Origins: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: Lighter
Date: 18 Oct 11 - 08:45 PM

Except for the perfectly ordinary meter (like that of "Clementine"), I don't see any similarity in text or tune or theme between "The Gypsy's Warning" and "Poor but Honest."

What am I missing?

According to Ed Cray, the "Clipper" song is much more recent parody of "Poor but Honest."

Auden's claim that "PBH" is a "Victorian ballad" seems to be based on intuition alone.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Oct 11 - 09:20 PM

Lighter, I am missing the same connection you are between G. W. and P.b.H. I printed Randolph's comments without remark, but I agree that it is a far stretch to connect the two songs.
The Clipler parody is, of course, very late, not collected until 1957.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 18 Oct 11 - 10:13 PM

Randolph is a useful reference but it's not clear when he dates the ditty in question. "The Gypsy's Warning" may have inspired or provoked this ditty but the ditty doesn't appear to me to be a parody of "The Gypsy's Warning."

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: Genie
Date: 19 Oct 11 - 12:17 AM

Lighter,
I don't think the transition from being (accepted by the) high class to being down and out and jumping off a bridge in despair is hard to understand, in the version I posted above.

She's poor (and honest). She meets a wealthy squire (or two) and for a while is a "kept woman" living the high life (riding in carriages, sending champagne home to her aged parents). (Nowhere does it say she, herself is rich.) Then the (second) squire "callously" leaves her (presumably penniless) without a ring. So she's back to being poor but has "lost her name" as well and is despondent. Why could that not have been the original story?
Not saying it is - I don't know - but it makes perfect sense to me.

Genie

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: GUEST,SteveG
Date: 19 Oct 11 - 04:35 AM

A closer possible candidate for inspiring PBH would be 'The Alderman's Lady' Roud 2533 starting 'A nobleman lived in a mansion, he courted his own servant maid.' I think this goes back to the 18th century on street lit.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: Lighter
Date: 19 Oct 11 - 08:25 AM

Genie, I was thinking of versions - perhaps cobbled together - that logically end with the very clever irony of having "made a wealthy marriage" and sending champagne to her parents, who hypocritically enjoy   it even though "they never can forgive."

Some of these then pick the story up again on the bridge. Either conclusion makes poetic sense, but not both together.

It's also unclear whether the "bridge" stanzas were originally printable or otherwise. In fact, that goes for the entire song, though what evidence there is suggests that it was considerably tidied up for wider circulation.

A tune that bears a close similarity is "In and Out the Window," which is used for other British bawdy songs.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Oct 11 - 08:29 AM

Lighter ~ In the coherent Penguin version I refer to above, she sends champagne home to her unforgiving parents while still kept by her seducer; but goes downhill when replaced in his favours, and eventually ends up on the bridge at midnight. Makes perfectly good sense.

~M~

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: Lighter
Date: 19 Oct 11 - 09:38 AM

To each his own.

Brophy & Partridge's bawdy text from 1914-18 (not printed till years later) continues the sordid story after the champagne but significantly makes no mention of a "wealthy marriage."

In it, the heroine winds up back home "cracking ice for grandpa's piles," quite as in "Life Presents a Dismal Picture."

No early version includes the suicide attempt. That also persuades me that it's a later accretion.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: Lighter
Date: 19 Oct 11 - 09:45 AM

Worth noting: in B&P's 1930 printing of the song, even the word "piles" was replaced with a dash as "unprintable."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: Lighter
Date: 19 Oct 11 - 04:45 PM

The DT midi of "The Gypsy's Warning," from Harry Peters's "Folksongs out of Wisconsin":

http://mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=2462

I hear a slight resemblance between the tunes, but it may be coincidental. Randolph's tune is less similar.

Looking more closely at Randolph's text, I suppose that stanza three (and maybe four) suggests "Poor but Honest," though very indirectly:

"Lady, once there lived a maiden,
Pure and bright, and like thee fair,
But he wooed, he wooed and won her,
Killed her gentle heart with care.

"Then he heeded not her weeping,
Nor cared he her life to save,
Soon she perished, now she's sleeping
'Neath the cold and silent grave."

(Consider the line, "For he wooed and he seduced her" / "For he wooed her and he screwed her," etc., in the same third-line position in its stanza.)

The words quoted are spoken by the mysteriously protective Gypsy to a maiden about to fall for a wealthy cad.

Whether or not the creator of "Poor but Honest" was consciously parodying "The Gypsy's Warning," the "Warning" is certainly representative of the tradition he (surely not "she") was reacting to.

