Origins: The Rare Ould Times (Pete St. John)

Subject: Rare Old Times: Copyrighted?
From: GUEST,AllisonBrown
Date: 09 Mar 01 - 09:38 AM

Hello Mudcat! I am thinking about doing a recording of the song "The Rare Ould Times"... Wondering if anybody knows who wrote the song or if it has any kind of copyright protection. Thanks for your help!

Subject: RE: Rare Old Times: Copyrighted?
From: Big Mick
Date: 09 Mar 01 - 09:44 AM

Hi Allison. Yes, it is copyrighted and the author is Pete St. John. What country are you in? I have never viewed the costs as being prohibitive here in the States.

All the best,

Big Mick

Subject: RE: Rare Old Times: Copyrighted?
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 09 Mar 01 - 01:39 PM

Probably IMRO or Harry Fox.

Seamus

Subject: RE: Rare Old Times: Copyrighted?
From: Sarah2
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 10:33 AM

Go to www.petestjohn.com

You can contact him direct from the website and ask whatever you like. He reads the e-mail and will probably answer himself.

Sarah

Subject: RE: Rare Old Times: Copyrighted?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Mar 01 - 03:05 AM

I thought for a moment you might be the Alison Brown who is on the cover of the current issue of Sing Out, but I see you spell it "Allison." But welcome to Mudcat anyhow, Allison!

-Joe Offer-

Subject: 'So ring around the rosy' lyrics
From: luigib
Date: 31 Mar 01 - 02:00 AM

I'm trying to find the title of a haunting Irish folk song in which the chorus goes: "So ring around the rosy..." Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

luigib

Subject: Lyr Add: THE RARE OULD TIMES (Pete St John)
From: Sabine
Date: 31 Mar 01 - 02:06 AM

I suppose the song you mean is "The Rare Ould Times"

These are the lyrics:

Based on songs and stories, heroes of renown.
Are the passing tales and glories, that once was Dublin town.
The hallowed halls and houses, the haunting children's rhymes.
That once was part of Dublin, in the rare old times.

chorus: Ring a ring a Rosie, as the light declines,
I remember Dublin city in the rare ould times.

My names it is Sean Dempsey, as Dublin as can be
Born hard and late in Pimlico, in a house that ceased to be.
By trade, I was a cooper, lost out to redundancy.
Like my house that fell to progress, my trade's a memory.

And I courted Peggy Dignan, as pretty as you please,
A rogue and child of Mary, from the rebel Liberties.
I lost her to a student chap, with skin as black as coal.
When he took her off to Birmingham, she took away my soul.

The years have made me bitter, the gargle dims my brain,
'Cause Dublin keeps on changing, and nothing seems the same.
The Pillar and the Met, have gone, the Royal long since pulled down,
As the great unyielding concrete makes a city of my town.

Fare thee well sweet Anna Liffey, I can no longer stay,
And watch the new glass cages, that spring up along the Quay.
My mind's too full of memories, too old to hear new chimes,
I'm part of what was Dublin, in the rare ould times.


Kind regards,

Sabine

---

This is almost the same as the lyrics in the Digital Tradition (click), so I won't harvest these lyrics.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: 'So ring around the rosy' lyrics
From: luigib
Date: 31 Mar 01 - 02:19 AM

Sabine -

I am truly stunned! You belong in the Guinness Book of World Records!

Thank you very, very much!

Luigib

Subject: RE: 'So ring around the rosy' lyrics
From: Sabine
Date: 31 Mar 01 - 07:07 AM

*lol*

Thanks Luigib, but I won't fit in between the pages *gggg*.

I'm just a musician and a singer, not more.

Regards,

Sabine :o)

Subject: RE: 'So ring around the rosy' lyrics
From: Joe Offer
Date: 31 Mar 01 - 02:46 PM

I was thinking of submitting a revised entry to the Digital Tradition (click) and at least changing some obvious typographical errors and adding keywords so it will turn up in a search for "The Rare Ould Times." Anything else that should be added? Seem to me this may not be a traditional song. Anybody got background information or songwriter information?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: Lyr Add: THE RARE OULD TIMES (Pete St. John)
From: Big Mick
Date: 31 Mar 01 - 03:08 PM

Sure, Joe. The song is by Pete St. John and is not very old. I will get you the data. Sabine's lyrics have a few very small errors. I hope that I cause no offense in correcting them here. Mine come from St. John's sheet music, or at least the one that was marketed under his name.


