The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #19536   Message #4058645
Posted By: Lighter
10-Jun-20 - 01:52 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: Shenandoah
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shenandoah
From the Short Sharp Shanties page. (Outstanding CDs, by the way, if anyone hasn't heard):

"Several years after he had initially introduced his parishioner, John Short, to Cecil Sharp, the Rev. Alan Brockington – by now a vicar in Liverpool - wrote to The Times in response to a discussion about the origins of Shenandoah, going on to say that: ‘I visited Mr. Short again in 1928. My wife was with me, and I asked him to sing Shanadar for her benefit. He said: “I don’t know as I like Shanadar.” I wondered why he did not like the song, and then I remembered that that we had omitted from the published book one line he had sung in 1914, on account of its – well, unsuitability. Mr. Short seeing a lady was present and being too old to change his words at a moment’s notice, escaped from his embarrassment by saying that he did not like the song. Whereas in 1914, it was the only tune that, of his own proper volition, and without any remark from Cecil Sharp, he had praised.’ The line, duly noted in Sharp’s notebook and faithfully recorded on the CD is, of course:

Oh Shanadar, I love your daughter
I love the place she makes her water."