Origin: All for Me Grog

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: BenTraverse
Date: 28 Sep 23 - 10:43 PM

Looks like the 10th edition of Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany (volume 1) includes "If e'er I do well, 'tis a wonder", which pushes the date back to 1740, 9 years before The Charmer! Here it is on archive.org

This publication by S. Powell from 1734, while also being listed as the 10th edition, does not include "If e'er I do well". It was also divided up into three volumes as opposed to the above publishing's four. I also couldn't find this book's volume number. It's entirely possible that the song is in a different volume published sometime between 1734-40, but there's nothing on archive.org.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: BenTraverse
Date: 28 Sep 23 - 09:56 PM

What led Creighton to think this song was written for music hall performers? Are there any candidates for the "genuine sea song" the chorus supposedly may have come from?

Is there a reason Sharp's manuscript (titled "Here's to My Tin") from 1904 is listed as the earliest date on the Ballad Index? "When I was a young lad" from The Charmer feels close enough that it should at least get a mention. The only real difference is the lack of chorus. It also reads like it was meant for a different melody to me.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: GerryM
Date: 22 Sep 23 - 03:02 AM

Way upthread, a Maine reworking of an Australian parody was posted:

"Subject: Lyr Add: CONCRETE AND GLASS parody-All for Me Grog
From: GUEST,Roll&Go-C - PM
Date: 16 Mar 01 - 09:35 AM

"In the interests of folk process, I'm adding this anti-urban renewal parody of this fine traditional song, which itself is a reworking of an earlier parody from the Sidney inner city neighborhood of Wooloomooloo, reworked to fit Portland, Maine's waterfront."

Here's the original parody, as published in Warren Fahey's book, The Balls of Bob Menzies.

Oh, my name it is Fred, in Sydney born and bred,
And the inner-city used to be my home, boys
But it's caused my heart to grieve, for I've had to take my leave,
Now across the western suburbs I must roam, boys!

Chorus:

Under concrete and glass, Sydney's disappearing fast;
It's all gone for profit and for plunder;
Though we really want to stay, they keep driving us away,
Now across the western suburbs we must wander.

Where is my house, my little terracehouse?
It's all gone for profit and for plunder;
For the wreckers of the town just came up and knocked it down;
Now across the western suburbs I must wander.

Before I even knew it, we were shifted to Mount Druitt,
And the planners never gave me any say, boys.
Now it really makes me weep, I am just at home to sleep,
For it takes me hours to get to work each day, boys.

What's happened to the pub, our little local pub
Where we used to have a drink when we were dry, boys.
Now we can't get in the door for there's carpet on the floor
And you won't be served a beer without a tie, boys.

Now I'm living in a box in the west suburban blocks
And the place is nearly driving me to tears, boys.
Poorly planned and badly built and it's mortgaged to the hilt
But they say it will be mine in forty years, boys.

Now before the city's wrecked these developers must be checked;
For it's plain to see they do not give a bugger,
And we soon will see the day if these bandits have their way
We will all be driven out past Wagga Wagga.

[Wagga Wagga is a small town five hours drive West of Sydney. Fahey writes, "Written by Denis Kevans and Seamus Gill...published in Australian Tradition magazine in 1973."

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: GerryM
Date: 22 Sep 23 - 02:32 AM

Way upthread, Sandy Paton wrote,

"I collected a version in Connecticut, which I finally got on tape after the singer had moved to New Hampshire. It was learned from the grandfather of the singer, a man who lived in South Carolina. It's slower, more pensive, and says:

"I spent all I had in cash on the girls to cut a dash,
Now I'm left in this wide world to wander.

"Bruce or Barry may correct me, but this is the only version I know of that has been collected in the U.S. I'd be happy to post the text, if anyone is interested, but I can't do the music thing."

