The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #167947   Message #4055416
Posted By: GUEST,Mike Yates
27-May-20 - 04:20 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Brave Irish soldier (Trouble in my land)
Subject: RE: Origins: Brave Irish soldier (Trouble in my land)
Interesting that Nick has traced this song to the composer Harry Castling, whose name appears on a music sheet. It may well be that Castling did write the song, but, on another sheet I came across the name Tom McGuire as the composer. Unfortunately, when it comes to sheet music from this period we can find all kinds of anomalies. For example, the sheet music to the song' Wait Till the Clouds Roll By' states that the song was written by J T Wood and H J Fulmer. But, in fact, these gentlemen did not exist. They were names used by an American called Charles Pratt. There is now quite a bit of evidence to suggest that the song was actually written by the same Irish singer and concertina player mentioned above, namely Tom McGuire.
Another song that I recently researched shows at least four separate composers, depending on which sheet you examine. In this case the four were all members of the same singing group and each one had individually claimed the song as their own.