Origins: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye

Subject: RE: ORIGINS: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 23 Sep 24 - 04:40 AM

Guy Mitchell- I've often thought of him as the last of the ballad singers

Subject: RE: ORIGINS: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 23 Sep 24 - 09:28 AM

Don't know if someone mentioned this before, but a favourite parody of this song by the Kipper Family began 'She had a dark and a roving eye, and another one quite similar'.

Subject: RE: Origins: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: Lighter
Date: 25 Sep 24 - 10:12 AM

Mentions of the song begin to appear in the 1920s, suggesting an increased popularity during World War I. The earliest I have found is in a report on nightlife on the Left Bank pf Paris in the "Evansville [Ind.] Courier and Press: (June 10, 1923):

“Perhaps Nina Hamnett, who has belonged to Montparnasse ever since she deserted Augustus John's group at the cafe Royal in London, was there and sang ‘The Fire Ship,’ the refrain of which is ‘She’s a Nice Girl, a Decent Girl, but One of the Rakish Kind.’”

The Welsh artist Nina Hamnett was an enthusiast of sea songs.

An article in the Brisbane, Australia, "Truth" (Dec. 23, 1923) about the kindness of streetwalkers to children, included the following fragment:

"Young man, she said, excuse me for being out so late,
For if my parents heard of it then sad would be my fate,
My father is a clergyman and a very pious man,
My mother is a Methodist, but I do the best I can.

"It was a dark and stormy night,                                          And her hair hung down to her waistline,
She was a nice girl, a decent girl,
And one of the roving kind."

This is the only pre-Guy Mitchell instance of "roving" rather than the usual "rakish."

Subject: RE: Origins: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: Lighter
Date: 29 Sep 24 - 05:12 PM

It's pretty surprising to discover that the earliest printed version of the song in its modern form was in "The Week-End Book" (1924), a miscellany of prose, poetry, music, and puzzles, edited for a sophisticated readership by Vera Mendel and Francis Meynell. John Goss, English baritone and bon vivant, was the music editor and may have contributed the song, which is decsribed as a "sailor's forebitter."

The tune given is the familiar one.

                      THE FIRE SHIP
                
As I strolled out one ev’ning out for a night’s career,
I spied a lofty fire ship, and after her I steered;
I hoisted her my siganals which she very quickly knew,
And when she see’d my bunting fly, she immediately hove to-o-o.
                
       She’d a dark and a rolling eye,
       And her hair hung down in ringalets,            [sic
       She was a nice girl, a decent girl,
       But one of the rakish kind.

O Sir, you must excuse me for being out so late,
For if my parients knew of it, then sad would be my fate,    [sic
My father he’s a minister, a true and honest man,
My mother she’s a Methodist, and I do the best I can.
                
       She’d a dark and a rolling eye, etc.
                                    

I took her to a tavern and I treated her to wine,
Little did I think she belonged to the rakish kind;
I handled her, I dandled her, and found to my surprise,
She was nothing but a fire-ship rigged up in a disguise.    [sic
                
       She’d a dark and a rolling eye, etc.


The concluding stanza or stanzas are understandably missing.

It's doesn't make too much sense for the singer to recognize the woman as a "fire-ship" in line two only to be surprised in stanza three. It makes even less sense for him to wittingly accompany a "fire-ship."

"Siganals," "see'd," and "parients" suggest (truly or as parody) a   mannerism of some 19th century music-hall performances.

Subject: RE: Origins: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Sep 24 - 03:42 PM

The usual chorus and no more appears in American novelist Sinclair Lewis's "Arrowsmith" (1925). Two American printings of the song (or much of it) occurred almost simultaneously in the fall of 1929.

One, in Frank Shay's "Drawn from the Wood," is virtually identical in words and tune to the version in "The Week-End Book." Shay (1888-1954)
had been a lumberjack, sailor, and overseas doughboy, but he gives the song "As sung by Ruth Dyer." It was evidently new to him, since he hadn't included it in either of his two earlier collections of songs for "Pious Friends and Drunken Companions." or in his sea-song anthology "Wooden Ships and Iron Men."

More significant is the version in "The Songs My Mother Never Taught Me," an expurgated and bowdlerized collection of soldier and sailor songs by John Jacob Niles, Doug Moore, and W. W. "Wally" Wallgren. Niles, not yet famous, was a veteran of the Air Service, Moore of the Navy, and Wallgren of the Marine Corps.

Niles, of course, liked to tinker with words and music besides passing off some of his original compositions as ancient folk creations. Neither of these objections seem to apply very seriously to "The Fire Ship." Not only do the editors assure us that the song "is hereby recorded from the singing of Tom Davin--Literary Racketeer and Irishman Extraordinaire"; the tune given is, startlingly, a worn-down version of that usually associated with "The Lowlands of Holland." If Niles had "improved" the tune, he would have done a better job.

Compare the final stanza with that of the "Black and Rolling Eye" broadside.

