Danny Boy

Subject: Danny Boy
From: GUEST,Mike Dalton
Date: 30 Nov 00 - 11:48 PM

Who is singing to Danny Boy. Is it his mother or father or someone else?

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Gary T
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 12:01 AM

I'd say it's pretty certain the singer is a parent. I see it as a farewell to a lad leaving home to make his fortune. I figured it to be the father, but when I heard some suggestion it was the mother, I couldn't find a reason why that could not be.

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 12:03 AM

Depending on which version in the DT, I always took it to be his love/betrothed/girlfriend...

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Gary T
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 12:18 AM

I used to think the same, kat. I changed my view after reflecting on the narrator's contention that (s)he may well be dead upon Danny's return (much more likely of a parent than of a girlfriend) and expectation to be reunited in the afterlife (a lover involved enough to reasonably expect that would be going with him).

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Elise
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 01:22 AM

I always hear tenors sing it, so I supposed it was a father.

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Quincy
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 04:22 AM

My granny told me that it was an old man saying farewell to his son as he went off to war.
Even if his son were to survive the war, as he himself was old, he probably wouldn't be alive to see his return.

Yvonne

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: KT
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 07:14 AM

That's what I've always understood, too, Quincy. KT

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: BigDaddy
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 10:18 AM

Yer right on Quincy and KT. There was a previous thread here about this. And the Weatherly chap who wrote the best known lyrics had apparently lost a son, inspiring him to write the lyrics. Even though his own tragedy does not match the story line in the song, something of his own grief went into the writing of the lyrics.

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 02:06 PM

There are links to some 12 previous discussions of "Danny Boy" / "The (London)Derry Air", plus some to information at other sites, in this thread:

give me the history of the song Danny Bo

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 03:59 PM

Since I don't have three weeks to check out all the previous Danny Boy threads and links, I'll just chuck in what I heard recently from a source that's probably as authoritative as any (which may or may not be saying very much). John McDermott is one of the "Irish Tenors," who appear like clockwork during the KCTS (Seattle's major PBS affiliate) begathons. A couple of months ago, McDermott appeared in person at the KCTS studio and chatted with George Ray, the M. C., during pledge breaks.

The question of "what is Danny Boy all about?" came up. McDermott said that during their various wars, the British were in the habit of conscripting able-bodied young Irishmen to do their fighting for them. When pipers marched through the towns and countryside playing their pipes, this was the signal that all able-bodied young men were to come and "take the king's shilling" -- or else! According to McDermott, the words are spoken (sung) by the mother, hearing the dreaded sound of the pipes ("Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling. . . "), knowing that her young son must go into the army, and that she'll probably never see him again. With that to go on, the rest is self-explanatory.

Sounds reasonable. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 04:33 PM

Though, if you had had time to look at some of the earlier threads, you'd know that McDermott had very little idea what he was talking about.  Quite apart from anything else, the words were written by an Englishman who had never been to Ireland, and only later set to the Irish tune, at the suggestion of his sister, who lived in America and came across the melody there.

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 09:17 PM

Sorry. I stand corrected.

Don Firth

Subject: Lyr Add: DANNY BOY
From: Catrin
Date: 01 Dec 00 - 10:02 PM

For the pur[poses of the discussion:-

DANNY BOY

Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side
The summer's gone, and all the flowers are dying
'tis you, 'tis you must go and I must bide.

But come you back when summer's in the meadow
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow
'tis I'll be there in sunshine or in shadow
Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so.

And if you come, when all the flowers are dying
And I am dead, as dead I well may be
You'll come and find the place where I am lying
And kneel and say an "Ave" there for me.

And I shall hear, tho' soft you tread above me
And all my dreams will warm and sweeter be
If you'll not fail to tell me that you love me
I simply sleep in peace until you come to me.

It's gotta be a parent! Cheers, Catrin

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: rube1
Date: 02 Dec 00 - 06:47 AM

has anyone ever heard Sil Austin"s tenor sax instrumental version of Danny Boy? on an obscure lp called Sil Austin Plays Pretty for the People. Most awesome version I've ever heard.