The British Library lists the composer of "The Gypsy's Warning"
as "Henry A. Goard," not "Coard." Its correct date appears to be "1878." It appears also that Goard's song took its cue from an 1838 opera of that name by Sir Julius Benedict. There are several sheet-music publications of Benedict's opera, or perhaps merely melodies from the opera, including one by A. Devaux in 1864, and apparently one by Goard in 1872, but what connection these might have with "PBH" remains unknown.

It's a long shot, but the possibility remains open that the "PBH" tune originated in Benedict's 1838 opera.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: BTNG
Date: 19 Oct 11 - 04:53 PM

Then there's these The Bridge at Midnight

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 19 Oct 11 - 05:13 PM

Such a well-traveled song should eventually be nailed down but it's not nailed down yet.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: Jack Campin
Date: 17 Oct 16 - 08:16 PM

I just found this, by Longfellow. Same metre and enough verbal overlaps to suggest that the bawdy/music-hall song is a parody of it.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/50463

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 18 Oct 16 - 01:50 AM

The live album, "The Truth About 1812," ends with a parody of "She Was Poor But She Was Honest."
The duo have the audience sing along on the chorus, which is the chorus everybody knows.
However the singer has written his own verses parodying the well-known version. The audience is practically weeping with laughter.

The entire show/album is present as a YouTube video.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: Lighter
Date: 18 Oct 16 - 12:52 PM

Jack, the only real similarity I see is in the first line, and without any other corresponding features, that may well be coincidental. After all, in the song the girl is "standing on the bridge"; in the poem, a narrator "stands on the bridge."

The meter may not mean much either: many songs use it, including, just for example, "Rolling Home."

Here's a 1902 recording of the poem set to music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LvnK5TRM-Q

The tune is unlike that of the song, but the date may be consistent with the song's appearance.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 18 Oct 16 - 01:33 PM

And talking of parodies, here are Flanders and Swann (the lyrics anyway)

"Ballad for the Rich"

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: GUEST,aranar
Date: 17 Mar 17 - 01:07 PM

The snip I was brought up with was:
It's the syme the 'ole wheld over,
Isn't it a bleedin' shame,
It's the rich wot gets the gravy
An' the poor wot gets the blame.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: robomatic
Date: 17 Mar 17 - 05:17 PM

This song appeared on a "Perry Mason" episode where the plot turned on a Perry Mason 'ringer' hired to get the eponymous hero into trouble by making it look like he showed up where he shouldn't and did a bad thing. The plotters had the problem that the 'ringer' was a cockney sailor with a penchant for drinking and singing. He sang that very song with the gravy variant:

"It's the same the 'ole world over,
it's the poor what gits the blime,
It's the rich what gits the grivy,
'Cor ain't it a bloomin' shime!"

When faced with Perry Mason himself he referred to him as his "NEM-I-SIS"

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: robomatic
Date: 17 Mar 17 - 05:22 PM

It wouldn't do to reveal the guilty party of that episode, suffice it to say that Perry Mason only ever lost one case!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jul 17 - 02:03 AM

Subject: Lyr Add: SHE WAS POOR BUT SHE WAS HONEST (Bennett)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 28 Nov 18 - 11:48 PM

You can hear this at YouTube:


SHE WAS POOR BUT SHE WAS HONEST
Weston & Lee
As recorded by Billy Bennett, 1930; also on “Vintage British Comedy, Vol. 1” (2011)

It’s the syme the ’ole world over.
It’s the poor what gets the blyme.
It’s the rich what gets the pleasure.
Isn’t it a bloomin’ shyme?

She was poor but she was honest,
Though she came of ’umble stock,
And an honest heart was beating
Underneath her tattered frock.

’Eedless of her mother’s warning,
Up to London she had gone,
Yearning for the bright lights gleaming,
’Eedless of tempta-shy-on.

But the rich man saw her beauty—
She knew not his base design—
And ’e took her to a ’otel
And bought her a small port wine.

Then the rich man took her riding,
Wrecker of poor women’s souls,
But the devil was the chauffeur,
As she rode in his Royce Rolls.

In the rich man’s arms she fluttered
Like a bird with a broken wing,
But he loved her and he left her.
Now she hasn’t got no ring.

It’s the syme the ’ole world over.
It’s the poor what gets the blyme.
It’s the rich what gets the pleasure.
Isn’t it a bloomin’ shyme?

