Origins: All Around My Hat

Subject: RE: Origins: All Around My Hat
From: Thompson
Date: 09 Sep 23 - 02:11 AM

There's a good Wikipedia piece on the song.
Peadar Kearney seems to have written a version that was attached to the story of Grace Gifford and Joseph Plunkett marrying in Kilmainham Gaol.

Subject: RE: Origins: All Around My Hat
From: Lighter
Date: 08 Sep 23 - 05:08 PM

"George Christy's Essence of Old Kentucky" (N. Y., 1862), a collection of minstrel songs and comedy routines, includes most of the first stanza as part of a "medley of medleys."

This is a rare U.S. appearance of the song before it became "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon."

Subject: RE: Origins: All Around My Hat
From: Thompson
Date: 09 Sep 23 - 02:11 AM

There's a good Wikipedia piece on the song.
Peadar Kearney seems to have written a version that was attached to the story of Grace Gifford and Joseph Plunkett marrying in Kilmainham Gaol.

Subject: RE: Origins: All Around My Hat
From: Lighter
Date: 08 Sep 23 - 05:08 PM

"George Christy's Essence of Old Kentucky" (N. Y., 1862), a collection of minstrel songs and comedy routines, includes most of the first stanza as part of a "medley of medleys."

This is a rare U.S. appearance of the song before it became "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon."

Subject: RE: Origins: All Around My Hat
From: GUEST,Dr Brian Howell
Date: 22 Oct 19 - 06:02 PM

I have read that wearing the grren willow goes back to the Monmouth rebellion of 1685 when the failed attempt by a "pitchfork army" against James 11 professionals lead to widespread executions anh transportations in the west country. Wearing a green garland was a secret way of showing support for rebels who had been transported far far away.Most never returned to their sweethearts so it was also a sign of sadness and loss.

Subject: RE: Origins: All Around My Hat
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Jun 18 - 01:24 PM

The vesion i learned orally from my father, was this, and bears no resemblance[lyricwise] to april morning
My love she was fair and my love she was kind too
And many were the happy hours, between my love and me
I never could refuse her, whatever she'd a mind to
And now she's far away, far o'er the stormy sea.

All 'round my hat I will wear a [or: the] green willow
All 'round my hat for a twelve month and a day
If anybody asks me the reason why I wear it
It's all because my true love is far, far away.

Will my love be true and will my love be faithful?
Or will she find another swain to court her where she's gone?
The men will all run after her, so pretty and so graceful
And leave me here lamenting, lamenting all alone.

All 'round my hat I will wear a green willow
All 'round my hat for a twelve month and a day
If anybody asks me the reason why I wear it
It's all because my true love is far, far away.


My love she was fair, and my love she was kind
And cruel the judge and jury that sentenced her away
For thieving was a thing that she never was inclined to
They sent my love across the sea ten thousand miles away.

Subject: RE: Origins: All Around My Hat
From: Brian Peters
Date: 08 Jun 18 - 09:32 AM

Here are the links, in case anyone's interested:

19th century Broadsides:

'Green Willow' 1: 5 stanzas, 3 usually associated with 'April Morning', plus 'All around my hat' as stanza 2 and a verse recalling 'Love is Pleasing' as stanza 3.

'Green Willow' 2: 8 stanzas, as above but topped and tailed by 3 stanzas concerning 'William and Pheobe'. V3 has 'All around my cap.

'All Around my Hat', collected by George Butterworth from Edmund Knight of Washington, Sussex, in 1907. This is very similar to 'Green Willow' 2.

Lyrics.

Tune.

'All Around My Hat' collected by H. D. Hammond from Mrs Crawford; actually a variant of 'Nobleman's Wedding':

Lyrics and tune.

Subject: RE: Origins: All Around My Hat
From: Brian Peters
Date: 07 Jun 18 - 11:25 AM

Brian,may think there is a similarity in tune. so?/...
the lyrics of on one april morning, and the transportation/broken token ballad... all around my hat are very different.

The similarities in the tunes are pretty obvious, Dick. I agree that 'April Morning' is a substantially different song from the Cockney transportation broadside, but the 'Green Willow' broadsides mentioned above - which sometimes identify the protagonists as William and Pheobe, and sometimes don't - include all the 'April Morning' verses together with the 'Hat' chorus.

