Help: Garryowen

Subject: Garryowen
From: GUEST,Gary Owens
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 01:12 PM

Looking for recordings for purchase which contain someone singing Garryowen:

Let Bacchus' sons be not dismayed
But join with me, each jovial blade
Come, drink and sing and lend your aid
To help me with the chorus:

cho: Instead of spa, we'll drink brown ale
And pay the reckoning on the nail;
No man for debt shall go to jail
From Garryowen in glory....

Thanks

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: Kim C
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 01:15 PM

I have a tape called Songs of the 7th Cavalry that I bought probably at some historic site in Kansas that has a woman singing it. There's a reason why people don't usually SING this song. ;)

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: GUEST,Gary Owens for Kim C
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 01:40 PM

If it's not too much trouble, can you tell me the name of the company that produced the recording. Maybe I can contact them and buy one, even though your comment sounds like I may be disappointed at the results.

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 01:42 PM

This is sung most joyfully by the wonderful Errol Flynn, I believe beginning to end, when he's playing Custer. This was apparently GACuster's favorite song, and it's mentioned in all Custer movies, but I think it's only in the Errol Flynn one that you get all the words. Sorry I can't recall the name of the movie right now...

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: Jimmy C
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 02:39 PM

KimC - Why do people not sing THIS song.?.

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: MMario
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 03:16 PM

don't know if these are instrumental or vocal.

Garryowen
1.Galvin, Patrick. Irish Drinking Songs, Riverside RLP 12-604, LP (196?), cut# 7 (Owen's Garden)
2.O'Neill, Sean; Trio. Spirit of Ireland, Inis Fail IFRL-102, LP (1978), cut# 11a

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: Kim C
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 03:27 PM

Gary - I will look when I get home.

Jimmy C - it has too many words in too short a space! :)

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: MMario
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 03:33 PM

I would think to sing it you would slow the tempo a bit...but the lyrics DO fit the tune.

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: Kim C
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 03:36 PM

They do fit but even slowed down it seems like a lot of cramming, if you know what I mean. I haven't ever heard anyone sing it really well.

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: GUEST,Gary Owens
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 03:40 PM

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: GUEST,Gary Owens
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 03:49 PM

Oops ! Don't know how I managed that last one. Just wanted to say I am glad I found this site and really appreciate the help from you generous and friendly folk. Slainte mhath!

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: Kim C
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 04:25 PM

Wouldn't you know, the tape I mentioned is on this page:

Click here

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: Snuffy
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 07:08 PM

It's not sung alot because the words are nowhere near as good as the tune

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: Jimmy C
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 09:01 PM

I think the movie may be " She wore a yellow ribbon" but I am not sure. I seem to remember someone singing this song in the movie but I'm almost sure it was not Errol Flynn, it was another actor singing it and when Flynn Custer) heard it he adopted it for use by the 7th cavalry.

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 09:04 PM

It was first sung in the play 'Harlequin Amulet', 1800.

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: Melani
Date: 22 Feb 01 - 12:02 AM

The movie was "They Died With Their Boots On," starring Errol Flynn and Olivia DeHavilland as the happy couple--a perfect choice to play the parts of Custer and Libbie, but historically the movie is a disaster. About the only thing in it that's accurate is that a guy named Custer commanded the 7th Cavalry. Custer was so fond of "Garry Owen" that he made it the 7th's battle song and had the band play it as he attacked--it may have been the last thing he heard.He probably learned it from his Canadian adjutant, William Cooke. The 7th is still known as "The Garry Owen Regiment." Their insignia is a hand holding a sabre surrounded by a horseshoe, with thw words "Garry Owen" across the top. The movie is factually pretty dreadful, but it is very accurate in spirit.

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: MarkS
Date: 22 Feb 01 - 12:07 AM

Garryowen was the official song of the 1st Cavalry Division when I was in it back in the 60s. I think it still is today. Never even knew there were lyrics to it though!

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: Ship'scat
Date: 22 Feb 01 - 06:17 AM

This from the unit history of the 4th Squadron, 7th Cavalry:

In 1867, one of Custer's first official acts with the Seventh Cavalry was to organize a regimental band. The reason that "GarryOwen" was adopted as the regimental song, as the story goes - one of the Irish "melting pot" troopers of the 7th Cavalry, under the influence of "spirits", was singing the song. By chance Custer heard the melody, liked the cadence, and soon began to hum the tune himself. The tune has a lively beat, that accentuates the cadence of marching horses. Soon the tune was played so often that the 7th Cavalry became known as the "GarryOwen" Regiment. GarryOwen eventually became the official song of the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas in 1981.