                FIRESHIP
                
As I set out one evening upon a midnight clear,
I ran across a fire ship and after her did steer
I hoisted up my siginal which she did quickly know            
And as I ran my buntin' up she immediately hove to

        She had a dark and rolling eye
        And her hair hung down in ringolets                                
        A fine girl, a decent girl and one of the rakish kind.

(Falsetto) "Oh, sir, you must excuse me for being out so late,
For if my parents knew of it, Oh, sad would be my fate.
My father is a minister; a good and righteous man,
My mother is a Methodist, so I do the best I can."

                         Chorus

I took her to a tavern and treated her to wine,
Ah! then I did not know that she was of the rakish kind.
I handled her and dandled her, 'til I found to my surprise,
She was nothing but a fireship rigged up in a disguise.

                         Chorus

So all ye jolly sailormen that sail the wintry sea,
And all ye merry prentice boys, a warnin' take from me.
Beware of floatin' fireships; they'll be the ruin of you,
For 'twas there I had me main yard sprung
                         and me jewel block stove through.

                          Chorus



(Some may recall the opening lines of Longfellow's "The Wreck of the Hesperus" [1842]: "It was the schooner Hesperus,/That sailed the wintry sea.")

Subject: RE: Origins: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 30 Sep 24 - 04:44 PM

That GUEST, of course, was me.

Subject: RE: Origins: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: Lighter
Date: 07 Oct 24 - 10:24 AM

The next development in the story of this song is could not, of course, have been predicted.

At some point its "dark and rolling eye" chorus was attached to a very different and entirely surreal bawdy song, associated especially with the Royal Navy, called variously "The Sailors' Wives," "The Whores of Pompey," "The Captain's Ball," etc.

Even more surprising was the appearance in 1941 of a sanitized version
of the latter sung by the very popular English singer Elsie Carlisle. This was called "She Had Those Dark and Dreamy Eyes," and it was written by Jimmy Hughes and Ted Douglas. It modified the chorus to:

She had those dark and dreamy eyes,
And she sang a song of love, sir.
She was one of those flash-eyed girls,
One of the old brigade.

The chorus's tune remained nearly the same as in "The Fireship," though that of the stanzas was different.

A year earlier in 1940 Jimmy Hughes had been responsible, with Frank Lake, for the popular, also bowdlerized, version of "Bless 'Em All!"

Subject: RE: Origins: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 05:17 PM

The Fireship, Oscar Brand, totz.

Subject: RE: Origins: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Oct 24 - 06:31 PM

Except for GUEST 28 Jul 09's Marine father, I haven't noted any mention of "The Fireship" being sung during WW2.

The next notable appearance - or non-appearance - is on the sleeve of Oscar Brand's EP "Back-Room Ballads" (CMS-11), released in 1949. The song's title is on the sleeve (as track A-4), but the song isn't on the album!

Brand sang the first stanza and the chorus along with the Weavers on radio in 1949-50.

When Brand did record it, on the LP "Bawdy Songs and Back Room Ballads, Vol 1" (Audio-Fidelity AFLP-906) (1955), the version he sang was nearly identical to Frank Shay's, with a final verse reminiscent of Niles, Moore, and Wallgren's.

Other than a more sensible "clipper ship" in stanza one, the only notable difference is in the final lines:

"Listen all you sailor men
That sail upon the sea.
Beware of them there fireships;
One was the ruin of me.
Beware of them, steer clear of them,
They'll be the death of you.
'Twas there I had my mizzen sprung
And my strongbox broken through."


As the mast just aft of the mainmast, a "mizzen" is an odd spar to be metaphorically "sprung" (cracked or split) by a "fireship." (A mizzen can also be the lowest sail set on a mizzen mast.) These lines, then,   may have been fashioned by a landlubber.

Brand notes only, "This is what happens to all jolly lads who follow the sea eventually."

Brand failed to include "The Fireship" in his book of "Bawdy Songs and Back Room Ballads" (1960).

Subject: RE: Origins: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Oct 24 - 08:01 PM

Stzs. 2 and 3 of the broadside I posted on 11 Sept are reversed.

That's just how they were printed on the original sheet.

Subject: RE: Origins: She Had a Dark and a Rovin' Eye
From: Lighter
Date: 13 Oct 24 - 02:30 PM

Appearing in late 1950 was “The Roving Kind,” words & music by the pseudonymous "Jesse Cavanaugh & Arnold Stanton."

The song was first recorded by The Weavers on the Decca label. Watch them perform it in 1951:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPQKcKaapBY

And compare the more lucrative big-band treatment of Guy Mitchell with Mitch Miller's Orchestra:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiUNbByGX5w

And that of Les Baxter's orchestra featuring Lindy Doherty:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDXgmZCrlb8

Wikipedia ludicrously notes that "Mitchell's jocular version followed the original sea-shanty style." It reached #4 on the national "Billboard" chart in December, 1950, and stayed on the list for 17 weeks.

"The Roving Kind" never mentions a "fireship." "Clipper ship" and the less suggestive and more readily understandable "pirate ship" take its place.