The 'Hat' chorus is also found in some versions of 'The Nobleman's Wedding'. This was my point - the chorus got attached to at least three different sets of words (probably more) and the tune often went along with it.

None of the links in my 2011 post now work, so I'll try to restore them when I have a few minutes.

Subject: RE: Origins: All Around My Hat
From: RTim
Date: 04 Jun 18 - 08:08 PM

I can remember Martin Carthy being in my living room (in Banbury) many many years ago singing - "All Around My Curly Whirly Crunch Catcher" - this was at a time when the Steeleye song was a hit and there was an advert on TV for Curly Whirly - that was a Chocolate bar that was like a Pretzel...........

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Origins: All Around My Hat
From: Lighter
Date: 04 Jun 18 - 07:05 PM

P.W. Joyce printed an Irish version in 1909:

https://www.itma.ie/digital-library/score/pw-joyce-old-irish-folk-music-90

Subject: RE: Origins: All Around My Hat
From: GUEST,Ray
Date: 04 Jun 18 - 11:14 AM

Speaking purely of the Steeleyspan version, I recall the late Derek Moffatt (of the MaCalmans) telling me that they got the song from them.

Subject: RE: Origins: All Around My Hat
From: The Sandman
Date: 03 Jun 18 - 08:29 PM

Brian,may think there is a similarity in tune. so?/.
there are similarities in tune between tramps and hawkers and the homes of donegal, but the lyrics are different
the lyrics of on one april morning, and the transportation/broken token ballad... all around my hat are very different.
the version recorded by steeleye is a homoeginised version that is senseless, the version i remember... which predates the steeleye rubbish, is a broken token ballad, which april morning is not.

Subject: RE: Origins: All Around My Hat
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 03 Jun 18 - 10:39 AM

I never knew All Around My Neck was a homophonic anthemn.. Won't Maddy be proud?

Subject: RE: Origins: All Around My Hat
From: GUEST,Val
Date: 01 Apr 12 - 04:23 PM

The John Valentine mentioned as being the arranger of the song (and possibly the composer of the melody?) was John Sutherland Valentine, a musician who moved from Coventry to London. He was the son of violinist and organist, Thomas Valentine (1759 - 1800) and came from a long line of musicians from Leicester.

Subject: RE: Origins: All Around My Hat
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 06:31 PM

Mervyn
Swadle has a pretty long stretch and I'm at the opposite end of the county in Hull. I'm also blessed with a poor memory and can't remember ever spending a lot of time there. I may have done Ceilidhs up that way on at some time. We once entertained in the Sergeant's Mess at Catterick.

Neighbour and Tyson are usually pretty accurate basing their dating largely on sheet music serial numbers and trade directories.

Subject: RE: Origins: All Around My Hat
From: GUEST,Mervyn Slatter - Norwich
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 03:04 PM

In reply to Steve Gardham's comments, John A.Parkinson's 'Victorian Music Publishers' 1990, gives the dates of the publisher of 'All round my hat' Dale, Cockerill & Co. as ca.1833-37.On this piece, which I acquired from him many years ago he has writen in pencil 1834. The publisher of the splendid illustration is 'Designed, Lithographed & Printed by G.E.Madeley. 3 Wellington St. Strand.
P.S. did we meet many years ago in Swaledale?

Subject: RE: Origins: All Around My Hat
From: Marje
Date: 07 May 11 - 04:41 AM

As Malcolm said above, back in 02, Steeleye's version collated the Hat song with "Farewell He", which accounts for the inconsistent sentiments expressed. I once heard Martin Carthy say in an interview that he really disliked the Steeleye version for that reason.

I don't have any problem with verses floating around between songs, but it does seem that in the case of the Steeleye version, the end result is a song that doesn't make much sense.

The thing I dislike about it is that "umpy-pump" rhythm used at the end of the third line of each verse (for "wearing it", "I do see" etc. which really grates on my ears. But that's just me, I dare say some people love it.

"April Morning" is one of my big favourites, though, and I'm not sure I feel entirely grateful to Brian Peters for pointing out the similairy between the tunes, as I will now find I'm getting them confused.