I knew as the song played by the 3rd Squardron's pipe band in 1964-65 where it was the divisional screening force for the 3rd Infantry (Marne) Division

Garry Owen!

See: http://www.metronet.com/~harryb/1st_team/7th_rgmt/ and http://www-2id.korea.army.mil/Major_Subordinate_Commands/Aviation%20BDE/4-7cav/HISTORY.HTM

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: Ship'scat
Date: 22 Feb 01 - 06:27 AM

While wandering around the 4th Squadron's page I came on this piece:

"GarryOwen is also the Regimental March of another famous fighting unit, The Royal Irish Regiment. Organized in 1684 from Irish Pikemen and Musketeers, this regiment has seen service in all parts of the world. For their outstanding valor at the Battle of Namur, they received the title of "The Royal Regiment of Foot of Ireland". The Royal Irish showed noble courage and performed gallant service throughout the Crimean War. On their colors are inscribed "Egypt," "China," "Blenheim," "Ramillies," "Oudenarde," "Malpaquet," "Pegu," "Savastopol," "New Zealand," "Afghanistan, 1879-80," "Egypt, 1882," "Tel-el-Kebir," "Nile, 1884-85," and "South Africa, 1900-02."

One cannot wonder how many of the former members of the Royal Irish Regiment emigrated to the United States and enlisted as troopers of the US Cavalry Units. Could this have been how Custer heard this song?"

To which I'd add, Garry Owen certainly has an ancient military linneage - as old as many items of Irish culture extant and certainly older than the 7th.

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: Ship'scat
Date: 22 Feb 01 - 06:27 AM

While wandering around the 4th Squadron's page I came on this piece:

"GarryOwen is also the Regimental March of another famous fighting unit, The Royal Irish Regiment. Organized in 1684 from Irish Pikemen and Musketeers, this regiment has seen service in all parts of the world. For their outstanding valor at the Battle of Namur, they received the title of "The Royal Regiment of Foot of Ireland". The Royal Irish showed noble courage and performed gallant service throughout the Crimean War. On their colors are inscribed "Egypt," "China," "Blenheim," "Ramillies," "Oudenarde," "Malpaquet," "Pegu," "Savastopol," "New Zealand," "Afghanistan, 1879-80," "Egypt, 1882," "Tel-el-Kebir," "Nile, 1884-85," and "South Africa, 1900-02."

One cannot wonder how many of the former members of the Royal Irish Regiment emigrated to the United States and enlisted as troopers of the US Cavalry Units. Could this have been how Custer heard this song?"

To which I'd add, Garry Owen certainly has an ancient military linneage - as old as many items of Irish culture extant and certainly older than the 7th.

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 22 Feb 01 - 08:34 AM

The following information mostly from the extensive entry in  The Fiddler's Companion:

Although Irish in origin (supposedly c. 1770-1780), the tune seems to have first appeared in print in Scotland, in Aird's 1787 collection (as "Auld Bessy").  As Bruce mentioned above, it was used in a popular pantomime in 1800 and thereafter gained wide popularity throughout Britain and Ireland and, subsequently, America.

"In the United States it was adopted as a favorite marching air by General George Custer's 7th Cavalry, an association which helped to popularize the jig throughout [the] country following Custer's demise.  'It had been said that the 7th acquired the song through Captain Miles Keogh, an Irishman and a former member of the Papal Guard, but it seems unlikely that (its American use) can be ascribed to a particular person, since 'Garryowen' appeared in a number of Civil War songsters, and was therefore presumably well known to any number of American soldiers in 1861-1865 -- dates preceding Keogh's association with the 7th" '  (Winstock, 1970; pgs. 102-104).

The tune is also used for a North West Morris dance.  There are a number of broadside copies of at least 3 songs set to the tune at the  Bodleian Library Broadside Collection.

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: Kim C
Date: 22 Feb 01 - 10:29 AM

A side note - Miles Keogh's horse Comanche was the only 7th Cavarly survivor at the Little Bighorn. (didn't Johnny Horton do a song about that?)

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Feb 01 - 11:03 AM

This is very interesting. Oh, and JimmyC, in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, the Irish members of the cavalry sing to John Wayne, and among others they sing The Bold Fenian Men, glory-O, glory-O. Or it might have been Fort Apache, it was one of those three Wayne flicks by, I think, Howard Hawkes.

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 22 Feb 01 - 12:04 PM

ABCs of "Auld Bessy", Aird's 'Airs', III, 1788, and a copy of "Garryowen" of 1801, are tunes T058A and B in file T1.HTM on my website.

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 22 Feb 01 - 01:07 PM

It was also used as the theme music in James Cagney's "The Fighting 69th." Warner Brothers used it a lot, actually. Once, when I was living in Maine and tv channel 6 could be picked up on the radio, I taped all of the instrumental and sung versions in "They Died With Their Boots On" (I'm also an Errol Flynn fan) but, alas, my ex-husband snagged the tape.