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Skivee
Date: 02 Dec 00 - 09:56 AM

Fred Weatherly appears to have written Danyy Boy in TWO version.... Danny Boy, and Ellie Dear. According to his book about his years as a composer. It was written in 1910 , and set to a different tune. His sis sent Weatherly the music to Londonderry aire, and Fred immediatlty realized that it was a better tune than the one he had put to it. It's not about any particular event, but rather his attempt to write a somewhat maudlin parlor song about separation. It most certainly isn't about Da' sending his boyo to the conscription army to fight in WWI. The bomb that started it wasn't thrown in Seriabo for another 4 years.

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 02 Dec 00 - 03:12 PM

When did Weatherly write the song, and when was it set to Londonderry Air? Dated copies among many songs by Fred E. Weatherly in the Levy sheet music collection range from 1882 to 1916, but "Danny Boy" and "Elle Dear" aren't there. Fuld, 'The Book of World Famous Music', 1966, says of "Londonderry Air": "Many lyrics have been set to this music, perhaps the best known being Danny Boy in 1913 with words by Fred. E. Weatherly".

Was that when "Danny Boy" was written, or when it was set to "Londonderry Air"? I suspect the latter.

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Dec 00 - 04:13 PM

Giving the matter a second think, I still hold with what John McDermott said. The question that precipitated this thread was not "Who wrote Danny Boy, but "Who is singing to Danny Boy. Is it his mother or father or someone else?" In terms of interpreting the song, what McDermott said makes sense. Parent, definitely. Somehow, the mother resonates a bit more, at least to me.

I enjoy the song when well sung, but I don't sing it myself.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Dec 00 - 04:35 PM

Face it Skivee, most want a nice romantic story, and if your facts don't add up to such they will be ignored.

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Dec 00 - 10:52 PM

If there were any war involved, it would most probably have been the Crimean War.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 03 Dec 00 - 09:49 PM

G'day Don,

I remember a master class presented by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger ... Ewan suggested that you had to think hard about who you are when you sing a song. You can be anyone involved with the song - but you have to know who, to decide how you will sing it. John McDermott knows how he thinks of the song, not how Fred Weatherly did ... and it works for him.

Of course, Weatherly had several more recent (British)wars to think of ... most recently the Boer War and the Sudan about 15 years before that. By 1910 he would have had intimations of the "Great War" looming - these things don't happen because some nutter throws a bomb or shoots a minor royal in the Balkans ... that is just a triggering event.

Anyway, a close look at some of the songs set to The Air from Londonderry over the preceding 5 decades or so suggests that Weatherly was not above recycling someone else's good lines.

Regards,

Bob Bolton (who avoids the sort of places where one could find oneself singing this)

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 05 Dec 00 - 07:54 PM

Sorry Skivee, I missed your third line which answers the first part of my question, and implies that it was in 1913 that "Danny Boy" was set to "Londonderry Air"

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Ferrara
Date: 06 Dec 00 - 03:06 AM

Umm... here are my conclusions from singing the song a zillion times... at first I thought it was a smarmy boy-girl love song, and didn't like it much... then decided that "the pipes" indeed were sounding a call to war and it was an aged parent (to me, being female and all that, it was a Mom) singing. Lots of folks think of it as a Dad. Not an answerable question. Has to be your choice as to what you picture when you sing it.

As to the pipes calling -- I always thought of it as being a generic reference to young men going off to war; i.e., any time fighters were being mustered up, this song would be timely again. Never thought it had to be a specific war. And I did assume (maybe wrongly) that the sound of the pipes might have been used in Ireland as a call to assemble and be ready to fight.

Does anybody know about the latter? Actually, if Weatherby thought it was true (which we can't know, can we?) that would be good enough.

... I love parlor songs. Sentimental twaddle but oh so lovely. Wish I had the range to sing this one well. By the way, in the American Civil War, publishers liked to add "true stories" to give poignancy to songs. 90% of The true stories came from the publishers' or songwriters' imaginations. So I don't feel that it diminishes a song like Danny Boy to be about an imaginary situation. "It's true, even if it never did happen."

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From:
Date: 17 Jun 01 - 07:42 AM

Who can help me find performers of this song?

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From:
Date: 17 Jun 01 - 08:28 AM

Are you looking for recordings? or someone to perform it live?

IF it's looking for a recording, you might check the http://www.cddb.com. I would venture to say there are probably 1000 or 2000 people who have recorded it.