THE RARE OULD TIMES
(Pete St. John)

Raised on songs and stories, heroes of renown.
The passing tales and glories, that once was Dublin town.
The hallowed halls and houses, the haunting children's rhymes.
That once was part of Dublin, in the rare old times.

CHORUS: Ring a ring a Rosie, as the light declines,
I remember Dublin city in the rare oul' times.

My name it is Sean Dempsey, as Dublin as can be
Born hard and late in Pimlico, in a house that ceased to be.
By trade I was a cooper, lost out to redundancy.
Like my house that fell to progress, my trade's a memory.

And I courted Peggy Dignan, as pretty as you please,
A rogue and child of Mary, from the rebel Liberties.
I lost her to a student chap, with skin as black as coal.
When he took her off to Birmingham, he took away my soul. CHORUS

The years have made me bitter, the gargle dims my brain,
'Cause Dublin keeps on changing, and nothing seems the same.
The Metropole and the Pillar have gone, the Royal long since pulled down,
As the great unyielding concrete, makes a city of my town.

Fare thee well sweet Anna Liffey, I can no longer stay,
And watch the new glass cages, that spring up along the Quay.
My heart's too full of memories, too old to hear new chimes,
I'm part of what was Dublin, in the rare ould times. CHORUS

Subject: RE: 'So ring around the rosy' lyrics
From: Bernard
Date: 31 Mar 01 - 03:18 PM

Click here for Pete St. John's website.

The 'correct' version of the words is listed, and 'The Fields of Athenry', which he also wrote...

Subject: RE: 'So ring around the rosy' lyrics
From: Big Mick
Date: 31 Mar 01 - 03:23 PM

I stand corrected, Bernard. Although I am looking at the printed music as I write this and it is as I posted it. But the website shows a couple of differences. Not unusual I suppose.

Thanks for the link.

Mick

Subject: RE: 'So ring around the rosy' lyrics
From: Bernard
Date: 31 Mar 01 - 05:34 PM

Tha'rt welcome, lad!

I doubt if the man himself sings it the way he wrote it!

Songs always evolve - and good songs evolve more than not so good, because more people sing them, so more people mis-hear them!

As Desmond Dekker never sang - 'Me ears are alight!'

Subject: RE: 'So ring around the rosy' lyrics
From: Sabine
Date: 01 Apr 01 - 04:22 PM

Hmmmmm, I found my version in "Folksongs and Ballads popular in Ireland", ed. John Loesberg, Ossian Publications, Vol. 4.

Sorry, Joe, I didn't check the DT. I was just working on my website and happened to find it very quickly. :o)

Sabine

Subject: RE: 'So ring around the rosy' lyrics
From: MartinRyan
Date: 01 Apr 01 - 05:23 PM

You happy with that, Joe - or would you like background on place names etc.?

Regards

Subject: RE: 'So ring around the rosy' lyrics
From: GUEST,Dita (at work)
Date: 02 Apr 01 - 07:07 AM

I've heard a couple of howlers in terms of people performing mis-hearings of this song. My two favorites are

I remember Dublin City in the "Radio Times"

Radio Times - a UK TV listing paper.

and

"Age has made me bitter, the gargoyles fill me brain"

Ain't the oral tradition a mysterious thing?

love, john.

Subject: Dublin in the rare old times
From: GUEST,uweschmiddy
Date: 20 Feb 03 - 07:53 AM

What means in that song the line:

the Royal long since pulled down ?

Uwe Schmidt

Subject: RE: 'So ring around the rosy' lyrics
From: Snuffy
Date: 20 Feb 03 - 09:25 AM

Just a guess, Uwe, but probably either a hotel/pub or a theatre

Subject: RE: 'So ring around the rosy' lyrics
From: Declan
Date: 20 Feb 03 - 12:33 PM

The Pillar, The Met (Short for the Metropole) and the Royal were three Dublin cinemas. Actually the Theatre Royal was more than a cinema and is fondly remembered by many Dublin people as the best night out in Town during the 1940s and 50s, where you got a live show including music and Question Time or Quiz followed by a movie all for one admission charge. It was pulled down sometime in the early sixties to make way for a horrible office block called Hawkins House.

