and a half since'

I first encountered this classic when I bought June Tabor's   'A Quiet Eye'

Bill also mentioned that June liked to entitle her albums with a word beginning with the letter 'A' so he wrote 'Aqaba'for her !

Women

Subject: RE: Folklore: Its a Long Way To Tipperary
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 06:50 AM

Mr Sid Calderbank, of Chorley Lancs has a fine song entitles " It's the wrong way to tickle Mary". He seemed keen to sing it but his daughter Liz, fine Clog Dancer of Lancs, and our guest, seemed keen to stop him - and she did by leaving and dragging him by the collar - it was about closing time by then

L in C#

Subject: RE: Folklore: Its a Long Way To Tipperary
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 07:01 AM

There is also an interminable 'shaggy dog' tale of a rairy spending much time evading his enemies, who eventually contrive to push him off a precipice; whereupon he exclaims the punchline: "It's a long way to tip a rairy". Anyone know how far this pleasantry goes back within the history of the song?

~M~

Subject: RE: Folklore: Its a Long Way To Tipperary
From: Charmion
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 12:59 PM

At least to the Second World War. My Dad reported that joke as circulating in Mombasa, where the old flotilla lay in 1944.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Its a Long Way To Tipperary
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 01:14 PM

Charmion ~ Thank you. That is probably about when I first heard it: I was 12 in 1944 and I think I heard it at school.

Any earlier sightings?

~M~

Subject: RE: Folklore: Its a Long Way To Tipperary
From: Mo the caller
Date: 31 Jan 12 - 08:48 AM

Not earlier, but the version I heard in the late 50's was of a pet that outgrow various homes from matchbox to pantechnicon and was eventually over Beachy Head.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Its a Long Way To Tipperary
From: Lighter
Date: 31 Jan 12 - 09:48 AM

So what about "It's the wrong way to tickle Mary"?

The American novelist John Dos Passos heard the line during World War I but didn't elaborate.