Ulysses pub songs

Subject: Ulysses pub songs
From: clm
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 09:08 PM

Does anyone have any information about the library of pub songs mentioned in Joyce's Ulysses? I'm the musical director for a stage production of the piece and I'm trying to research the lyrics Joyce mentions throughout the text. Thanks.

Subject: RE: Ulysses pub songs
From: Matthew Edwards
Date: 16 Oct 01 - 04:21 AM

clm, I'm not quite clear what you're looking for here. A lot of traditional songs and ballads are mentioned or quoted in Ulysses, as well as many popular and art songs. I don't know what you mean by "the library of pub songs"; but I am sure some Joycean scholar has managed to compile a list of the songs in Ulysses, which ought to be available in any good academic library. If you can get your hands on such a book, and then want to know something more about the songs then there are probably some people here who could help. If you have some particular songs already in mind, and would like help with those do let us know.
There is somewhere in the book an interesting discussion between Bloom and Stephen of that appalling ballad The Jew's Daughter.

Subject: RE: Ulysses pub songs
From: paddymac
Date: 16 Oct 01 - 04:27 AM

clm - great query. There are several good sites on the web devoted to James Joyce. If you don't get an answer here, you might check some of them. As you are obviously aware, there are couplets from many songs scattered all through "Ulysses." An interesting fact about JJ is that he was a talented tenor. He lost a competition to John McCormack not for vocal ability, but because McCormack could sight-read and JJ could not. There is presently a library of Irish traditional music up around Merrion Square in Dublin, but I don't know if it was there in Joyce's time, and I don't know whether it includes both trad (instrumental) and vocal (folk songs). Having been raised in a strongly nationalist home, Joyce seemes to have acquired a strong admiration of Parnell. There are bits and pieces of many old rebel songs scattered through "Ulysses". At one point, Joyce even quotes Randolph Churchill, though it isn't identified thusly.

Subject: RE: Ulysses pub songs
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 16 Oct 01 - 04:56 AM

There is at least one book on the song references in Joyce. I think it covers both Ulysses and the Wake. Title won't come to me at the moment ...

Coincidentally, the only place I've seen the book is in the Irish Traditional Music Archive - in Merrion Square. But n, it hasn't been around since Joyce's time - just about 20 years, offhand.

Regards

Subject: RE: Ulysses pub songs
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 16 Oct 01 - 07:52 AM

Paddymac

Joyce's fatehr was an active Parnellite.

Regards

Subject: RE: Ulysses pub songs
From: MartinRyan
Date: 16 Oct 01 - 08:35 AM

The book I was thinking of was "The James Joyce Songbook" by ?? Baurle, published around 1980 (??). As I recall, it contains words music and discussion of songs.

Regards

Subject: RE: Ulysses pub songs
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 16 Oct 01 - 10:29 AM

Is this the one, Martin? [Cut 'n'pasted from COPAC (http://copac.ac.uk), locations given as Cambridge, Oxford, Sheffield ,TCD, UCL & ULL university libraries]
Title Details: The James Joyce songbook / edited and with commentary by Ruth Bauerle Series: Garland reference library of the humanities ; v. 316 Publisher: New York : Garland, 1982 Physical Desc.: 1 score (xxii, 711 p.) ; 29 cm ISBN/ISSN: 0824093453 Notes: Songs (secular, sacred, popular), opera excerpts, etc., alluded to in the writings of James Joyce in photoreproductions from editions of his time
RtS (seems out of print)

Subject: RE: Ulysses pub songs
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 16 Oct 01 - 11:17 AM

Yes, that's it alright. I remember looking up "The Brown and Yellow Ale" in it some time ago. Never seen a copy of it in shops, catalogues etc.

Regards

Subject: RE: Ulysses pub songs
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 08 Feb 22 - 04:51 PM

BBC radio3
Music Matters
Holding onto Musical Traditions

,,, scholar Katherine O’Callaghan explains the musical references which litter the work and how music informs Joyce’s language, while the composer Betsy Jolas remembers accompanying James Joyce at the piano as he sang.   

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001474b
> 23:30
10 minutes

Subject: RE: Ulysses pub songs
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Feb 22 - 10:11 PM

For references on the songs - http://www.james-joyce-music.com/ulysses.html