That version never got posted here, so far as I can tell. It can be found in the liner notes for the Patons' LP, New Harmony, which is available on the Smithsonian Folkways website. It goes like this:

I had but one old hat;
The hat it had no crown,
All wore out, tore out, and asunder.
If I cannot buy another,
I will keep this hat I've got;
I will keep this old hat to remember.

Chorus:
It's all gone for grog,
Jolly, jolly grog,
All gone for whiskey and tobacco.
Oh, I spent all I had in cash
On those girls, to cut a dash;
Now I'm left in this wide world to wander.

I had but one old coat;
The coat it had no back,
[Remaining four lines of each stanza as for the first,
only changing hat to coat to shirt to pair/pants
to pair/boots]

[Chorus after each stanza]

I had but one old shirt;
The shirt it had no sleeves,

I had one pair of pants;
The pants they had no knees,

I had one pair of boots;
The boots they had no soles,

[Chorus with last three lines repeated.]

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 08 Oct 23 - 04:33 PM

Thanks, Jon.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 07 Oct 23 - 06:22 PM

Jon,
having looked at the 1749 vol 2 at NLS and the 1765 volume, they have nothing in common, the 1749 containing more earthy pieces, though both printed by Mair. As far as I can see the 1749 doesn't have 'If e'er I do well' unless it's in Vol 1 which I can't see online.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 29 Sep 23 - 03:30 PM

Thanks, Jon.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 29 Sep 23 - 09:56 AM

Music Hall version, I very much doubt, but I can understand HC thinking that without knowledge of the earlier version. It is possible to follow the evolution in oral tradition, albeit somewhat sketchy.

Could we have a copy here please of the Charmer version? It seems to be different to the Ramsay version at least in the first line.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 27 Sep 23 - 05:09 PM

Although we don't know precisely when alterations were made it is possible to see a progression of some of the elements of the song's evolution. Seamen seem to have had a hand in some of the later developments. See also the Carpenter fragments at VWML. 'All' has turned quite naturally into 'Haul' unless this a Carpenter mondegreen.

BTW the Kidson version is unique to him or more likely 'her'. I think his niece Ethel probably wrote it, not liking the simple catalogue version. I haven't seen Kidson's manuscript as collected in Scarborough.
As it is titled 'All for me grog' I would imagine it is little different from the common later versions.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 26 Sep 23 - 08:32 AM

Jon
I've now looked at all of the oral versions I have access to and can make a few observations.

There are 2 versions that form intermediate stages between the original in Charmer and the later 'All for me grog' versions. All but one of the oral versions commence with the catalogue of clothing items. The closest to the original is the one collected by Alfred Williams from Mrs E. Clark of Minety, Wiltshire, c1910. What is odd is that he didn't give her full version of the chorus in FSUT (p296).

I am a roving blade,
My fortune it is made,
If ever I get rich it is a wonder;
I've sported all my means
Among the little queans,
And now I've got permission for to plunder.
       Fol the rol the riddle rol,
       The riddle rol the rido,
       Ale, ale, good brown ale,
       Good brown ale and tobacco.

Now this coat that I've got on,
It's ragged and it's torn,
And my boots they've been out in all weathers,
And cursed are the soles,
For they are full of holes,
And so are the upper leathers.

All of this is quite close to the original looking particularly at stanzas 1, 3 and 6.

Now we have to bewail the fact that Williams did not note down any tunes. However the next version collected much more recently does have a tune; apart from which all of the versions I have looked at seem to be versions of the same tune and I see no reason to suppose that they are not of the original tune. Have you compared the tune in Oswald? I don't sight read music but I can usually tell if it's a version of a known tune.

The second version is close to other modern versions but the chorus is of interest. It is called 'All through the Ale' and was collected by an old mate of mine, Roy Harris of Notts Alliance, sadly no longer with us, but he was a regular on Mudcat (Burl). He got it from a Mrs Smedley of Matlock, Derbyshire, in 1965. It has a similar boots stanza to Mrs Clark's version above. (upper leathers).
Chorus runs:
All through the ale,
The confounded ale,
All through the ale and tobacco,
With a whack fol the day,
Fol the diddle fol the day,
All through the ale and tobacco.

