Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Lighter
Date: 23 Aug 23 - 03:47 PM

Clifford (July 10, 1908):

                     
    It was about last November,
    And all my money I had spent.
    And as quite usual for a sailor.
    A-down to the shipping office I went.

       Cho.:

       Oh, Johnny, come back.
       Heave in the slack.
       Heave away our capstan, heave a pawl, heave a paw-aw-aw-awl!
       ‘Bout ship’s stations, boys, be handy.
       Raise tacks, sheets, and mains’l haul!

    Now in my bag I had a bottle,
    For to [?knot the days with sleep].
    I went to wet my bleedin’ throttle,
    When once the skipper I did see.

       Cho.

Line 2, stanza 2, is hard to decipher.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Aug 23 - 04:43 AM

Royston Clifford sang the song in 1907 (recorded by Percy Grainger, London). Clifford is described as an "old salt" in material about Grainger's activities, but I don't know his biography.

https://sounds.bl.uk/sounds/bout-ship-1001180075860x000006

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 23 Aug 23 - 03:59 AM

RJM wrote: I remember[ 1970s] a couple of people doubting the authenticity of this song. I am not saying they were correct, but is their proof of its authenticity.other than Hugill?

Doerflinger. Bone. Colcord. Hugill. Even if you ignore the 1868 reference, this is extremely strong attestation.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 23 Aug 23 - 03:43 AM

I remember[ 1970s] a couple of people doubting the authenticity of this song. I am not saying they were correct, but is their proof of its authenticity.other than Hugill?

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Aug 23 - 08:21 PM

Hugill recorded the song for the BBC on May 15, 1954.

Regrettably the recording is not online.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: GUEST,Sean Breadin
Date: 22 Aug 23 - 06:14 PM

Lovely! Thanks all for some fascinating insights.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 19 Aug 23 - 07:14 PM

A further thank you to Gibb Sahib. Checking that article on Google Books led me to cite it for seven different songs and mention it in connection with several more. In four cases, it was the earliest mention of the song. That's a lot of mileage for a two page item. :-)

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 19 Aug 23 - 06:20 PM

Gibb Sahib write:

Sure! It's a familiar source in these discussions, but flies under the radar a bit due to the uncommon title. A few subsequent publications, which I can only imagine are derivative of the _Once a Week_ piece, parse "Valparaiso" and "Round the Horn" as two separate items.

Understandable, given the syntax. But your argument that it's one song makes sense. As I say, it's worth a mention. Thank you!

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 19 Aug 23 - 06:06 PM

A note in the JM Carpenter collection materials says, 'Mr Stevenson heard 70s-80s'.

Evidently, this was written in the margins of a text transcription of Benjamin Bright's performance in 1929.

https://www.dhi.ac.uk/carpenter/ginit.jsp?src=box1pac1.xml&id=p00427.0

I don't find a digitized file of that manuscript in the VWML. Perhaps they haven't gotten to it yet?

I suppose "Mr. Stevenson" was another of Carpenter's sailor interviewees, James Stevenson.

My sketchy and old notes have that Carpenter also collected the song from James Dwyer, William Rennie (at sea 1880-1895?), and John Vass.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 19 Aug 23 - 05:31 PM

Lighter,

When I say minstrel-ish, to be clear (and maybe my term is poor, or misused), I am broadly evoking stage caricature and comic popular song with a penchant for playing on ethnic/national stereotypes—rather than only songs that reference African American ethnicity.

Stuff like THIS, published 1854 , in which I could see "Paddy Lay Back" fitting. Or THIS , where "Paddy on the Railway" is indicated as being set to "King of the Cannibal Islands."

I'm recalling one of the discussions circa 1915 when Richard Runciman Terry presented on shanties to colleagues and one remarked that he remembered "Paddy on the Railway" being a "Christy's Minstrels" item.