Marje

Subject: RE: Origins: All Around My Hat
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 May 11 - 04:22 AM

I'm still wondering where the Steeleye Span version of this song came from. In the Steeleye Span version, the singer is glad to get rid of the lover. Here's the Traditional Ballad Index entry on this song:

All Around My Hat (I)

DESCRIPTION: The singer's true love has been transported; (he) promises that "All around my hat I will wear the green willow... for a twelve month and a day... [for] my true love ... ten thousand miles away." He hopes they can reunite and marry
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1888 (Ashton)
KEYWORDS: love separation transportation
FOUND IN: Britain(England(Lond,South)) Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Kennedy 145, "All Round My Hat" (1 text, 1 tune)
Creighton/Senior, pp. 126-127, "All Round My Hat" (2 fragments, 2 tunes)
Creighton-Maritime, pp. 80-81, "All Around My Hat" (1 text, 1 tune)
Meredith/Covell/Brown, pp. 194-195, "All Round My Hat" (1 tune, presumably this one)
DT, ROUNDHAT*
Roud #567
RECORDINGS:
Neil O'Brien, "All Around My Hat" (on MRHCreighton)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Jolly Miller" (tune)
cf. "The Death of Brugh" (tune)
cf. "Around Her Neck She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" (theme)
cf. "The Green Willow" ("All around my hat" lyrics)
SAME TUNE:
The Death of Brush (File: RcTDOB)
NOTES: Kennedy calls this "Perhaps one of the most popular of all English love songs." And this does not even take into account the Steeleye Span recording, said to have gone higher on the British pop charts than any other traditional song. (Don't ask me if that's a compliment.)
But Kennedy also claims this as the same tune as "The Budgeon It Is a Delicate Trade" (for which see under "The Miller of Dee") -- which it is *not*; "The Budgeon" is in the Lydian mode, and his tune for "All Around My Hat" is an ordinary Ionian melody. (Possibly the two were more alike in the original version of Chappell, which was his reference for "The Budgeon"; that edition levelled some modal tunes).
One of Sam Henry's texts, "The Laird's Wedding," mixes this with "The Nobleman's Wedding (The Faultless Bride; The Love Token)" [Laws P31]. There are hints of such mixture in other versions of the two songs. Roud goes so far as to lump them.
Spaeth (A History of Popular Music in America, pp. 83-84) has what is evidently a version of this song, from about 1840 -- in dialect! ("All round my hat, I vears a green villow.") It is credited to J. Ansell (John Hansell) and John Valentine. If this is the actual origin of the chorus, I have to think it merged with some separate love song. But I suspect the Ansell/Valentine piece of being a perversion of an actual folksong.
W. C. Hazlitt's Dictionary of Faiths & Folklore(1905; I use the 1995 Bracken Books edition), p. 621, declares, "To wear the willow long implied a man's being forsaken by his mistress." However, none of the supporting evidence cited by Hazlitt seems very relevant.
Simpson and Roud's A Dictionary of English Folklore, Oxford, 2000, notes a strong association between the willow and sorrow -- commemorated even by the phrase the "weeping willow." They cite Vickery, who noted the association between willows and weeping in the King James Bible translation of Psalm 137:2 (where the exiles from Jerusalem hung their harps on the willows) while noting that Vickery thought these were in fact poplar trees. This is in fact far from certain. The New Revised Standard Version has "willows" in the text, "poplars" in the margin. The Revised English Bible also has "willow trees" in the text, with "poplars" in the margin. Mitchell Dahood in the Anchor Bible renders "poplars" but has "aspens" in his margin.
The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, article on "Willow," observes that willows and poplars are fairly closely related, and both grow by watercourses. There are two Hebrew words which might be translated "willow"; one is found only in Ezekiel 17:5, the other in Leviticus 23:40, Job 40:22, Psalm 137:2, Isaiah 15:7, 44:4. My guess is, the KJV rendered "willows" based on Jerome's Vulgate Latin, which implies that the meaning "willow" goes back at least to the fourth century. "Willow" is also the rendering used by the LXX Greek, which puts us back to at least the first century B.C.E., although the unknown translator of LXX wasn't nearly the Hebrew scholar that Jerome was.
Of course, what people knew was the King James translation; the actual meaning of the word hardly matters. - RBW
In view of the broadside parodies listed below I am surprised not to find (yet) any broadsides for "All Around My Hat."
Bodleian, Harding B 11(38), "All Around My Hat I'll Wear the Green Willow" ("All round my hat I vears a green villow ..."), J. Pitts (London), 1797-1834; also Firth b.27(536), "All Around My Hat I Wear a Green Willow"; Harding B 16(5a), Firth c.21(60), Firth c.21(62), Harding B 20(2), Harding B 11(40), "All Round My Hat"
LOCSinging, as200070, "All Round My Hat," J. Andrews (New York), 1853-1859; also cw100090, as100150, "All Round My Hat"
Broadside LOCSinging as200070: J. Andrews dating per Studying Nineteenth-Century Popular Song by Paul Charosh in American Music, Winter 1997, Vol 15.4, Table 1, available at FindArticles site. - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: K145