As you can see the 2 parts of the chorus have been exchanged in order in this version and this must surely be how the common later chorus has evolved, which very much leads me to believe the probability that the original chorus was something like Mrs Clark's. The 'I spent all my tin on the lasses drinking gin' must surely be a later addition.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 24 Sep 23 - 10:03 AM

Thanks, Keith. I'll check out Limbo and get back to you.

Regarding the song here I'd hazard a guess about 1725. This based on it's not in D'Urfey and it would have been prime material for him.

Jon, in that case what did you mean by ' the folderols seems to occupy only the entire second half of the final stanza'? Surely they are the chorus. I'll post the Williams version shortly which has more of the chorus.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 23 Sep 23 - 02:33 PM

My copy of Ramsey is actually the 12th edition, 1763, but it probably was present in earlier editions, but not the very earliest as it's in Vol 4.

Completely agree, and very likely the London stage, as with much of what Ramsey published. I'm interested in the fol de rol chorus, as Alfred Williams collected a version c1910 quite close to the printed version and it has the fol de rols. How does the stanza with the fol de rols run? Is The Charmer online? The name 'Yair' sounds familiar.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Sep 23 - 01:46 PM

I see no mention of the early 18th century version given in Ramsay's The Tea-Table Miscellany and reprinted with tune in The Scots Musical Museum, by Johnson & Burns. Printed on Glasgow broadsides in 1800.

'If E'er I do well, 'tis a wonder'

Here's the first stanza of 7. It's quite bawdy.

When I was a young lad my fortune was bad,
If e'er I do well 'tis a wonder.
I spent all my means on whores, bawds and queans;
Then I got a commission to plunder.
Fall all de rall, &co

(No chorus given with the Johnson version.)
(Robertson of Glasgow gives the chorus as Fal lal de ral, etc.)

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 24 Sep 23 - 10:29 AM

Wikipedia tells us....

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Lighter
Date: 08 Oct 23 - 07:26 AM

The book is in just one volume, with a preface signed "J.G."

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Lighter
Date: 07 Oct 23 - 08:06 PM

Steve, the song appears on pp. 111-112 of the 1749 ed. of The Charmer, "Printed for J. Yair, and sold in his shop at the Parliament-Close; and by C. Hitch, at the Red Lion in Pater-Noster-Row, London."

Eighteenth-Century Collections Online adds "(Edinburgh)" in the catalogue entry, as though "London" is incorrect, perhaps for Hitch's address.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Lighter
Date: 30 Sep 23 - 01:04 PM

"Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster new Era" (Lancaster, Pa.) (Aug. 2, 2014):

"As a civil War re-enactor, I recall many an evening sitting around the campfire, singing tunes such as 'Jolly Grog' while we passed around the chock bucket, a pail containing a gin-based liquid, which we tried to drain before it ate through the metal.

"It's all for me grog, me jolly, jolly grog, all gone for beer and tobacco. Spent all me tin down on South Street drinking gin, now across the western ocean we must wander.

"They don't write lyrics like that anymore. They can't. They're all in rehab."

South Street, in Manhattan, is the site of the very popular South Street Seaport Museum, and the home in the 1970s of the chantey group "X Seamens [sic] Institute," which recorded the song in 1973.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaCiPGCaomI

Their version includes the bed springs.

YouTube offers various other renditions, some even more ribald.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Lighter
Date: 30 Sep 23 - 12:24 PM

Boston Globe (Apr. 10, 1921):

"She sang an old chantey that whalers know:

'Rah for the grog--
The jolly, jolly grog.
'Rah for the grog and tobacco.
We've spent all our tin with the ladies drinking gin,
And across the briny ocean we must wan-der."

