Tune Req: Bonny Blue Flag

Subject: Air for Bonny Blue Flag
From: paddymac
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 05:10 PM

I've been searching the DT and threads trying to discover whether Harry Macarthy, usually credited with writing and composing "The Bonny Blue Flag" (1861), actually wrote the melody as well as the words. I readily grant the probability that the words were probaly mostly his, but I suspect the air was/is a traditional tune. The threads suggest that others share my suspicion, but there doesn't seem to be anything resembling a solid answer. It's a great melody, with the characteristic 6th interval at the start. I'll continue searching, but was wondering if any of the family might have an answer close at hand. Some great songs have also used the melody: Southern Girl's Reply; Harp Without The Crown; The Jarvey Was A Leprechaun; Reply To The Bonnie Blue Flag; and probably still others I haven't encounted yet.

Subject: RE: Air for Bonny Blue Flag
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 05:29 PM

The melody was a trad Irish one called The Low-Backed Car.

Subject: RE: Air for Bonny Blue Flag
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 07:46 PM

Lesley states the same thing here.

Subject: RE: Air for Bonny Blue Flag
From: Snuffy
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 08:10 PM

Isn't the Low Back Car an Irish variant of the tune often known as The Nutting Girl/A Hunting We Will Go?

Subject: RE: Air for Bonny Blue Flag
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 09:46 PM

The Bonny Blue Flag was first used in a stage show in New Orleans. I think most of the tunes in the show, if not all, were borrowed.

Subject: RE: Air for Bonny Blue Flag
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 09:53 PM

The Irish Jaunting Car is a title given in The Traditional Ballad Index. Would someone please tell me what this is (also low-backed car)?

Subject: RE: Air for Bonny Blue Flag
From: Suffet
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 09:59 PM

According to Irwin Silber in Songs of the Civl War, Harry McCarthy used a traditional Irish air, "The Irish Jaunting Car," as the tune for "The Bonnie Blue Flag."

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Air for Bonny Blue Flag
From: paddymac
Date: 23 Jan 02 - 02:12 AM

My sincere thanks to all for jumping in to help resolve this seeming riddle. maybe I'm just suffering from duplicative title confusion, since I've encountered references to tunes and songs entitled "The Irish Jaunting Car" and "The Low-backed Car." At least one song called "The Low-backed Car" attributed to Samuel Lover in Hal Leonard's Celtic Fake Book (2001), uses an entirely different melody. Ah, for the joy of digging deeper and deeper, hoping to something sort of resembling a definitive answer.

Subject: RE: Air for Bonny Blue Flag
From: Hrothgar
Date: 23 Jan 02 - 04:31 AM

I always thought the tune was "The Irish Jaunting Car."

My copy of "Walton's New Treasury of Irish Songs and Ballads" says the tune for "The Irish Jaunting Car" is "Won't You Come Into My Parlour," but I haven't traced that one yet.

Subject: RE: Air for Bonny Blue Flag
From: masato sakurai
Date: 23 Jan 02 - 07:33 AM

Result of search for "bonnie blue flag" (The Fiddler's Companion):

CLICK HERE.

~Masato

Subject: RE: Air for Bonny Blue Flag
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Jan 02 - 03:00 PM

I found "jaunting" car in the OED. Now what is a low-backed car?

Subject: RE: Air for Bonny Blue Flag
From: paddymac
Date: 24 Jan 02 - 01:33 AM

It appears that the confusion over the subject air begins with Sigmund Spaeth's assertion in his "History of Popular Music In America" (1880s ?) that the melody of "Bonny Blue Flag" was "The Irish Jaunting Car". There has been debate on that point ever since, with one writer asserting that the source melody was "Wearing of the Green." I mentioned above Samuel Lover's song "Low-backed Car" in Leonard's Celtic Fake Book. The same melody, with the same name, appears in O'Neill's Music of Ireland, but in a different key. Neither of them is the melody used in "The Bonny Blue Flag." It's not unheard for tunes to be recycled under different names, and it is likewise not unheard of for tune names to be recycled with different melodies. Thus, it is possible that there might have been another song/tune using the jaunting car name and the BBF melody, but nobody seems to have found it.

Another tune that has been "linked" to the Flag is a piece called "Coleman's March", described as "the cognate," but I have thus far not been able to find it, so I can not say anything further.

It also seems that the words, especially for the opening verse, were not "entirely" the creation of Harry Macarthy's fertile mind. More on that later.

I've also found a reference to a song called the "Suffrage Flag" from the early 20th century which uses the "Bonny Blue Flag" melody, but I haven't yet foud the lyrics to it.