My basic, not expert, understanding from some of the scholarship on blackface minstrelsy is that even in the early period, minstrels did plenty of send-ups of Italian (opera) music, i.e. not only "Ethiopian delineation." A few decades later, I observe collections to include a wider range with "sauerkraut"/German caricatures, "Paddy"/Irish caricatures, and even some Chinese pidgin... the minstrel model developing into vaudeville.

I'd welcome a better characterization. I'm simply making a distinction between sailor song that strikes me as material derived more from popular theater performance as opposed to those items (including much of the "core" chanty repertoire) that sound more "folky" (disseminated among peers in off-stage contexts).

Robert,

Sure! It's a familiar source in these discussions, but flies under the radar a bit due to the uncommon title. A few subsequent publications, which I can only imagine are derivative of the _Once a Week_ piece, parse "Valparaiso" and "Round the Horn" as two separate items.

***
If the 1868 source does indeed refer to our song, it may be notable that we don't (yet) have more documentation until decades later. In the narrow context of "chanties" and their performance context, it's a hard song to sing. Dick Maitland's performance for Doerflinger shows how hard it might have been to keep in one's repertoire (due to its long narrative and more sophisticated rhyme-scheme) unless the singer really made it a point to practice it and keep it fresh.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Lighter
Date: 19 Aug 23 - 03:36 PM

The plain diction, developed plot, and straight-ahead style of the song strike me as very modern for the 1860s.

Not very minstrel-like.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 19 Aug 23 - 01:32 PM

Gibb Sahib wrote,

I feel comfortable supposing that the article "On Shanties," in an August 1868 issue of _Once a Week_, refers to this song.

May I cite your research on this in the Ballad Index? I don't think it's quite firm enough to cite as a guaranteed date, but it's certainly worth noting!

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Lighter
Date: 19 Aug 23 - 07:01 AM

Nice find, Gibb.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 18 Aug 23 - 11:53 PM

I feel comfortable supposing that the article "On Shanties," in an August 1868 issue of _Once a Week_, refers to this song.

It reads,

//
There is an air of romance about California, the Brazils, and Mexico, that has a peculiar charm for Jack, and has made them the subject of many a favourite shanty, as _Rio Grande, Valparaiso, Round the Horn,_ and _Santa Anna._
//

I interpret that to be a list of *three* titles, the second of which is "Valparaiso, Round the Horn." (This is the same author who presumably meant ~"Oh Shenandoah" when they wrote "Oceanida." That is, title formatting is iffy.)

I have not done so, but would not be surprised if, with some tweaking of words and armchair searching, one could produce a candidate for a music hall-ish song borrowed by sailors. The searching would be improved with good knowledge of when jokey Irish-themed minstrel-ish comic songs, like "Paddy on the Railway," were first in vogue on the stage.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: meself
Date: 12 Aug 23 - 08:07 PM

I learned it from an un-annotated 'mixed tape' with the last line in the chorus being, "Raise tacks and sheets and mains'l, haul!" - or something that sounded like that. Also, no "long voyage":

I quickly made my mind up I would jump her,
I'd leave the beggar and get a job ashore;
I swam across the bay, I went and I left her,
Walked into an English(?) bar and found a whore.

That's how I heard it, anyway.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Aug 23 - 06:48 PM

It was performed by Paul Clayton "and the Focs'le Singers" on Folkways FA 2429, "Foc'sle Songs and Shanties" (1959), possibly learned from Hugill's 1954 recording for the BBC.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Reinhard
Date: 12 Aug 23 - 06:38 PM

I've just hacked a page together for Paddy Lay Back on Mainly Norfolk.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: GUEST,Sean Breadin
Date: 12 Aug 23 - 06:11 PM

Cheers, Robert.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 12 Aug 23 - 05:57 PM

I actually show an earliest date of 1898. Not sure where I got that -- probably from Doerflinger, since that's the book that caused me to enter the song, and I indexed it before I started explaining where dates came from. Bone dated it to 1900.

I'm pretty sure I first heard it sung by the Irish Rovers, on some record belonging to my parents.

