Dear Lamarca:

I've never participated in a list-serve, so don't know exactly how this works (e.g., whether everyone will receive a copy of the posting), but here goes.

I came across this old posting quite by accident, but wanted to add to what everyone else has said about the matter that as far as I know I'm the only person I know who sings "in cant" instead of "tin can." Any doubts about Mary Ann Carolan's words can be removed by watching her performance of the song in the video "Come West Along the Road." My own change was, I think, originally unconscious (that is, I can't remember thinking about it)--an example of what folklorists call "rationalization," i.e., changing a lyric to make it make sense in the terms the singer is familiar with. I do this rather a lot (as well as making small melodic changes)--and am then surprised to find it out when I listen to my source at some remove. (Of course, this happens all the time in oral tradition, so I suppose I shouldn't be that surprised.) The question of what is "correct" here is rather academic: as Martin Ryan has pointed out, in the 1804 broadside version the lines containing these words do not even figure; beyond that it depends on how free you feel to alter words received from the song version's ultimate source (in this case Mary Ann Carolan), whether oral or written, consciously or unconsciously.

Meanwhile, since you said I taught the song to you, I'm curious to know your identity! You can write me privately if you like at jhenigan@nd.edu.

All the best,
Julie