Origin: Long Time Ago/Hoosen Johnny/Sam Houston

Subject: RE: Origin: Long Time Ago/Hoosen Johnny/Sam Houston
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Mar 16 - 11:32 PM

Oh, I see what happened. We're talking about two different "long time ago" songs. Leeneia's MIDI is for the first one, not the "Little Black Bull" one. I probably should split this thread to eliminate the confusion, but I don't have time now. Hope I remember to do it later.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Origin: Long Time Ago/Hoosen Johnny/Sam Houston
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 21 Mar 16 - 06:01 AM

Sam "Houston" was pronounced like the city he's named for: "Hewston."

But Houston Street in NYC is "House-ton."

Subject: RE: Origin: Long Time Ago/Hoosen Johnny/Sam Houston
From: Lighter
Date: 06 Sep 19 - 10:35 AM

1924 R. W. Gordon in Adventure magazine (Jan. 30), pp. 191-92, from a notebook sent in by an "old sailor":

                                        A LONG TIME AGO

From Liverpool City to Frisco I went
    To my hay—ay—ay—yah!
From Liverpool City to Frisco I went
    A long time ago!

[Similarly:]

I shipped on a ship of the Black Ball Line….

Oh, I’ll never forget that night off Cape Horn….

We were going twelve knots with our main skys’l set….

When the man on the lookout reported the land….

It’s then you should hear our bold captain’s command….

“Every man to his station! We’ll put her about! ….

“And we’ll point her to Frisco this very night!”….

But when I arrived in Frisco town….

The runners came off from Shanghai Brown….

Oh, I picked up my bag and went on shore….

And like all other fools took in whisky galore….

And now I’m shanghaied back to Liverpool town….

Away down south where I was born….

Amongst the fields of yellow corn….

I courted a girl, her name it was Nell….

And when I return we’ll both get wed….


[It starts off under the influence of "The Liverpool Judies," then appears to get topical, throws in a reference to "Shanghai Brown," returns to "L J,"

Subject: RE: Origin: Long Time Ago/Hoosen Johnny/Sam Houston
From: Lighter
Date: 06 Sep 19 - 10:44 AM

As I was saying,

next brings in a couple of cliche' lines, and ends with something unrelated to anything that's gone before.

It's partly free improvisation, partly a "re-telling" of another song, and partly the importation of familiar lines from elsewhere.

The repeated lines (unlike the couplets of chantey books) are typical of field-recorded chantey singing; Carpenter's chanteymen, for example, rarely use couplets.