The current Ballad Index entry looks like this:

Paddy, Get Back
DESCRIPTION: Shanty, with long chorus, "Paddy, get back, Take in the slack, Heave away your capstan," etc. The song details how the poor boy has to go to sea to earn money, then suffers at the hands of weather, mate, and a long voyage
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1898
KEYWORDS: shanty poverty sailor abuse
FOUND IN: US(MA) Canada(Mar) Britain(England(Lond)) Ireland
REFERENCES (10 citations):
Doerflinger-SongsOfTheSailorAndLumberman, pp. 54-55, "Paddy, Get Back" (1 text, 1 tune)
Colcord-SongsOfAmericanSailormen, pp. 121-122, "Paddy Get Back" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hugill-ShantiesFromTheSevenSeas, pp. 321-327, "Paddy Lay Back" (3 texts, 3 tunes with variants) [AbEd, pp. 241-244]
Hugill-SongsOfTheSea, p. 32, "Pady Lay Back" (1 text, 1 tune)
Shay-AmericanSeaSongsAndChanteys, pp. 68-70, "Paddy Get Back" (1 text, 1 tune)
Kinsey-SongsOfTheSea, pp. 73-74, "Valparaiso Round the Horn" (1 text, 1 tune)
Kane-SongsAndSayingsOfAnUlsterChildhood, p. 124, "'Bout ship's stations, boys, be handy" (1 fragment)
Smith/Hatt/Fowke-SeaSongsBalladFromNineteenthCenturyNovaScotia, pp. 42-43, "Lay Out, Tack Sheets and Haul" (1 text)
Palmer-OxfordBookOfSeaSongs 141, "On Board the Leicester Castle" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, PADLAYBK
Roud #653
RECORDINGS:
George Ling, "On Board the Leicester Castle" (on Voice02)
Richard Maitland, "Paddy, Get Back" (AFS, 1939; on LC26)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Liverpool Song" (form, lyrics)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Mainsail Haul
The Liverpool Song
Valparaiso Round the Horn
File: Doe054

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: GUEST,Guest : Sean Breadin.
Date: 12 Aug 23 - 05:40 PM

Thanks all!

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Reinhard
Date: 12 Aug 23 - 05:25 PM

Just google for "paddy lay back site:mudcat.org" and you'll find
- the Digital Tradition entry for Paddy Lay Back (Roud 653)
- the discussion Lyr Req: Valparaiso which is mostly about other Valparaiso songs but mentions Paddy Lay Back too.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Aug 23 - 05:24 PM

Very traditional, though modern versions all descend from the one in Stan Hugill's "Shanties from the Seven Seas" (1960).

Roud 653. First collected in the 1920s, but probably thirty or forty years older.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: GUEST,Sean Breadin
Date: 12 Aug 23 - 05:20 PM

It's the chorus that lingers:

Paddy lay back, (Paddy lay back)
Take in your slack (take in your slack)
Take a turn around the capstan heave and hawl (?)
About ship station, boys, be handy (be handy!)
For we're bound for Valparaiso ‘round the horn

Where? North east / west UK singarounds
When? 1975-2012.
Who? A lot of much missed & dearly departed old friends.

What led me to ask? Because you holler along in good drunken faith without giving too much thought to provenance then decades later it pops into your brain (one of the truly miraculous creations in the universe?) out of nowhere and it gets you thinking.

Subject: RE: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 12 Aug 23 - 04:59 PM

Dear Sean Breadin,

Welcome to Mudcat.

Could you give two lines that are "stuck in your head"?

Where
When
Who

are also helpful ...

Ask, and you shall receive ... sometimes ... within minutes.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

What led you to ask ... in one of the truly miraculous creations in the universe?

Subject: Origins: Valparaiso / Paddy Lay Back
From: GUEST,Guest : Sean Breadin.
Date: 12 Aug 23 - 04:32 PM

Had this stuck in my head most of this afternoon. Can't remember a time when I didn't know it, no doubt due to many happily drunken singarounds down the decades. But what's the ultimate source? Does it have a Roud number? Is it in anyway traditional? Is there a known author?

Thanks!