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Lighter
Date: 30 Sep 23 - 11:49 AM

A sighting in Australian waters:

"The Age" (Sydney) (Apr. 23, 1889). Aboard HMVS Cerberus:

"One brawny seaman especially won applause with a rolling shanty, of which only the refrain could be distinguished:

It's all through the grog, the jolly, jolly grog,
It's all through the grog and the 'baccy.
I've spent all my tin with the girls drinking gin,
And it's all through the grog and the 'baccy.

"And every man of the ship's company took up the chorus, without a thought of the unconscious satire of the words."

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Lighter
Date: 29 Sep 23 - 11:49 AM

Ben, good catch! So Ramsey now looks like the original.

Steve, the sole difference, beyond two or three points of punctuation and "Charmer's" spelling of "lain" for Ramsey's "ly'n," is that Ramsey (1740 and '50) places "Fall all de rall, &c." after each stanza while "Charmer" (1749) has it only once, at the end.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Lighter
Date: 27 Sep 23 - 03:48 PM

It's very interesting to see how just part of the song, with later elaborations, survived in tradition for more than two hundred years.

A writer in the Los Angeles Times (Nov. 8, 1925), who learned songs and chanteys from blue-water sailors "in my boyhood," offered this:

"I have an old shoe with never a bit of sole,
It serves me alike in all weather;
It hasn't got a heel, and it hasn't got a toe,
And it hasn't got a bit of upper leather.

And it's all for my grog, my jolly, jolly grog,
It's all for my grog and tobacco.

"This song goes through the entire kit, from the hat with no brim or crown, to the socks with no cotton or wool or room for a hole, but it dwells lingeringly all through the recitation on the 'jolly, jolly grog.'"

Oxford has "tin" (money) from 1836. It used to be common in the U.S. as well (as in "The Camptown Races"), but I'd say it was out of frequent usage by 1900.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Lighter
Date: 24 Sep 23 - 01:51 PM

Steve, I see that the first edition of "The Charmer" (1749) also contains the song - in four-line stanzas with interstanzaic folderols.

The second edition, however, prints it in eight-line stanzas, which makes it look like the folderols are merely intended to fill out the
final.

There is a "Twelfth [sic] Edition" of Ramsey published in Dublin "For George Risk" in *1740*, "With large Additions not printed in any former Impression." This song we're discussing is nonetheless lacking, as it is from editions 1 through 5, the only others I have found digitized and accessible.

So for now it looks as though Ramsey took it from the first ed. of "The Charmer."

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Lighter
Date: 23 Sep 23 - 06:45 PM

The final stanza:

Had ye but seen the sad plight I was in,
Ye'd not seen such a poet amongst twenty.
I've nothing that's full, but my shirt and my scull,
For my pockets and belly are empty.
Fall all de rall, &c.

The 11th ed. of Tea-Table (1750) had the song too, with "Fall all de rall, &c." after each stanza. That's the earliest ed. I have access to, via ECCO - like The Charmer.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Sep 23 - 02:57 PM

Thanks, Steve.

The song appears a year earlier than Ramsey in "The Charmer: A Choice Collection of Songs, Scots and English," Second ed. (Edinburgh: J. Yair, 1752).

There the folderols seems to occupy only the entire second half of the final stanza - which leads me to think the untitled piece came from the stage, where a costumed singer could dance around while lilting them.

Scott liked the song so much he put two laundered stanzas into "Woodstock" (1826).

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Sep 23 - 12:30 PM

Thanks for the U.S. text, GerryM.

Here are the first stanza and the chorus of the cadet song, from "Fag-Ends from the Naval Academy" (1878):


Come listen to my song,
I'll not detain you long,
It's all about a cruise of yore, sir.
How we left our native shore,
Which some twice had done before,
And together over ocean did wander.

Cho.:- Then it's all for the stripes,
       The nobby, nobby stripes,
    It's all for the stripes and the diamonds,
       That we leave our native shore
       To roam again once more,
    And across the western ocean to wander.