I was too young to have ever been in the Pillar or the Royal, but I was in the Metropole a few times before it too was pulled down in the early 1970s. The pillar could also be a reference to Nelson's Pillar in Dublin which was blown up in 1966, but I'm told by those in the know that all three were references to cinemas.

Subject: RE: 'So ring around the rosy' lyrics
From: GUEST,Uwe Schmidt
Date: 21 Feb 03 - 12:57 AM

Thanks a lot for that comprehensive answer, Snuffy and Declan!
We like the version of the Dublin City Ramblers and often sing it.
Uwe Schmidt

Subject: RE: 'So ring around the rosy' lyrics
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 31 Oct 03 - 12:52 PM

That songs "celebrated" its 25th anniversary in 2002.
25th Anniversary CD
The link above is to a CD commemorating this anniversary, but of course all info there is free and it gives a nice round-up to this thread here!

Subject: DTCorr: THE RARE OULD TIMES (Pete St. John)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 19 Feb 04 - 03:08 PM

Martin, I'm sorry I missed your message above. Yes, if you can add any details/background beyond what Declan has posted, please do.

I may be prejudiced, but I like this song best when Mick Lane is singing it. It fits his voice perfectly. Mick has posted the lyrics from the Pete St. John songbook above. For comparison, here are the lyrics from Pete's Website, http://www.petestjohn.com/.

-The Rare Ould Times
(Pete St. John)

-1-
Raised on songs and stories,
Heroes of renown,
The passing tales and glories
That once was Dublin Town.
The hallowed halls and houses,
The haunting childrens rhymes
That once was Dublin City
In the rare ould times.

Chorus
Ring a ring a rosey
As the light declines
I remember Dublin City
In the rare ould times.

-2-
My name it is Sean Dempsey,
As Dublin as can be
Born hard and late in Pimlico,
In a house that ceased to be.
By trade I was a cooper,
Lost out to redundancy.
Like my house that fell to progress,
My trade’s a memory.
And I courted Peggy Dignan,
As pretty as you please,
A rogue and child of Mary,
From the rebel Liberties.
I lost her to a student chap,
With skin as black as coal.
When he took her off to Birmingham,
She took away my soul.

Chorus

-3-
The years have made me bitter,
The gargle's dimmed me brain,
'Cause Dublin keeps on changing,
And nothing seems the same.
The Pillar and the Met. have gone,
The Royal long since pulled down,
As the grey unyielding concrete,
Makes a city of my town.

Chorus

-4-
Fare thee well sweet Anna Liffey,
I can no longer stay,
And watch the new glass cages,
That spring up along the Quay.
My mind's too full of memories,
Too old to hear new chimes,
I'm part of what was Dublin,
In the rare ould times.

© 2003 Pete St. John. All rights reserved.

---

The Digital Tradition has a few errors. I guess I'll submit this as a correction. The Website shows a 2003 copyright. When was the song originally published?

Is the tune in the DT OK?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: So ring around the rosy/Rare Ould Times
From: breezy
Date: 19 Feb 04 - 07:24 PM

and is Pete St John alive?

Subject: RE: So ring around the rosy/Rare Ould Times
From: Cluin
Date: 19 Feb 04 - 09:43 PM

If you go to his website using the link posted above by Joe, you'll see that he is still kicking. You can send him an e-mail from there too.

Subject: RE: So ring around the rosy/Rare Ould Times
From: MartinRyan
Date: 20 Feb 04 - 06:56 PM

Joe

Don't think there's anything to add at this stage - apart from one bit of nostalgia! As the age of about 13 or so, I went to a show in the Theatre Ropyal which, as Declan (get well soon, Dec!)mentioned, combined films with live shows - essentially the last trace of musichall, really. Anyway, the film was "Jazz on a Summer's Day" and I remember sitting fascinated through it, fidgeting through the live show - and then sitting through the film a second time, wiht my eyes closed! It was years before I realised just how balnced on the cusp I was.