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Green Willow, The

DESCRIPTION: Phoebe accuses William. "She said he had deceived her" Usual "All Around My Hat" complaints. She fears dying a maiden. William claims his deception "was only to try if you were true" They marry and live happily as an example for young lovers.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1953 (Creighton-Maritime)
KEYWORDS: love marriage lie
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Creighton-Maritime, p. 81, "All Around My Hat" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #567
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 11(1432), "The Green Willow," J. Catnach (London), 1813-1838; also Firth c.18(133), Harding B 11(1433), "The Green Willow"
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "All Around My Hat" ("All around my hat" lyrics)
NOTES: Creighton-Maritime pp. 80-81 words fit "All Around My Hat" but the tune is not the standard tune. On the other hand, Creighton-Maritime p. 81 has the standard "All Around My Hat" tune but, what seems to me to be, a different theme.
Broadside Harding B 11(1432) matches Creighton-Maritime p. 81 but replaces the line "But since it is my fortune that I must Marry an old man" with "But since 'tis my misfortune that I must die a maiden." The description for "The Green Willow" is from a more complete but undated broadside Bodleian Firth c.18(133). - BS
File: CrMa081

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Nobleman's Wedding, The (The Faultless Bride; The Love Token) [Laws P31]

DESCRIPTION: A man disguises himself to attend the wedding of the girl he loved before he went away. He sings a song that reminds her of her unfaithfulness and promises to return her love token. She swoons and returns to her mother's home. She dies before morning
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1855 (Petrie)
KEYWORDS: disguise wedding infidelity death grief hardheartedness jealousy love marriage
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South),Scotland(Aber)) US(MA,MW,NE,SE,So) Canada(Mar,Newf) Ireland
REFERENCES (16 citations):
Laws P31, "The Nobleman's Wedding (The Faultless Bride; The Love Token)"
Belden, pp. 165-166, "The Faultless Bride" (1 text)
SharpAp 105, "The Awful Wedding" (1 text, 1 tune)
SHenry H60a, pp. 400-401, "An Old Lover's Wedding"; H60b, p. 401, "The Laird's Wedding" (2 texts, 2 tune, the second mixed with "All Around My Hat")
Greig #24, pp. 1-2, "The Orange and Blue" (1 text)
GreigDuncan6 1199, "Down in Yon Valley" (24 texts, 14 tunes)
Ord, pp. 132-133, "The Unconstant Lover" (1 text, 1 tune)
Kennedy 164, "The Nobleman's Wedding" (1 text, 1 tune)
Butterworth/Dawney, p. 4, "All Around My Hat" (1 text, 1 tune)
McBride 1, "Another Man's Wedding" (1 text, 1 tune)
Creighton/Senior, pp. 158-159, "Green Willow" (1 text, probably this piece though not so listed by Laws)
Greenleaf/Mansfield 75, "The Nobleman's Wedding" (1 text, 1 tune)
Peacock, pp. 691-697, "Nobleman's Wedding" (4 texts, 3 tunes)
Karpeles-Newfoundland 30, "The Nobleman's Wedding" (1 text, 1 tune)
Darling-NAS, pp. 142-143, "To Wear a Green Willow" (1 text)
DT 509, NOBELWED
ST LP31 (Partial)
Roud #567
RECORDINGS:
Eddie Butcher, "Another Man's Wedding" (on Voice06, IREButcher01)
Sara Cleveland, "To Wear a Green Willow" (on SCleveland01)
Maude Thacker, "The Famous Wedding" (on FolkVisions1 -- a very confused version)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Green Willow Tree
The Forsaken Lover
The Inconstant Lover
The False Bride
NOTES: According to Hazlitt's Dictionary of Faiths & Folklore, to wear the willow meant that one had been forsaken by a lover.
Norman Ault's Elizabethan Lyrics claims that the first mention of wearing green willow comes in a poem by John Heywood (1497?-1580?): "All a green willow, willow, willow, All a green willow is my garland." The manuscript, BM Add. 15233, is dated c. 1545. We also find the notion in Shakespeare's "Othello," IV.iii, and in Salisbury's "Buen Matina" (1597).
Roud lumps this with "All Around My Hat." That's *really* a stretch. - RBW
The "Awful Wedding" subgroup ("I'll tell you of an awful wedding"), despite the similarity in titles, is *not* "The Fatal Wedding." - PJS, RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: LP31