The hoped-for "stripes and diamonds" were the sleeve insignia of a "first-class midshipman," the highest cadet rank.

And the phrase "the western ocean" implies that the parodied original was from a British source.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Lighter
Date: 21 Sep 23 - 02:25 PM

I heard Twilight's stanza about the beat-up bed ca1983.

Capt. David A. McLeod, "Cape Breton Captain," referring to the 1870s:

"I heard the boys singing...

"It's all for the grog, boys, the bully, bully grog
We work for our rum and tobacco
For I have spent all my tin
With the girls a-drinking gin
And across the briny ocean I must wander."

A local parody called "All for the Stripes and the Diamonds" was sung at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1877.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 29 Sep 23 - 03:31 AM

I think his niece Ethel probably wrote it, not liking the simple catalogue version. I haven't seen Kidson's manuscript as collected in Scarborough.
Possible, but not proven.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: GUEST,Keith Price
Date: 23 Sep 23 - 07:07 PM

Steve

'If E'er I do well,'tis a wonder'

Is this a stock verse ? it's more or less the first verse of 'Limbo'

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 08 Oct 23 - 04:33 PM

Thanks, Jon.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Lighter
Date: 08 Oct 23 - 07:26 AM

The book is in just one volume, with a preface signed "J.G."

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Lighter
Date: 07 Oct 23 - 08:06 PM

Steve, the song appears on pp. 111-112 of the 1749 ed. of The Charmer, "Printed for J. Yair, and sold in his shop at the Parliament-Close; and by C. Hitch, at the Red Lion in Pater-Noster-Row, London."

Eighteenth-Century Collections Online adds "(Edinburgh)" in the catalogue entry, as though "London" is incorrect, perhaps for Hitch's address.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 07 Oct 23 - 06:22 PM

Jon,
having looked at the 1749 vol 2 at NLS and the 1765 volume, they have nothing in common, the 1749 containing more earthy pieces, though both printed by Mair. As far as I can see the 1749 doesn't have 'If e'er I do well' unless it's in Vol 1 which I can't see online.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Lighter
Date: 30 Sep 23 - 01:04 PM

"Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster new Era" (Lancaster, Pa.) (Aug. 2, 2014):

"As a civil War re-enactor, I recall many an evening sitting around the campfire, singing tunes such as 'Jolly Grog' while we passed around the chock bucket, a pail containing a gin-based liquid, which we tried to drain before it ate through the metal.

"It's all for me grog, me jolly, jolly grog, all gone for beer and tobacco. Spent all me tin down on South Street drinking gin, now across the western ocean we must wander.

"They don't write lyrics like that anymore. They can't. They're all in rehab."

South Street, in Manhattan, is the site of the very popular South Street Seaport Museum, and the home in the 1970s of the chantey group "X Seamens [sic] Institute," which recorded the song in 1973.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaCiPGCaomI

Their version includes the bed springs.

YouTube offers various other renditions, some even more ribald.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Lighter
Date: 30 Sep 23 - 12:24 PM

Boston Globe (Apr. 10, 1921):

"She sang an old chantey that whalers know:

'Rah for the grog--
The jolly, jolly grog.
'Rah for the grog and tobacco.
We've spent all our tin with the ladies drinking gin,
And across the briny ocean we must wan-der."

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Lighter
Date: 30 Sep 23 - 11:49 AM

A sighting in Australian waters:

"The Age" (Sydney) (Apr. 23, 1889). Aboard HMVS Cerberus:

"One brawny seaman especially won applause with a rolling shanty, of which only the refrain could be distinguished:

It's all through the grog, the jolly, jolly grog,
It's all through the grog and the 'baccy.
I've spent all my tin with the girls drinking gin,
And it's all through the grog and the 'baccy.

"And every man of the ship's company took up the chorus, without a thought of the unconscious satire of the words."

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 29 Sep 23 - 03:30 PM

Thanks, Jon.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Lighter
Date: 29 Sep 23 - 11:49 AM

Ben, good catch! So Ramsey now looks like the original.