But I wrote a parody verse (c.1974) about watching Errol Flynn films:

"Instead of water we'll drink ale,
And watch Errol Flynn and Allan Hale
And never til the cable fails,
Will we get to bed before morning."

For what it's worth.

Bat Goddess

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: Manitas
Date: 22 Feb 01 - 01:52 PM

It's also used for a Fieldtown Morris dance but then it's called 'The Walk of the Tupenny Postman'.

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: GUEST,Melani
Date: 22 Feb 01 - 02:03 PM

Bat Goddess--I love it! I read somewhere that Keogh's father was a member of the 5th Royal Irish Lancers, but I have no idea if that is accurate. Custer could have heard it from half the guys in the 7th.

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: Jimmy C
Date: 22 Feb 01 - 02:16 PM

Here is another version of the song , this is from Songs Of The Gael Part 3 published in 1921 - the author was D,A.fahy. I don't know which is the older, and I don't know of any conection between them, This version has the same tune, with an extra few words at the end of each verse.
Maybe it originated as a marching tune and evolved into songs ?.

Garryowen-Na-Glory

Oh Many a land, Once great and grand
Has bowed to foreign master
And many a fight 'gainst tyrants might
Has sunk in dire disaster
But one, I hold, creation old
One land. one cause, one story
Still lives , still glows, Still thrives and grows,
Tis Garryowen-na-glory
Tis Garryowen, our pride our own
Tis Garryowen-na-glory

By Nature blest, in verdure drest
She crests the Western waters
Oh, fairer far, than dawn-stars are
Her guileless-hearted daughters
Her bare-breast sons, have faced the guns
In many a battle gory,
Stood man to man in Valours van
For Garryowen-na-glory
For garryowen they held their own
For Garryowen-na-glory

Mavrone! the isle through fraud and guile
Has lost her olden splendour
And scattered far 'neath many a star
Are those who dare befriend her
But, mark me men, She'll rise again
Unsullied still her story
Mid freeborn lands, till peerless stands
Our Garryowen-na-glory
For Garryowen, We'll build a throne
Dear Garryowern-na-glory

Oh, many a land, now great and grand
Shall sink in stream of ages
And many a name of pride and fame
Shall fade from history's pages;
But earth shall reel at Judgements peal
In wreck and ruin hoary
Ere fades, ere dies, ere lowly lies
Our Garryowen-na-glory
Oh, Garryowen, she'll reign alone
Proud Garryowen-na-glory !

BTW Mrrzy, you are right, it was John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara. On their wedding night the cavalry officers sang the "Bold Fenian Men" I remember seeing the movie in a theatre in Belfast, it caused quite a ruckus when the song was being sung, half the audience were singing along, the other half were booing, and then the seats started to fly through the air. They removed that part from the movie whenever it was shown in the north of Ireland.

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: Liam's Brother
Date: 22 Feb 01 - 02:25 PM

Thanks, Malcolm.

"Garryowen" crops up in literature about Meagher's Irish Brigade. Those same books mention that many of the 150,000 to 200,000 Irish-born troops engaged in the U.S. Civil War (1861 - 1865) had previously served with the British in the Crimean War and with other military forces.

All the best,
Dan Milner

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: Jimmy C
Date: 22 Feb 01 - 02:27 PM

Sorry about this but the ending of the 3rd verse is as follows

Unsulied still her Story
Till peerless stands.'mid freeborn lands
Our Garryowen-na-Glory
For Garryowen ,We'll build a throne
Dear Garryowern-na-glory.

Mrzzy the movie I am referring to was indeed " She wore a yellow ribbon"

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: GUEST,Rusty Kordenbrock
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 09:44 PM

I am seeking the instrumental version of "Garryowen". I would prefer the rendition used in "They Died with Their Boots On". The more upbeat the better. Any help will be appreciated. Thank you.

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: voyager
Date: 03 Mar 08 - 08:21 AM

GarryOwen - 3 versions on YouTube

The fingerpicking clip carries the melody just fine. The HeavyMetal headbanger clip has the authenticity of a rousing group of drunken Irish calvary men (if such a thing ever existed).

voyager

Subject: RE: Help: Garryowen
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 03 Mar 08 - 06:08 PM

I do believe this was the semi-official marching tune of the 7th Cavalry under Custer, that stalwart champion of Native American rights. We can all see, in the wisdom of hindsight, where it took them... That aside, having heard several people attempt to sing this piece, I can honestly say that singing the actual lyrics to your average college fight song likely falls in the same category.