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Fiolar
Date: 17 Jun 01 - 08:30 AM

Go to the website www.allmusic.com Click on songs and then in the search panel type in Danny Boy. It lists many hundreds of performers who have recorded it. Good hunting and let us know how you got on.

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Lucius
Date: 18 Jun 01 - 01:30 AM

I can't say that my father was a Pacifist, but he did his best to keep his oldest son (Paul) from going to Viet Nam. He was a man of duty, so it's not surprising that his second son (Daniel), upon leaving ROTC enlisted to fight on Viet Nam.

I remember my father on Friday nights would listen to Walter Cronkite give the body counts. This would often be followed by a long silence as my father choked backed the tears. Then a record was placed on the victrola, and my father listening (and sometimes sang along) to "Danny Boy". It seemed to me that it wasn't just for his own "Danny Boy" that he greived, but for every father that the war touched.

I have no choice in my beliefs, it is a fathers lament.

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Big Tim
Date: 18 Jun 01 - 11:13 AM

The melody is said to have been first collected in Limavady (Co Derry) in, I think it was 1854, by Jane Ross who overheard it being played by an itinerant piper (or fiddler). I passed through the town last year and photographed the plague on her house (on the main street). "Jane Ross, 1810-79, who recorded the folk tune The Londonderry Air lived here"

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: mousethief
Date: 18 Jun 01 - 11:29 AM

Everybody knows the melody was brought here from another galaxy during the Pliocene era by people unable to use metal weapons.

Alex

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 18 Jun 01 - 11:06 PM

Danny Boy is a good example of someone seizing a defenseless tune and yoking it to mediocre words or even doggerel. Said words then degrade the tune forever, because they are almost impossible to expunge from the memory.

Seize power! Forget, ignore, replace or refuse to sing these maudlin words!

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 18 Jun 01 - 11:23 PM

Tim, wasn't there a plague on both their houses? (Awfully sorry, not trying to be mean, but I just couldn't resist!)

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Amergin
Date: 19 Jun 01 - 01:28 AM

Alex, I see you have read those books by Julian May also!

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Big Tim
Date: 19 Jun 01 - 04:03 AM

Maudlin, sentimental or otherwise I love this song, OK! Also it would be a suitable anthem for Northern Ireland as it has appeal for both communities (remember the Prot boxer who won a medal somewhere (Commonwealth Games?) and sang the song live in the ring, in tears. Same applies to Barry McGuigan (Catholic ex-world boxing champ).

Best description of the song that I have is heard is by Shane MacGowan, "it's a song about love conquering death".

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 19 Jun 01 - 11:41 AM

I disagree. It would not be a suitable anthem, because the range is too big even for an accomplished singer. The general public would never feel comfortable singing it. It was probably composed as a purely instrumental number.

As for the quotation - what nonsense! Nothing can conquer death.

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: mousethief
Date: 19 Jun 01 - 12:10 PM

Yeah, Amergin, aren't they great? What a world she creates! Very believable! Poor Uncle Rogi!

Alex

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Big Tim
Date: 19 Jun 01 - 03:10 PM

i don't think Shane meant it literally.

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: GUEST,Glenbogie of Glenbogie
Date: 19 Jun 01 - 07:19 PM

Without wishing to promote the more lunatic fringes of political correctness, the ignored scenario is that of an unrequited boyfriend. Seriously though. The sense is clear enough. The "pipes" call the young soldier. In the warrior tradition, the father, if alive would probably go too. The singer "bides" at home and that is a common enough reference to the predicament of the women in such circumstances. "as dead I may well be" suggests either an ageing parent or a consumptive lover but the inevitability of mortality suggests the mother. It is sung by men because the true tenor voice can cope with the range and that top note is a showpiece test. The soprano voice can reach the notes but it takes the voice into the range that shatters beer glasses. As for its popularity, just watch any Irish audience on St Pat's night. It is not the song, it is the history that evokes the pathos.

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 19 Jun 01 - 09:15 PM

All this speculation can be interesting (well, perhaps the first time round), but in the end that's all it is.  People may impose their own personal meanings on the song, but that's all they are.  I'd refer anyone who hasn't looked at it yet to this well-researched and detailed history of both song and tune, which also debunks some of the sillier interpretations that people will insist on trying to foist on a credulous public:  Danny Boy  at StandingStones.com

I urge you all to read it.