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Subject: RE: Origins: All Around My Hat
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 06 May 11 - 02:02 PM

An 1830s sheet music cover can be viewed online in the Spellman Collection. I'm sure somebody can add a blue clicky. It purports to be the original of the Cockney burlesque. What I can make out from my own copy is:-
A New comic Song as Sung by Mr. W. H. Williams
At the Royal Gardens, Vauxhall, Sydney Gardens, Bath, and at the Tivoli Gardens, Margate, public festivals, &c. &c.
Written by J. Hansell Esqr.
The Symphonies and Accompaniments Composed, and the Melody Arranged by John Valentine.
LONDON, Published by Dale, Cockerill & Co. 19, Poultry.


There is a litho of Williams in character giving his moke a drink from his tankard, the moke laden with his 'wegetables'.

Dale, Cockerill and Co. according to Neighbour and Tyson, were operating c1832-7 which would fit in nicely with the Catnach broadsides.

Subject: RE: Origins: All Around My Hat
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 06 May 11 - 11:29 AM

I'm afraid I'm not musically literate enough to have an opinion on what is the true and correct tune for ALL AROUND MY HAT (I normally deal only with lyrics)--but this might be useful to somebody:

A musical arrangement of ALL ROUND [sic] MY HAT, with 3 verses, appears in The Franklin Square Song Collection, Volume 8 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1892), page 125.

I haven't compared the tune or lyrics to what has already been posted.

Subject: RE: Origins: All Around My Hat
From: Brian Peters
Date: 06 May 11 - 07:14 AM

I've been doing a little more digging about this song, and thought it might be worth trying to co-ordinate other threads that are relevant to this one.

I've long been convinced that 'All Around my Hat' and the folk revival favourite 'Twas on one April Morning' are closely linked, on account of the similarity in the tunes and the verse complaining about deceitful young men. However, it seems that others got there before me. Malcolm Douglas on this thread (23 Aug 08 - 09:54 PM) referred to the broadside 'Green Willow' as a precursor of the cockney costermonger's 'All Around my Hat', and Artful Codger has already posted that text on the 'April Morning' thread. It will do no harm to repost it on this one:

[Begin quote]

Subject: Lyr Add: Green Willow
From: Artful Codger - PM
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 04:13 PM

In an attempt at consolidation, I'm reposting here the text of the broadside "Green Willow", which I first posted in another thread:

[...] The Bodley copies of this broadside contain clear relatives of all of the "April Morning" stanzas except the first. You can draw your own conclusions.

Bodley Ballads: Harding B 11(1432) [between 1813 and 1838]
Published by J. Catnach, 2, Monmouth-court 7 Dials
Also Harding B 11(1433) [1819-1844] with differences shown in brackets.
Published by Pitts, 6, Gt. St. Andrew Street, Seven Dials

The Green Willow.

Young men are false and they are so deceitful,
Young men are false and they seldom will prove true,
For rangling and jangling their minds are always changing,
They're always see[k]ing for some pretty young girl that is true.

It's all round my hat I will wear a green willow,
It's all round my hat for a twelvemonth and a day,
If any one should ask you the reason why I wear it,
O tell them I have been slighted by my own true love.

You false hearted young men you know you have deceived me,
You false hearted young men you caused me to rue,
For love it does grow older & seldom does grow bolder,
All fades away like the sweet morning dew.

O that I had but my own heart to keep it,
O that I had but my own heart again,
Closely in my bosom I would lock it up for ever;
[O] Never would I ramble so far far again.

For many a long hour have I spent courting,
For many a long hour have I spent in vain,
But since 'tis my misfortune that I must die a maiden,
O never would I ramble so far far again.


The fragment mentioned earlier (consisting of the first two verses above) was printed in The History of Signboards from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (1908) by Jacob Larwood, L.R. Sadler, John Camden Hotten, on page 247. It was quoted a passage discussing the use of the willow as a symbol of sadness and forsaken love. The writer(s) had heard it sung by an old Northumberland woman, but had never seen it in print.