Regards

Subject: RE: So ring around the rosy/Rare Ould Times
From: MartinRyan
Date: 21 Feb 04 - 05:36 PM

BTW. I'm not sure "The Pillar" was a cinema. If it was - even I'm too young to remember it! The basic reference is, of course, to Nelson's Pillar which stood in the centre of Dublin until removed unceremoniously by the IRA in 1966.

Regards

Subject: RE: Origins: So ring around the rosy/Rare Ould Times
From: Reiver 2
Date: 15 May 05 - 12:59 PM

I've been wondering about "Anna Liffey" for some time -- ever since hearing "In the Rare Ould Times" for the first (not so rare) time. I just posted some questions about Anna Liffey in the thread "The Ferryman" which I found when I searched for her (?). Then I came to this thread and realized that it would probably have been more appropriate to have posted my questions here. Rather than repeat them and have two threads dealing with the same questions, I'll just ask anyone interested to refer to the Ferryman thread and make any replies there. Hopefully that will teach me to be more thorough in looking over what comes up in searches, rather than just jumping into the first one.

Reiver 2

Subject: RE: Origins: So ring around the rosy/Rare Ould Times
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 05:06 AM

can anyone tell me whether Luke Kelly ever recorded this song?
I heard it sung at a Luke Kelly tribute show, but it doesn't strike me as a song Luke would have especially liked and I don't recall hearing him sing it

Subject: RE: Origins: So ring around the rosy/Rare Ould Times
From: Snuffy
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 08:37 AM

How many different ways have you heard Peggy D's surname prounounced?

Many people in UK say Die-nan or Die-gnan, but I prefer to say it exactly as written - Digg-nan. In the 60s I knew someone called Dignam, and that's how he pronounced it.

Any guidance from Irish Catters?

Subject: RE: Origins: So ring around the rosy/Rare Ould Times
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 10:39 AM

I usually hear Duignan pronounced as Die-nan
perhaps the g is from the Irish "gh" which is often almost silent

Subject: RE: Origins: So ring around the rosy/Rare Ould Times
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 11:05 AM

That bit about the black student (i.e. nostalgia for the good old days of an all-white Ireland) is so repulsively racist it boggles my mind that anybody can still sing that song outside of a KKK convention. I don't think there's any way to rescue it; sing it at all and people would still go back to the old version. Time to just bury it.

Subject: RE: Origins: So ring around the rosy/Rare Ould Times
From: squeezeboxhp
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 11:19 AM

get a life jack if his skin was black no way of calling it any other colour and he was probably happy wrapped up in it

Subject: RE: Origins: So ring around the rosy/Rare Ould Tim
From: Jeri
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 11:20 AM

Racist? Please help me understand why you see it as racist. Is this because he says the guy who stole his girl was black? Jack, maybe you have other associations with the 'skin as black as coal', but to me, his main problem is the guy took the love of his life away. He could have said "with a nose long as a pole" or "eating a sausage roll". To me, it was just a description.

I think you've got a right to apply your own experiences and knowledge in understanding the meaning of the song, and there are things I don't understand, but I have a hard time thinking of the song as racist simply because it mentions the student was black. I can accept you do, and I don't intend to try to change your mind, but I don't understand.

Subject: RE: Origins: So ring around the rosy/Rare Ould Times
From: Brakn
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 11:25 AM

Racist? Who's racist?

Subject: RE: Origins: So ring around the rosy/Rare Ould Times
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 01:13 PM

Pete St John is.

It fits perfectly well with the knuckledragging nationalism of "Fields of Athenry".

Not somebody I EVER want to hear or meet.

If he *didn't* want to imply that the "good old times" were when Ireland didn't have any black faces, he had any number of ways to say so. He hasn't.

Subject: RE: Origins: So ring around the rosy/Rare Ould Times
From: Big Mick
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 01:26 PM

You have got to be kidding. Does the lad owe you money? Did he date yer ma? What is it, Campin, that has you so incensed?

Mick

Subject: RE: Origins: So ring around the rosy/Rare Ould Times
From: Tinker
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 04:44 PM

The universality of this song (IMO) is how well it deals with each generation having it's own rare ol time that is changed beyond recognition. I tend to be a tad sensitive to racist statements especially those about interracial relationships and this song has never brought that sentiment out.   The verse in question is full of longing and loss. But for me the fact that "she took away my soul" refocuses back to his loss of her not who she chose. It's not in my interpretation.