Standing on the bridge at midnight,
She says: “Farewell, blighted love!”
There’s a scream, a splash, good ’eavens!
What is she a-doing of?

See; she sinks into the water
On a night as black as pitch.
As she comes up for the third time,
She says: “Curse the idle rich!”

Soon they dragged ’er from the river.
Water from her clothes they wrang.
They all thought that she was drownded,
But the corpse got up and sang:

It’s the syme the ’ole world over.
It’s the poor what gets the blyme.
It’s the rich what gets the pleasure.
Isn’t it a bloomin’ shyme?

- - -
Discographical information at 45worlds.com.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 29 Nov 18 - 03:33 AM

NIce one, Jim!

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 29 Nov 18 - 06:49 PM

The DT also contains the Si Kahn song, It's the same the whole world over with the chorus,

But it's the same the whole world over; happens all the time.
The woman who's the victim gets convicted of the crime.
Yes, it's the same the whole world over; always been the same,
The guilty claim they're innocent and the victim gets the blame.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: Lighter
Date: 24 Sep 19 - 06:47 AM

Lt. L. A. Hansen, P-40 pilot, 7th Fighter Sqdn., USAAC, "My Stretch in the Service":

"[Nov. 17, 1942:] Major Herman, a flight surgeon, came in last night as drunk as a coot. It was funny as hell to hear him singing with an Aussie accent. His favorite song goes like this:

                ‘It's the same the whole world over,                                                                        
                Ain't it all a bloody shame,                                                                                
                It's the rich that get the clover,                                                                        
                And the poor that get the blame.'

What a man and what a voice. He sounds like an Allison [engine] missing on one bank and throwing a rod on the other!"

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: Joe_F
Date: 24 Sep 19 - 03:19 PM

A more recent addition (early 20th century, at a guess) to the theme of immorality as the road to fortune is We Never Mention Aunt Clara:
"I've reached the conclusion that virtue's its own,
And also its only, reward."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: robomatic
Date: 24 Sep 19 - 03:42 PM

Blackmail
10cc

She doesn't need money, she doesn't need diamonds
She's lookin' for pretty things
She doesn't want romance, she doesn't need finance
She's looking for rendezvous
But every time she's going down
She never looks around
I'll wait and watch her with my lens
Until she brings the curtain down
'There behind the keyhole' with my fisheye


I'm back in the darkroom, I'm covered in fixer
I'm making a photograph
I'll send her some postcards, in glorious colour
I'm keeping the negatives
I'll form a letter from the news
With different type from different lines
I'll tell the world about her
I'll mail the People and the Times
"Ooh, it'll be so scandalous for the both of them... but mainly her!"

She showed them her husband, he ordered a dozen
He thought they were fabulous
The one with the --------------, the two of the ----------------
And three of the --------------
He sold her to Hefner, who put her in Playboy
He gave her a centre-fold
I made a real blunder, she made it in movies
I made her a superstar

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: Lighter
Date: 24 Sep 19 - 08:22 PM

In his Autobiography (1951), the American poet William Carlos Williams recalled a party he'd attended in Paris in 1924:

“To relieve the bad moment, someone asked Bob [McAlmon] to sing ‘Bollicky Bill’ (did they mean me?), which he did from beginning to end. After that it was ‘She Was Poor But She Was Honest.’ We all joined in.”

[Present, among others, were James Joyce, Mina Loy, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Sylvia Beach, Louis Aragon, and Ford Madox Ford.]

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: Lighter
Date: 07 Sep 23 - 03:59 PM

Maybe the earliest printed reference, from G. Valentine Williams, "With our Army in Flanders" (London, 1915):

“The Regular generally marches in silence. If he sings it is as often as not one of those soldier songs of obscure origin like ‘The Song of Shame,’ which I have often heard sung but have never seen in print. It deals with the misfortunes of a lass that loved not wisely, but too well, and beginning,

         ‘She wuz pore but she wuz honest,’

continues through any number of more or less unprintable strophes.”

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: Lighter
Date: 07 Sep 23 - 04:11 PM

Dayton [O.] Daily News (June 10, 1923):

“[In Paris] There wasn’t a dry eye in the house ....

And ‘er parents in the country,
In the cottage where they live,
Drinks the champagne that she sends ‘em,
But they never can forgive.

It’s the same the wide world over,
It’s the poor that gets the blime,
It’s the rich that ‘as the pleasures,
Isn’t it a bleedin’ shame?”