He/they also wrote (possibly quoting Douce at this point):
'[...] the Agnus castus or vitex was supposed by the ancients to promote chastity, "and the willow being of a much like nature," says an old writer, "it is yet a custom that he which is deprived of his love must wear a willow garland."—Swan's Speculum Mundi, ch. vi, sec. 4. 1635.'

Other threads here have discussed the relationship (by parody?) between "The Green Willow" and the later "All Around My Hat".

[End quote]

What you have above, then, is pretty much the song we know as 'April Morning' with the 'Hat' chorus as its second verse. Now look at what George Butterworth collected under the title 'All Around my Hat' from Edmund Knight of Washington, Sussex, in 1907 (courtesy of the EFDSS Take 6 archive):

Tune

Lyrics

It's a version of the familiar 'Hat' tune (albeit with an interesting F natural that takes it into Mixolydian territory), with a set of verses that resemble very closely this broadside from the Bodleian. And lyrically, it's Artful Codger's 'Green Willow' with the floating verses shoehorned into a tale about two named lovers. So we now know that both the 'William and Pheobe' version and the cockney version survived in 20th century oral tradition.

Just to confuse matters further, this version, from the Hammond collection via Butterworth, of The Nobleman's Wedding includes the 'Hat' refrain as its opening and closing verse, and has a tune related to the usual one.

Looks like 'All Around my Hat' is a 'floating chorus' - you could argue that what Steeleye Span did with it in the 1970s (grafting a dfferent set of verses onto it) was no different to what had been going on for a century and a half!

Subject: RE: Origins: All around My Hat
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 01 Oct 10 - 07:21 PM

For the song that is burlesqued here check out a contemporary broadside 'The Green Willow, or All Round My Hat'. There are at least a couple of versions in the Bodl and quite a lot more in Madden. None of them appear to be any older than Pitts/Catnach, but as the trend of the period was taking serious ballads and burlesquing them the serious one is very likely the older, but not by much.

Subject: RE: Origins: All around My Hat
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Oct 10 - 02:28 PM

The Bodleian copy printed by Pitts is given the approx. date range of 1819-1844 (Harding BH11(38)). This was posted early in this thread.

Jack Reeve, comic singer, also performed Billy Barlow, c. 1836. Thread 62999, Lyr. Add: Billy Barlow.

I can't find a John Valentine, composer, in early 19th C., but an earlier John Valentine, perhaps antecedent, is discussed in Karl Kroeger, 1988, John Valentine: Eighteenth-Century Music Master in the English Midlands, Notes, 2nd Ser., vol. 44, no. 3 (Mar. 1988), pp. 444-455. Other members of the family, I believe, are discussed.
I don't have access to that journal.

Subject: RE: Origins: All around My Hat
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 01 Oct 10 - 07:51 AM

A short version of the song appears, without comment, in P.W. Joyce's Old Irish Folk Music and songs (1909)

Subject: RE: Origins: All around My Hat
From: pavane
Date: 01 Oct 10 - 07:42 AM

I can see a snippet from a book which says

"1830's under the title "All Around My Hat." The lyric was in dialect and the song bore the inscription "written by J. Ansell . . . composed and arranged by John Valentine ... as sung by Jack Reeve with the most unbounded applause"

P 383 of
The American song treasury: 100 favorites
Author Theodore Raph
Publisher Courier Dover Publications, 1986

Also:
L.C. information bulletin (Library of congress) Vol 50, 1991, p 78

The original, "written by J. Ansell, Esq." (John Hansell) and "composed and arranged by John Valentine," "as sung by Jack Reeve, with the most Unbounded Applause," pictures an English vegetable peddler, with an overloaded little donkey,


and another which claims to have the original sheet music.

Subject: RE: Origins: All around My Hat
From: pavane
Date: 01 Oct 10 - 07:22 AM

The song's title also gets a mention in 1837 in New York:

New-York mirror: Volume 14, Issue 1 - Volume 15, Issue 52 - Page 276

Subject: RE: Origins: All around My Hat
From: pavane
Date: 01 Oct 10 - 07:14 AM

I have found an early parody of All Around my hat in an 1835 magazine - turned into political song. Therefore the original must date from earlier.