Steve, the sole difference, beyond two or three points of punctuation and "Charmer's" spelling of "lain" for Ramsey's "ly'n," is that Ramsey (1740 and '50) places "Fall all de rall, &c." after each stanza while "Charmer" (1749) has it only once, at the end.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 29 Sep 23 - 09:56 AM

Music Hall version, I very much doubt, but I can understand HC thinking that without knowledge of the earlier version. It is possible to follow the evolution in oral tradition, albeit somewhat sketchy.

Could we have a copy here please of the Charmer version? It seems to be different to the Ramsay version at least in the first line.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 29 Sep 23 - 03:31 AM

I think his niece Ethel probably wrote it, not liking the simple catalogue version. I haven't seen Kidson's manuscript as collected in Scarborough.
Possible, but not proven.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: BenTraverse
Date: 28 Sep 23 - 10:43 PM

Looks like the 10th edition of Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany (volume 1) includes "If e'er I do well, 'tis a wonder", which pushes the date back to 1740, 9 years before The Charmer! Here it is on archive.org

This publication by S. Powell from 1734, while also being listed as the 10th edition, does not include "If e'er I do well". It was also divided up into three volumes as opposed to the above publishing's four. I also couldn't find this book's volume number. It's entirely possible that the song is in a different volume published sometime between 1734-40, but there's nothing on archive.org.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: BenTraverse
Date: 28 Sep 23 - 09:56 PM

What led Creighton to think this song was written for music hall performers? Are there any candidates for the "genuine sea song" the chorus supposedly may have come from?

Is there a reason Sharp's manuscript (titled "Here's to My Tin") from 1904 is listed as the earliest date on the Ballad Index? "When I was a young lad" from The Charmer feels close enough that it should at least get a mention. The only real difference is the lack of chorus. It also reads like it was meant for a different melody to me.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 27 Sep 23 - 05:09 PM

Although we don't know precisely when alterations were made it is possible to see a progression of some of the elements of the song's evolution. Seamen seem to have had a hand in some of the later developments. See also the Carpenter fragments at VWML. 'All' has turned quite naturally into 'Haul' unless this a Carpenter mondegreen.

BTW the Kidson version is unique to him or more likely 'her'. I think his niece Ethel probably wrote it, not liking the simple catalogue version. I haven't seen Kidson's manuscript as collected in Scarborough.
As it is titled 'All for me grog' I would imagine it is little different from the common later versions.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Lighter
Date: 27 Sep 23 - 03:48 PM

It's very interesting to see how just part of the song, with later elaborations, survived in tradition for more than two hundred years.

A writer in the Los Angeles Times (Nov. 8, 1925), who learned songs and chanteys from blue-water sailors "in my boyhood," offered this:

"I have an old shoe with never a bit of sole,
It serves me alike in all weather;
It hasn't got a heel, and it hasn't got a toe,
And it hasn't got a bit of upper leather.

And it's all for my grog, my jolly, jolly grog,
It's all for my grog and tobacco.

"This song goes through the entire kit, from the hat with no brim or crown, to the socks with no cotton or wool or room for a hole, but it dwells lingeringly all through the recitation on the 'jolly, jolly grog.'"

Oxford has "tin" (money) from 1836. It used to be common in the U.S. as well (as in "The Camptown Races"), but I'd say it was out of frequent usage by 1900.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 26 Sep 23 - 08:32 AM

Jon
I've now looked at all of the oral versions I have access to and can make a few observations.

There are 2 versions that form intermediate stages between the original in Charmer and the later 'All for me grog' versions. All but one of the oral versions commence with the catalogue of clothing items. The closest to the original is the one collected by Alfred Williams from Mrs E. Clark of Minety, Wiltshire, c1910. What is odd is that he didn't give her full version of the chorus in FSUT (p296).