Tinker

Subject: RE: Origins: So ring around the rosy/Rare Ould Times
From: Snuffy
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 04:50 PM

The way Birming-HAM is always sung has led me to think that perhaps the student was an American (= glamorous, rich, exotic) rather than a poor English student from the West Midlands. No problem getting from Dublin to Brum (plenty of Irish there any way) but taking her off to Alabama would mean he'd never ever see her again.

Subject: RE: Origins: So ring around the rosy/Rare Ould Times
From: Joybell
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 05:59 PM

"Black as coal" is a poetic simile like "white as snow", "green as grass". I'm with Jeri.
Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: Origins: So ring around the rosy/Rare Ould Times
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 07:33 PM

Look at the collection of reactionary images in this:

http://www.petestjohn.com/gael.htm

"This land is mine/By ancient Royal decree"?

"Our Race as one"? (his capital letter)

Makes "Flower of Scotland" look like Joe Hill.

Subject: RE: Origins: So ring around the rosy/Rare Ould Times
From: Goose Gander
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 07:50 PM

Jack Campin -

Take a deep breath, drink a glass of water, and calm down.

Black intellectuals in the United States in the nineteenth and early twentieth century often referred to the African-American population as 'the Race'.

Chicano activists in the 1960s and 1970s used the term 'la Raza' to refer to Mexican-Americans (the term is still tossed around, but not quite so much).

And, yes, Irish nationalists often spoke of the Irish or Gaelic race.

What exactly is your problem? Will you now go out trolling and leave nasty messages on other sites about these terms and the writers, artists and activists who used them? There is nothing in the song you linked that even hints of racial hatred towards those not of the 'Gaelic race' (inaccurate though the term may be). Why are you so incensed?

Subject: RE: Origins: So ring around the rosy/Rare Ould Tim
From: Jeri
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 09:43 PM

There's nothing in that song he linked to that doesn't make me want to yak in my hat either. Yeesh.

I'm not offended by a different opinion than mine, Michael. I was trying to understand why the song bothers him. I've read Jack's posts on the internet for... going on decades, I think. He knows more about music than I ever will, usually makes sense, and I respect him. Even when I disagree, I respect him.

Subject: RE: Origins: So ring around the rosy/Rare Ould Times
From: Goose Gander
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 10:17 PM

I wasn't offended, just annoyed. But this is a diversion from the topic of the thread, so I don't intend to go any further with this. Anyone who is offended or annoyed by me can send me a PM.

Subject: RE: Origins: So ring around the rosy/Rare Ould Times
From: Declan
Date: 23 Sep 06 - 06:29 AM

A true story.

I was in holidays in Birmingham (England) a few years ago and at a session in a pub near Houdsworth. I met a woman who I didn't know but came from veryu near where I live in Dublin, and she asked me to sing this song. I obliged without even thinking about the lyrics. When I sang the verse under discussion a number a cheer rose up from a number of people with similar skin tone to the student chap. A very funny moment which brought all the people in the pub together sharing the joke. I didn't notice anybody being offended.

My mother had an elderly friend who died about ten yers ago. As someone was singing this song one night, she turned around to me and said "These are the rare old times, things were tough back then".

Subject: RE: Origins: So ring around the rosy/Rare Ould Times
From: Declan
Date: 23 Sep 06 - 06:43 AM

By the way I have since confirmed that there was definitely a cinema in O Connell Street called the Pillar (which was near the statue. I think it closed down in the 1950s. Whether Pete St. John was referring to the cinema or the monument is a question that I'd imagine only he can answer.

Subject: RE: Origins: So ring around the rosy/Rare Ould Times
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 06:46 AM

Declan - great story!

And yes - I'm sure you're right about the cinema. I just don't remmber the place

Regards

Subject: RE: Origins: So ring around the rosy/Rare Ould Tim
From: theballadeer
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 09:16 AM

It looks like this thread was re-opened by a guest that ask if Luke Kelly every recroded the song. The answer is yes. On the "Dubliners Together Again", released in 1979. Which was the last Dubliners studio album he appeared on. I beleive there are 3 Pete St. John songs on that album. Ronnie sings the other two. And Pete is also listed as a co-producer on the album.

Nick