ADD: The Girl With the Waterfall (Frank Wilder)

Subject: Lyr Add: The Girl With the Waterfall
From: leeneia
Date: 20 Mar 23 - 02:19 PM

Here are lyrics for the song I'm singing at the Singaround today. The waterfall was one of the elaborate hairdos of the 1860's. Rats and mice are pads of hair used to add volume. I came across the song on the Lester Levy site. It's completely trivial but I liked it.

THE GIRL WITH THE WATERFALL
(Nancy's Waterfall)
by Frank Wilder, Boston, 1865.

There's songs a-bout most ev-ry-thing that one could name or call.
But un-til this, none has been wrote a-bout the Wa-ter-fall.
CHO: O Nan-cy's wa-ter-fall, it looks so ve-ry fine.
It hangs so grace-ful on her neck, she al-most seems di-vine.

Ni-ag-a-ra and all the falls that ev-er I did see
can-not com-pare with Nan-cy's hair, it looks so splen-did-ly!

A Ro-man said, "O what a fall was there, my coun-try-men!
Were he a-live to see our girls, he's say as he did then!

What next the girls will wear a-bout I'm sure I can-not tell.
With rats and mice they fix their hair, so goes the mo-dern belle.

Our Nan-cy is a char-ming girl, she's so gen-teel and tall,
when-e'er you see her on the street, just twig her wa-ter-fall!

https://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/collection/052/013

Subject: RE: ADD: The Girl With the Waterfall (Frank Wilder)
From: leeneia
Date: 21 Mar 23 - 01:34 AM

Sorry about the hyphens. I had to copy this at the last minute from the lyrics for the sheet music.

One thing that delights me about this song is its mixture of learned and unlearned language. There's a typo in the 3rd verse. Should be he'd, not he's.

I googled "waterfall, hairdo, images" and found pictures of modern hairstyles called waterfalls. I don't know if they are similar to those of 1865, but they are quite pretty. Rather romantic, with elegant braids above long, straight hair going down.

Subject: RE: ADD: The Girl With the Waterfall (Frank Wilder)
From: cnd
Date: 21 Mar 23 - 10:07 AM

Here is a link about the waterfalls your song refers to

Subject: RE: ADD: The Girl With the Waterfall (Frank Wilder)
From: leeneia
Date: 21 Mar 23 - 01:24 PM

Thanks, cnd. That's good to know.

Subject: RE: ADD: The Girl With the Waterfall (Frank Wilder)
From: meself
Date: 21 Mar 23 - 03:24 PM

Well, finally - for almost fifty years, until now, I'd been perplexed by the concluding line in "Hogan's Lake", one of the lumber-camp songs collected by Edith Fowke from O.J. Abbott, in Ontario: "Fitzsimmons sung about the girl that wore the waterfall" ... !

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