Figaro 4 April 1835

Subject: RE: Origins: All around My Hat
From: GUEST,Chris P
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 04:08 PM

Arriving shortly on the Village Music Project:-

X:34
T:All Round My Hat,A New Dance. JB.034
S:Jas.Blackshaw MS, 1837, N.Shropshire
Z:Tony Weatherall 2006
M:2/4
L:1/8
Q:1/2=70
A:North Shropshire
R:Country Dance
K:C
G|c2d>B|c2e>f|g2f>e|d>B G2|c2 d>B|c2 e>f|gg a>^f|g2z:|!
|:e/f/|g>ga>g|f>ed>e|f>fg>c|d>B G2|c2 d>B|c2 e>f|g>gf>d|c2z|]

Subject: RE: Origins: All around My Hat
From: pavane
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 08:01 AM

See posting earlier in this thread:

"Strictly speaking, the "cockney parody", so called, is the original All Around My Hat. There is no record of any earlier song of that title, or containing those verses. Of course, there are related antecedents. "

and

"Ansell and Valentine's costermonger song 'All Around My Hat' (c.1834) wasn't made from whole cloth, of course. It was a parody of 'Green Willow' "

As printed c1840:

All round my hat I vears a green villow,
All round my hat for a twelvemonth and a day,
If any one should ax't the reason vy I vears it,
Tell them that my true love is far, far away.


Therefore origins are LONDON (which wasn't in Ireland last time I looked)

We had someone writing a letter to the Times yesterday to say it was Irish, "correcting" a previous letter which must have said it was English.

Subject: RE: Origins: All around My Hat
From: GUEST,fiftyfiveandsomemore
Date: 02 Dec 08 - 04:50 PM

You Tube entry 'All around my hat" as performed by Steeleye Span in their promo video of 1975. The latest replies now have the song / tune as Irish in origin and called 'The Tain', is that correct?

Subject: RE: Origins: All around My Hat
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 01 Dec 08 - 08:29 AM

Where exactly on 'YouTube' might that be? I doubt if the 'discussion' there contains anything of interest or worth, but when misinformation is being put about it's as well to know what is being said.

Subject: RE: Origins: All around My Hat
From: GUEST,fiftyfiveandsomemore
Date: 01 Dec 08 - 08:10 AM

There is a debate of sorts going on, on YOUTUBE but the 'it's an Old Irish Tune' faction, just keep saying that with no backup, dates or source info coupled with anti British slogans. Rather seem to think the harder they shout the more credence to their proposition. Pity there are no Irish folk experts to throw a little more light on the subject from their side of the water.

Subject: RE: Origins: All around My Hat
From: GUEST,baz parkes
Date: 13 Nov 08 - 04:55 AM

ref Pete Bellamy's version...., for those whose "record player no longer works",Fellside have just released Mainly Norfolkand Fair Englands Shore on a compilation CD The acccompanying CD version of Fox jumps over the Parsons Gate opens with The Spotted Cow...again stealing a march on Steeleye by a good few years.
Both wellworth alisten IMHO

Baz

Subject: RE: Origins: All around My Hat
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 13 Nov 08 - 04:51 AM

He wasn't terribly pleased when I pointed out that it was just as likely that navvies brought it back to Ireland, and that it wasn't a rebel song until Kearney's rewrite...

Subject: RE: Origins: All around My Hat
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 13 Nov 08 - 04:45 AM

I highly suspect that our guest is DARAHMAN666 from youtube, who also claims that Cold Blow and the Windy Night is an Irish rebel song too. Of course, he doesn't back up any assertions, just throws temper tantrums and flings abuse.

Subject: RE: Origins: All around My Hat
From: Musket
Date: 13 Nov 08 - 04:33 AM

Yes yes, very good BUT

I have been racking my brains out trying to remember who I heard sing;

I'm going to kill my cat
And I'll smother it with a pillow
Cos it pissed all around my hat
And it's going to rue the day
For when I've done dissecting it
I'll put it in a paper bag
And send all the bits off to the RSPCA.

Don't think it was Maddy Prior....

Subject: RE: Origins: All around My Hat
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Nov 08 - 06:05 PM

The Steeleye version - at least on the LP - came out in '77 or '78, so they may well have picked it up from Peter B.

Subject: RE: Origins: All around My Hat
From: MartinRyan
Date: 12 Nov 08 - 04:58 PM

GUEST

'Fraid not - read the earlier postings to see the song's origins.

