Lyr Add: Dickens' Boot Polish Love Song

Subject: Lyr Add: THE TURTLE DOVE (Charles Dickens)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Nov 03 - 06:02 PM

A song written by Charles Dickens has just been discovered, and printed in today's Guardian. Here is the story behind it – it was actually written as an advertisement for the Boot Polish Company where he was employed for a short time when he was a boy.

Very singable – the tune apparently is "Sweet Jessie, the flower o' Dunblane" though the words don't owe too much to it - it's not a parody so much as a pastiche of the genre, and charmingly done. Anyway, here is the song:

The Turtle Dove

As lonely I sat on a calm summer's morning,
To breathe the soft incense that flow'd on the wind;
I mus'd on my boots in their bright beauty dawning,
By Warren's Jet Blacking - the pride of mankind.
...
On a maple-tree near sat a turtle bewailing,
With sorrowful cooings, the loss of her love;
Each note that she utter'd seem'd sadness exhaling,
And plaintively echo'd around the still grove.
When lo! in my boots the lone mourner perceived
Her form, and suppos'd that her lover was there;
Even I, that the vision was real, half believed -
The Blacking reflected her image so clear.
...
How wild were her cries, when the fairy illusion
She found but a cheating and transient shade;
Like Hope's airy dreams but a faded delusion,
That shone in the bloom Warren's Blacking displayed.
I pity'd the dove, for my bosom was tender -
I pity'd the strain that she gave to the wind;
But I ne'er shall forget the superlative splendour
Of Warren's Jet Blacking - the pride of mankind.

And here is Sweet Jessie, the flower of Dunblane for comparison:

JESSIE, THE FLOWER OF DUNBLANE^^

The sun has gane down o'er the lofty Ben Lomond
And left the red clouds to reside o'er the scene
While lanely I stray in the calm simmer gloamin'
To muse on sweet Jessie, the flow'r o' Dunblane.
How sweet is the brier wi' its saft faulding blossom
And sweet is the birk wi' its mantle o' green
But sweeter and fairer and dear to this bosom
Is charming young Jessie, the flow'r o' Dunblane.
Is charming young Jessie, is charming young Jessie
Is charming young Jessie, the flow'r o' Dunblane.

2. She's modest as on-y and blythe as she's bonnie
For guileless simplicity makes her its aim
And far be the villain, divested of feeling
Wha'd blight in its bloom, the sweet flow'r of Dunblane.
Sing on, thou sweet mavis, thy hymn to the evening
Thour't dear to the echoes of Calderwood glen
Sae dear to this bosom, sae artless and winning
Is charming young Jessie, the flow'r o' Dunblane.
Is charming young Jessie, is charming young Jessie
Is charming young Jessie, the flow'r o' Dunblane.

3. How lost were my days till I met wi' my Jessie
The sports o' the city seem'd foolish and vain
I ne'er saw a nymph I would ca' my dear lassie
Till charm'd wi' sweet Jessie, the flow'r o' Dunblane.
Tho' mine were the station of liftiest grandeur
Amidst its profusion I'd languish in pain
And reckon as naething, the height of its splendour
If wanting sweet Jessie, the flow'r o' Dunblane
If wanting sweet Jessie, if wanting sweet Jessie
If wanting sweet Jessie, the flow'r o' Dunblane.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Dickens' Boot Polish Love Song
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 02:02 PM

Apparently Dickens wasn't by any means the only well known name involved in this advertiseing campaign, either writing the parodies, or being parodied, - here is a page all about it: 'The Praise of Blacking': William Frederick Deacon's Warreniana and Early Nineteenth-century Advertising-related Parody. And here is an extract from a parody of Wordsworth taken from that page:

It chanced one summer morn I passed the clefts
Of Silver-How, and turning to the left,
Fast by the blacksmith's shop, two doors beyond
Old Stubb's, the tart-woman's, approached a glen
Secluded as a coy nun from the world.
Beauteous it was but lonesome, and while I
Leaped up for joy to think that earth was good
And lusty in her boyhood, I beheld
Graven on the tawny rock these magic words,
"BUY WARREN'S BLACKING;"

I think that is pretty good!

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Dickens' Boot Polish Love Song
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 04:05 PM

"Jessie, the Flower of Dunblane," and several other Scottish songs were posted in thread 6842, with tunes, by John in Brisbane in 1998. Somehow, Jessie, one of the most popular Scottish songs, apart from those of Burns, doesn't seem to be in the DT, although it has a wiggly mark by it.
Many websites call the song traditional, but it was written by Robert Tannahill, c. 1808, and music set by R. A. Smith (see note by Bruce O. in the linked thread). The song may be based on "Bob o' Dunblane."

See thread 6842: Cauld Kail

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Dickens' Boot Polish Love Song
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Nov 03 - 07:48 PM

Actually I've checked up, and the company for whom the adverts were written wasn't actually the one Charles Dickens had worked for as a boy, but another rival one with a similar name. The place he worked in, and evidently loathed, had been set up by the brother of the man who ran the company who ran the adverts, following some kind of quarrel.

The implication of this would be that this poem/song does not indicate that Dickens really felt quite friendly towards the place he'd been employed, in spite of what he said later. Writing this ad copy would have been a way of getting his own back, by helping the competition. (As well as making a few badly needed guineas in the process.)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Dickens' Boot Polish Love Song
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Nov 03 - 12:44 PM

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Dickens' Boot Polish Love Song
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Nov 03 - 01:42 PM

And here is another boot polish gem (not by Dickems) - which can be sung to the Star Spangled Banner, by those who are brave enough to sing the Star Spangled Banner (I gather a lot of Americans get nervous about dealing with the high notes). It's all about the advisability of dropping out of college and polishing boots instead:

Our Sires were such pedagogue blockheads of yore,
That they sent us to college instruction to seek,
Where we bother'd our brains with pedantical lore,
Law, logic, and algebra, Latin and Greek;
But now, wiser grown, leaving learning alone,
And resolving to shine by a light of our own,
Our cares we transfer from the head to the foot,
Leave the brain to be muddied, and polish the boot.

On the banks of the Isis, ye classical fools!
Who with Lycophron's crabbedness puzzle your ear,
And ye who learn logarithmetical rules
At Cambridge, from tables of Baron Napier,
Renounce Aristotle, and take to the bottle,
That wears 'Patent Blacking', inscribed on its throttle;
For Napier and Greek are by few understood,
While all can decide when your blacking is good.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Dickens' Boot Polish Love Song
From: GUEST,Leveller
Date: 04 Nov 03 - 01:08 PM

There is a classic Indian film called Boot Polish about a young bootblack. It has some good songs, especially one called "Nanhe Munne Bachche Teri" which you can hear here - Music India Online

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Dickens' Boot Polish Love Song
From: LadyJean
Date: 05 Nov 03 - 01:01 AM

It was Dickens who created the Poet Slum, who takes himself very seriously, though what he writes are advertising jingles. "If I knowed a donkey who would not go to see Mrs. Jarley's waxworks show, would I see him, no no no! run to Jarley's." Apparently he was writing from his own experience.