Hello! I am Becca, and I have never posted here before, so please forgive me if I am doing anything wrong! Now to business:

I have discovered a mystery which I am quite keen on solving.

There is a song by a man named John Darnielle who records as The Mountain Goats called "Down Here."

The final stanza of this song consists of the following:

"Johnson Johnson is my name
Brooklyn is my station
Heaven is my resting place
And God is my salvation"

Now, earlier today I was reading James Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" and lo and behold, a few pages into it what should I see but this:

"Stephen Dedalus is my name,
Ireland is my nation.
Clongowes is my dwellingplace
And heaven my expectation."

This amazing parallel struck me, and I was compelled to poke about online to see what I could find. All I've been able to find are the following facts:

1) There seems to be nothing out in the internet resembling the bit from Joyce enough to turn up in any googl'ing.

2) The bit from John Darnielle's song turns up one other place: a field recording sung by a man named Ben Mandel from New York City, 1964 from an album called "Brave Boys - New England Traditions in Folk Music" of a version of "The Two BrotherS" (Child 49). However, a document from the record label that released the album that some searching turned up states the following: "Mandel's delightlfully incongrous final stanza clearly derives from another urban street rhyme, but its presence serves to make this version unique"

I would love to know what the origins of this song (poem?) are, both the Brooklyn version and the Ireland version.

If any of you can help me, it would be super.

-Becca