Tune Req: Farewell My Own Dear Native Land

Subject: Farewell My Own Dear Native Land
From: GUEST,Finn McCool
Date: 29 Jun 01 - 11:10 AM

Dear Catters,

I think this is going to appear as a guest post, but I am a member.

On another thread, Malcolm Douglas posted the lyrics to a song called Farewell My Own Dear Native Land. The song sounds a great deal like Queenstown Harbor, recorded by the McNulty Family in the 1950's. Can anyone post a link to the tune for Farewell so I can compare them?

TIA,

Finn (MEMBER!)

Subject: RE: Farewell My Own Dear Native Land
From: Amergin
Date: 29 Jun 01 - 02:11 PM

Here ya go, finn....

click here

Subject: RE: Farewell My Own Dear Native Land
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 29 Jun 01 - 02:59 PM

That's a different song, posted by Noreen in Rebecca's first marathon wishlist.  The similarly titled song text sung by Margaret Barry is here:  Farewell, My Own Dear Native Land, but Finn was actually asking about the tune, which doesn't appear to be available online.  Perhaps someone who has the record could help out?

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Farewell My Own Dear Native Land
From: Finn McCool
Date: 30 Jun 01 - 09:26 PM

Amergin,

Thanks for the link, but Malcolm is right: I am really looking for the tune to Farewell My Own Dear Native Land. The last verse of the tune I mentioned, Queenstown Harbor, is quite poignant.

Go down to Queenstown Harbor
It will grieve your heart to see
The boys and the girls of Ireland
And the thousands going away
Going from the land that gave them birth
And we'll say adieu once more
But in course of time they might come back
To that lovely Shannon shore

The tune has some sustained notes, which unfortunately the singer on my recording of it cannot manage without showing the worst features of her vocal technique and timbre. If someone like Mary Black performed this tune, though, there would not be a dry eye in the house.

--Finn

Subject: RE: Farewell My Own Dear Native Land
From: Brían
Date: 01 Jul 01 - 02:36 AM

Finn
I am looking at a version of the song in IRISH EMIGRANT BALLADS AND SONGS by Robert L.Wright. This version has a couple words different than the version which Malcolm gives. The melody given appears to be the same or very similar to "COME ALL YOU TRAMPS AND HAWKERS".

Taken with a grain of salt however, the same ballad may be sung to several different airs.

Brían.

Subject: RE: Farewell My Own Dear Native Land
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 01 Jul 01 - 09:30 AM

I had the Barry recording only briefly from the library in order to get the text, so my memory of the tune is vague.  As Brían says (thanks for the jog to my memory), it does seem to be a modified form of Tramps and Hawkers, which is a recent name for it; it's carried a lot of songs in the past, notably Caroline of Edinburgh Town, by which name it's often prescribed as melody for broadsides.

It later became attached to a song called Paddy West; there is a midi with the DT file:  Click to Play.

Is that at all close to the tune you have in mind?  Margaret sang it differently, of course, but it might possibly help you for purposes of comparison.  In other modified forms, that tune also carries some versions of Lily of the West and The Lakes of Ponchartrain.

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Farewell My Own Dear Native Land
From: Finn McCool
Date: 01 Jul 01 - 11:25 AM

Malcolm,

There is a very slight similarity to the Queenstown Harbor version that I am familiar with. I can see your midi being used for Lily of the West, as it is much more like one of the tunes that I know for that song than it resembles Queenstown Harbor.

BTW, it seems to be a characteristic of Irish traditional music to use the same tune with a number of different lyrics. I have heard versions of Rosin the Bow, Boys of Kilmichael, and something else all using the same tune. I know this is also true of other contries, particularly the U.S., but it seems to be rampant among Irish singers.

--Finn

Subject: RE: Farewell My Own Dear Native Land
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 01 Jul 01 - 11:39 AM

Well, it's a start, anyway.  That particular tune-family is rampant throughout Britain, Ireland and America, so it would be surprising if the one you have heard (of which there will also be a number of variants) were not quite different from one example out of many.  Actually, it's no more common to re-use tunes in Ireland (though it has been jokingly said of the Northern counties that they have only one tune, and use it for everything) than it is in Britain and America.  Bertrand Bronson (Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads, and so on) had a lot to say on the subject, some of it very technical indeed...

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Farewell My Own Dear Native Land
From: Finn McCool
Date: 01 Jul 01 - 10:44 PM

Malcolm,

In that case the Northern counties are in good company. It is said of Vivaldi that he wrote but one concerto, five hundred times.

--Finn

Subject: RE: Farewell My Own Dear Native Land
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 01 Jul 01 - 10:56 PM

Grin!  I see what you mean.  Meanwhile; anyone out there with a tune for Queenstown Harbour that they can offer to the discussion?  (-Best to spell it that way, perhaps, so nobody thinks we're talking about a place in the USA).

Subject: RE: Farewell My Own Dear Native Land
From: Wolfgang
Date: 06 Jul 01 - 04:11 AM

This has puzzled me since Malcolm has posted a link to a tune. I'll first digress about a pet theme of me, human memory, and then I'll give you the information. Skip the next paragraph if you want only the information.

My music is not where my computer is so it was not easy for me to compare the tune in Malcolm's link to the tune Margaret Barry sings. I cycled home with the tune in my head and then after the first listening both tunes began to 'merge' in my head. More puzzleing was that I was sure I had the identical tune with a completely different song somewhere in my tapes, LPs or CDs. I had the distinct feeling that the song started with 'It's of a...' Actually, it turned out that the song I had in mind starts with 'There was a...', but even the correct first words would have been not much of a help, they are just too common. I thought about that each day and yesterday all of a sudden I 'heard' the singing in my mind and I 'heard' two female voices singing together. After that it took me only about five minutes to say, confidently, Lal and Norma Waterson. Then it was easy, and here you go:

The tune Margaret Barry sings for 'Farewell My Own Dear Native Land' is not just close but practically identical with the tune The Watersons use when singing 'Wealthy Squire' on the 'True hearted girl' LP. I don't know if that helps, Finn (or Malcolm).

The tune Malcolm has linked to above is very close in line 4, and more or less off in lines 1-3. It's a matter of taste whether you'd call it a variant or 'related, but different'. In the notes to 'Wealthy squire' on Garry Gillard's Watersons pages is the information that the tune they sing is 'The girl I left behind' or close to 'We poor labouring men'. Both tunes are in the DT and are less similar to 'Farewell My Own Dear Native Land' than the tune Malcolm has linked to.

I don't know Queenstown Harbour but perhaps someone else can make sense of my information.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Farewell My Own Dear Native Land
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 26 Jul 13 - 12:38 AM

According to whoever posted this recording at The Internet Archive, the title of the song is MY LOVELY SHANNON SHORE. However, I haven't found any confirmation of this.

Click for an MP3.


MY LOVELY SHANNON SHORE
As sung by The McNulty Family

Sit down, my gentle fair maid, before I bid adieu,
For a little while in pleasure I would like to spend with you.
It grieves my heart from you to part, ah, but here I cannot stay,
For I must go a-roaming to reach the USA.

Farewell, my friends and parents, and the girl that I do adore.
I will think of her, of my own true love, when I'm on a foreign shore.
I will think about my own true love who once was so dear to me,
And in course of time I might come back from that lovely Tennessee.

Go down to Queenstown Harbour; it will grieve your heart to see
The boys and the girls of Ireland and the thousands going away,
Going from the land that gave them birth, saying adieu to us once more,
But in course of time they might come back to that lovely Shannon shore.