Regards

Subject: RE: Origins: All around My Hat
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Nov 08 - 04:31 PM

Its was an old Irish rebel song brought to England by Irish navvies it the early 1800s.

Subject: RE: Origins? All around my hat
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 03:43 PM

I first learned 'All Around My Hat' from a Peter Bellamy record: 'Fair England's Shore', XTRA 1075, 1968. I'm guessing, but I assume that this pre-dates the Steeleye span version by several years. I recall that the Steeleye Span version came as no surprise to me (very similar tune and words) and I always assumed that they had learned it from Mr B.

Bellamy's sleeve notes don't add much to the discussion, but for the record they are quoted below:

" All Around my Hat: I have known for so long that I have forgotten where I originally acquired it. I found several versions in the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library at Cecil Sharp House, many of which had a very long and confusing story line. I decided to stick with this clear and simple form."

It's years since I played the record (not sure if my record deck still works!) and the song is long lost from my repertoire (probably just as well - I wouldn't want anyone thinking that I had learned a song from Steeleye Span!).

Subject: RE: Origins? All around my hat
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 04:58 PM

There is a version of PLFB in Kidson's English Peasant Songs p102 and the tune is AAMH. Broadsides of PLFB were printed by the same printers as the burlesque

Subject: RE: Origins? All around my hat
From: pavane
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 01:56 AM

I actually mentioned PLFB in the first post of the thread. I am glad to see there has been some progress on this song, anyway.

Subject: RE: Origins? All around my hat
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 04:47 PM

Malcolm made a reference to Gilchrist linking the tune of the burlesque versions to 'The Poor Little Fisherman's Boy' near the beginning of this thread. I have a note stating that at least one of the broadsides designates 'Poor Little Fisherman's Boy' as the tune it should be sung to. Presumably then 'PLFB' predates the burlesque version at least. If required I can check my copies of the broadsides and find which ones give the tune designation but I have 21 versions just of the burlesque.

Subject: RE: Origins? All around my hat
From: GUEST,beachcomber
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 09:04 AM

McGrath of Harlow, I believe that Peadar Kearney was interned in Frongoch after the 1916 Rising as was my wife's Gt.Grandfather Luke Kennedy (To whom there is reference in the biography of Kearney by DeBurca ). Perhaps it was then that his version of the song "All around my Hat" was penned ? The book was published, I understand, in 1957. How did you come by it ?

Subject: RE: Origins? All around my hat
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 12:16 AM

Malcolm. (and others)

Thanks for all the research.
Maybe (Slight drift here) we should consider the origins of the song you've just mentioned.
"When this old thread was new!"

Now, where did I put my coat?

Subject: RE: Origins? All around my hat
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 23 Aug 08 - 09:54 PM

For more detail (which I didn't know about back when this old thread was new; some of my comments made here in '01 and '02 were therefore misleading or wrong), see notes to 'The Nobleman's Wedding' in the revised edition of  Marrow Bones. Most of the missing links were supplied by Steve Gardham.

Ansell and Valentine's costermonger song 'All Around My Hat' (c.1834) wasn't made from whole cloth, of course. It was a parody of 'Green Willow' (and other titles) for which see  Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads:

[The] Green Willow / William & Phebe

This itself, though in that form not much older than the parody, was partly made up of recycled older material.

Subject: RE: Origins? All around my hat
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Aug 08 - 09:07 PM

Another, c. 1813-1838, the same lyrics, also at the Bodleian.

Subject: RE: Origins? All around my hat
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Aug 08 - 08:48 PM

Does anyone know an earlier printing than the copy at the Bodleian, dated aprox. 1819-1844?

This so-called 'Cockney' version appeared in "Marsh's Selection, or Singing for the Million," 1854, and was printed by Auner & Johnson as well as Andrews (Richie post, where the lyrics are given). The song seems to have been popular in North America in the 1850s.

The earliest printed copy of the song (I vears a green villow), dated c. 1819-1844, was printed by Pitts, London (Harding B11(38)).

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: All around my hat
From: nutty
Date: 09 Aug 06 - 04:44 AM

Sorry eric, there have been numerous threads of that ilk.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: All around my hat
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 09 Aug 06 - 04:22 AM

All around my hat, I will wear the green willow,
All around my hat, for twelve month and a day,
And if anybody asks me, the reason why I'm wearing it,


It's my bloody willow and it's my bloody hat.