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: Lighter
Date: 07 Sep 23 - 04:24 PM

Billy Bennett's music-hall version, ca1930:


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

And Elsa ("Bride of Frankenstein") Lanchester:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzAs5iT9Gms

YouTube offers a score of additional performances.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: Lighter
Date: 07 Sep 23 - 05:07 PM

Oscar Brand, 1955 or '56:


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

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: Lighter
Date: 08 Sep 23 - 10:41 AM

Novelist Dennis Wheatley recalls his army days in the Great War:

“On mess nights, too, before our mad midnight gallops, we used to rally round the piano in the ante-room and sing all the old bawdy songs. It was an upright piano and, now and then, we poured a drink into it to keep it going. I think our favourite song was:

She was poor but she was honest,
Victim of a village crime
For the Squire’s cruel passion,
Robbed ‘er of ‘er honest nime.

Chorus:

It's the rich wot ‘as the pleasure
It's the poor wot gets the blime
It’s the same the ‘ole world over,
It’s a bleedin’ bloody shime.

Why did ‘e wot was so wealthy
Go with ‘er wot was so poor
Bringin’ shime on ‘er relations
Turnin’ ‘er into an ‘hore.

She then went up to London
For to hide ‘er grief and shime.
There she met another Squire,
And she lorst her nime agine.

Now she rides in ‘er limouseen
Round the Park so people say
An’ the Dukes and Toffs they stop ‘er
For ter pass the toime of day.

And ‘er parents in the village
Bowed by grief an’ sad regret,
Drinks the Champagne wot she sends ‘em;
But they never can ferget.

“There are further verses describing her ‘Standin’ on the corner selling matches by the box, An’ anyone wot does it on ‘er…’, etc…."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: Lighter
Date: 07 Sep 23 - 03:59 PM

Maybe the earliest printed reference, from G. Valentine Williams, "With our Army in Flanders" (London, 1915):

“The Regular generally marches in silence. If he sings it is as often as not one of those soldier songs of obscure origin like ‘The Song of Shame,’ which I have often heard sung but have never seen in print. It deals with the misfortunes of a lass that loved not wisely, but too well, and beginning,

         ‘She wuz pore but she wuz honest,’

continues through any number of more or less unprintable strophes.”

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: Lighter
Date: 07 Sep 23 - 04:11 PM

Dayton [O.] Daily News (June 10, 1923):

“[In Paris] There wasn’t a dry eye in the house ....

And ‘er parents in the country,
In the cottage where they live,
Drinks the champagne that she sends ‘em,
But they never can forgive.

It’s the same the wide world over,
It’s the poor that gets the blime,
It’s the rich that ‘as the pleasures,
Isn’t it a bleedin’ shame?”

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: Lighter
Date: 07 Sep 23 - 04:24 PM

Billy Bennett's music-hall version, ca1930:


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

And Elsa ("Bride of Frankenstein") Lanchester:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzAs5iT9Gms

YouTube offers a score of additional performances.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: Lighter
Date: 07 Sep 23 - 05:07 PM

Oscar Brand, 1955 or '56:


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

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: She Was Poor (Same The Whole World Over)
From: Lighter
Date: 08 Sep 23 - 10:41 AM

Novelist Dennis Wheatley recalls his army days in the Great War:

“On mess nights, too, before our mad midnight gallops, we used to rally round the piano in the ante-room and sing all the old bawdy songs. It was an upright piano and, now and then, we poured a drink into it to keep it going. I think our favourite song was:

She was poor but she was honest,
Victim of a village crime
For the Squire’s cruel passion,
Robbed ‘er of ‘er honest nime.

Chorus:

It's the rich wot ‘as the pleasure
It's the poor wot gets the blime
It’s the same the ‘ole world over,
It’s a bleedin’ bloody shime.

Why did ‘e wot was so wealthy
Go with ‘er wot was so poor
Bringin’ shime on ‘er relations
Turnin’ ‘er into an ‘hore.

She then went up to London
For to hide ‘er grief and shime.
There she met another Squire,
And she lorst her nime agine.

Now she rides in ‘er limouseen
Round the Park so people say
An’ the Dukes and Toffs they stop ‘er
For ter pass the toime of day.

And ‘er parents in the village
Bowed by grief an’ sad regret,
Drinks the Champagne wot she sends ‘em;
But they never can ferget.

“There are further verses describing her ‘Standin’ on the corner selling matches by the box, An’ anyone wot does it on ‘er…’, etc…."