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Big Tim
Date: 20 Jun 01 - 11:41 AM

Thanks Malcolm, again, much appreciated.

As for the sex of the singer: I've heard Ronnie Drew struggle badly with it and Mary O'Hara hit the high notes beautifully.

Subject: Lyr Add: COME ULSTER
From: Big Tim
Date: 20 Jun 01 - 12:42 PM

Re the anthem thing I must admit that last year I wrote the following lyrics to the Danny Boy tune but never had the guts to go public with them, until now! I would appreciate your honest opinions. Don't worry I can take criticism. As a native of Ulster but not Northern Ireland I'm well aware that the two are not the same but allow me some poetic licence in this context.

COME ULSTER

I long to walk a peaceful Ulster valley,
That Red Hand land where once lived Danny Boy,
But Omagh town and round by Ballymoney,
Are names of shame that once were pride and joy,

Too many tears and years of blood and blunder,
For flag of green and streets red, white and blue,
Too long we've seen our people torn asunder,
Tear down the walls instead and start anew,

Come Ulster north, south, east and west together,
Through Antrim, Down, Fermanagh and Tyrone,
Through Armagh too, then view the Walls of Derry,
Together side by side and no more walk alone,

Leave ancient days and ancient ways forever,
Within the rage and page of history,
With heart and hand, come Ulster stand together,
Come Ulster build a new society

And let us walk a peaceful Ulster valley,
That Red Hand land where once lived Danny Boy,
Let Omagh town and round by Ballymoney,
Again resound in peace and pride and joy,

Come Ulster north, south, east and west together,
Through Antrim, Down, Fermanagh and Tyrone,
Through Armagh too, then view the Walls of Derry,
Together side by side and no more walk alone.

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Wolfgang
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 08:23 AM

Big Tim,

I think it should be brought to the top again so that people with a better knowledge of English and Ulster than I have an opportunity to comment (you'd get more comments in an extra thread I guess).

I think the lyrics are a very good fit to the tune and the sentiment in the song is true, strong and well transported by the words. I only have difficulties with the 'and round by Ballymoney' bit because I do not get the sense.

Try it out when singing in public and you'll find out how the people react. You wouldn't get a warm applause by either republicans or loyalists, for you do not appeal to their feelings. But I hope for the sake of peace over there that there are some people whose feelings are expressed by this song.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: pavane
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 08:28 AM

My wife is an Alto, and sings it fine. I heard Tom Jones sing a bit of it on a radio program, gasping for breath between each two words - NOT impressed!

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Fiolar
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 09:54 AM

Any body watchhing the news of the problems of the last 24 hours in Belfast would doubt if there ever can be peace in Northern Ireland.

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Orac
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 09:57 AM

Erm.. Danny Boy is nothing to do with Ireland.. the writer mearly used an Irish Aire to put his song to.

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: pavane
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 10:03 AM

True, but obviously set in Ireland, what with pipes and glens. Could conceivably have been Scotland, but there are fewer Catholics there.

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: IanC
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 10:12 AM

Pavane

Wots it got to do wiv Catholics?

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Kim C
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 10:18 AM

This song almost always makes me cry. Especially now that my friend in the Army is being sent to another post and will leave in about 3 weeks. :-(

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: pavane
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 10:19 AM

Who else would knee and say an Ave?

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Orac
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 10:19 AM

I think that you can be sure the writer had Scotland in mind when he wrote this. Pavane...Why did you mention Catholics? .. there is nothing in the song about that. The Irish have adopted this English song and put their own meaning to it.. but doing that puts a completely false purpose to the song.

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: Fiolar
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 11:40 AM

I don't have to think anything of the kind. Surely the purpose of the song is a lament for a lost one, be it son or father is irrelevant. The "Ave" mentioned is the Latin for the prayer "Hail Mary." It's very unlikely that another nationality other than Irish would say a "Hail Mary" at a graveside.

Subject: RE: Danny Boy
From: IanC
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 11:53 AM

This "Ave" thing is a red herring. At the time the English High Court Judge, Fred Weatherley, wrote the song, it was thought of as romantic ... it still is. You don't have to be Catholic to know about Aves or to think of them as relevant in a song. Don't forget that Scottish romanticism is associated with a Catholic kinglet.