Lyr Add: John White

Subject: Lyr Add: John White^^
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 04 Apr 00 - 11:37 AM

JOHN WHITE

Come all you tender hearted Christians,
Pray give attention while I unfold;
A circumstance to you I'll mention,
Enough to make your blood run cold.

John White was born of Irish parents,
Brought up and reared in the town of Leeds;
Where he enlisted there as a soldier,
His mother's heart for him did sorely bleed.

For only striking a colour-sergeant,
He fell a victim, though not in war,
And sentenced was to three hundred lashes;
The bugle-horns did sound alarm.

When this clever young man, all cut and mangled,
Had fell quite lifeless to the ground,
The cries and weeping of all beholders;
Sad grief and anguish they did abound.

The mother weeping, the father distracted
To see their son all cut and scarred;
Each one lamenting and still condoling
The afflicted parents of this bold hussar.

Come, sign and send a long petition
To England's Queen, the crowned head of wars;
Pray never let a gallant soldier
Die like John White of the 7th Hussars.

Another song collected by the Hammond brothers from Mrs. Russell of Upwey in Dorset, in December 1907. (Hammond D.899.)  Published in Frank Rurslow's The Wanton Seed (1968).

Purslow writes:

"...Mrs. Russell...used variants of the same tune for several other songs.  I have been unable to discover anything about the occurence described in this song although it no doubt recorded an actual event.  "Protest" songs of this type are rare birds in the Southern counties -even Joseph Arch's songs never seem to have "caught on"- and I assume it started life further north and was carried down to Dorset by an itinerant navvy or railway worker."

See also this thread.

Midis of Mrs. Russell's tune and a variant go to Alan of Oz's Mudcat Midi Site.

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: John White
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 08 Apr 00 - 10:26 PM

G'day,
Thanks to Malcolm the two tune variations can be found here (version 1) and here (version 2) at the Mudcat MIDI site.

Cheers,
Alan