I am a roving blade,
My fortune it is made,
If ever I get rich it is a wonder;
I've sported all my means
Among the little queans,
And now I've got permission for to plunder.
       Fol the rol the riddle rol,
       The riddle rol the rido,
       Ale, ale, good brown ale,
       Good brown ale and tobacco.

Now this coat that I've got on,
It's ragged and it's torn,
And my boots they've been out in all weathers,
And cursed are the soles,
For they are full of holes,
And so are the upper leathers.

All of this is quite close to the original looking particularly at stanzas 1, 3 and 6.

Now we have to bewail the fact that Williams did not note down any tunes. However the next version collected much more recently does have a tune; apart from which all of the versions I have looked at seem to be versions of the same tune and I see no reason to suppose that they are not of the original tune. Have you compared the tune in Oswald? I don't sight read music but I can usually tell if it's a version of a known tune.

The second version is close to other modern versions but the chorus is of interest. It is called 'All through the Ale' and was collected by an old mate of mine, Roy Harris of Notts Alliance, sadly no longer with us, but he was a regular on Mudcat (Burl). He got it from a Mrs Smedley of Matlock, Derbyshire, in 1965. It has a similar boots stanza to Mrs Clark's version above. (upper leathers).
Chorus runs:
All through the ale,
The confounded ale,
All through the ale and tobacco,
With a whack fol the day,
Fol the diddle fol the day,
All through the ale and tobacco.

As you can see the 2 parts of the chorus have been exchanged in order in this version and this must surely be how the common later chorus has evolved, which very much leads me to believe the probability that the original chorus was something like Mrs Clark's. The 'I spent all my tin on the lasses drinking gin' must surely be a later addition.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Lighter
Date: 24 Sep 23 - 01:51 PM

Steve, I see that the first edition of "The Charmer" (1749) also contains the song - in four-line stanzas with interstanzaic folderols.

The second edition, however, prints it in eight-line stanzas, which makes it look like the folderols are merely intended to fill out the
final.

There is a "Twelfth [sic] Edition" of Ramsey published in Dublin "For George Risk" in *1740*, "With large Additions not printed in any former Impression." This song we're discussing is nonetheless lacking, as it is from editions 1 through 5, the only others I have found digitized and accessible.

So for now it looks as though Ramsey took it from the first ed. of "The Charmer."

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 24 Sep 23 - 10:29 AM

Wikipedia tells us....

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 24 Sep 23 - 10:03 AM

Thanks, Keith. I'll check out Limbo and get back to you.

Regarding the song here I'd hazard a guess about 1725. This based on it's not in D'Urfey and it would have been prime material for him.

Jon, in that case what did you mean by ' the folderols seems to occupy only the entire second half of the final stanza'? Surely they are the chorus. I'll post the Williams version shortly which has more of the chorus.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: GUEST,Keith Price
Date: 23 Sep 23 - 07:07 PM

Steve

'If E'er I do well,'tis a wonder'

Is this a stock verse ? it's more or less the first verse of 'Limbo'

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Lighter
Date: 23 Sep 23 - 06:45 PM

The final stanza:

Had ye but seen the sad plight I was in,
Ye'd not seen such a poet amongst twenty.
I've nothing that's full, but my shirt and my scull,
For my pockets and belly are empty.
Fall all de rall, &c.

The 11th ed. of Tea-Table (1750) had the song too, with "Fall all de rall, &c." after each stanza. That's the earliest ed. I have access to, via ECCO - like The Charmer.

Subject: RE: Origin: All for Me Grog
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 23 Sep 23 - 02:33 PM

My copy of Ramsey is actually the 12th edition, 1763, but it probably was present in earlier editions, but not the very earliest as it's in Vol 4.

Completely agree, and very likely the London stage, as with much of what Ramsey published. I'm interested in the fol de rol chorus, as Alfred Williams collected a version c1910 quite close to the printed version and it has the fol de rols. How does the stanza with the fol de rols run? Is The Charmer online? The name 'Yair' sounds familiar.