Goodbye songs - info ?

Subject: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: GUEST,Les B.
Date: 06 Nov 02 - 10:18 PM

The other night I attended a presentation by a folklorist doing mining songs and stories.

In chatting with him before the show he mentioned there have been studies done on a genre called "goodbye" or "goodnight" songs -- (yes, my CRS is nearly termninal!) -- apparently they were a cottage industry for broadsheet writers living near jails in times past.

They would produce what was supposedly a prisoner's last words before going to the gallows, and sell them on the streets shortly after the hanging. Of course the more notorious the prisoner/crime, the better the sales of these "ghost written" pieces.

Can anyone tell me the correct term for these songs, or point me to a site or source that discusses them ?    Thanks for your help.

Subject: RE: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: sharyn
Date: 06 Nov 02 - 10:22 PM

I've heard them called "last goodnights."

Subject: RE: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: mg
Date: 06 Nov 02 - 10:46 PM

There was MacPherson's Lament, and one supposedly by Louis Rielle and another one someone just mentioned...can't remember what it was.

mg

Subject: RE: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: Les B
Date: 06 Nov 02 - 11:35 PM

Thanks Sharyn, that's the term. I imagine the old version of "Poor Ellen Smith" would be one.

Mary, is Louis Rielle (or Rial?) the Canadian Metis leader who died in an abortive uprising in the late 1800's ? If so, I'd like to find those words. He spent some time here in Montana.

Subject: RE: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: mg
Date: 07 Nov 02 - 12:13 AM

indeed it is. I'll see what I can find. It is in Metis French. He takes his penknife and writes in blood because he has no ink.

Subject: RE: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: sharyn
Date: 07 Nov 02 - 12:41 AM

There's a famous collection of American murder ballads -- it might be Laws (I used to be a folklore grad student but I'm not required to know these things anymore) -- someone will know, though.

Subject: RE: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: mg
Date: 07 Nov 02 - 12:44 AM

I couldn't find anything but I saw mention of two other songs he is said to have written..one about birds and one about the Metis maidens. I have heard it said he was a songwriter. Some people don't believe he wrote the last chanson, but I personally just do. Maybe some scholars here could find the words in Metis French...mg

Subject: RE: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: GUEST,Les B.
Date: 07 Nov 02 - 03:14 PM

Sharyn - sychronicity is amazing. Just after posting I was leafing through Belden's collection of Ballads from Missouri and found a reference to a "goodnight" song from about 1905.

It was a song I'd never heard of - something like "McAfee's Lament" (not McPherson's). The reference to it was worded in such a way that I realized is was in common use way back then.

I envy you having studied folklore. It takes me 40 years to find out about these things with hit and miss reading and listening!

Subject: RE: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: Harry Basnett
Date: 07 Nov 02 - 04:24 PM

Hi, Les...

         Many and varied are the 'Goodnight Ballads' ranging from the last farewell on the gallows to the sad leavetaking of 'The Unfortunate Rake/Lad/Lass', 'Sailor/soldier Cut Down In his Prime' dying from syphilis.

         These songs tended to be confessional and veered from the remorseful to the defiant. Apart from the ones already mentioned look up 'Tyne of Harrow' (in its Irish incarnation, 'Valentine O'Hara'); 'Adieu, Adieu'; 'The Flash Lad';'Jack Hall';'Captain Kidd.'
Im sure you'll find many more when you start looking but those will do for starters....

         All the best..............Harry Basnett.

PS. Also 'William Corder' and 'Hanged I Will Be'.

Subject: RE: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 07 Nov 02 - 05:16 PM

The Newry Highwayman and Tom Dooley are two more.

Subject: RE: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: Deckman
Date: 07 Nov 02 - 10:12 PM

You might be thinking of "AMERICAN MURDER BALLADS" Olive Woolley Burt. Citadel Press, 1958. A mighty fine book! CHEERS, Bob Nelson

Subject: RE: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: Deckman
Date: 07 Nov 02 - 10:21 PM

Mary ... By the way, "American Murder Ballads" was my source for "The Star of Bannock!" CHEERS, Bob

Subject: RE: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: Judy Cook
Date: 07 Nov 02 - 11:00 PM

Would "The Flying Cloud" be one of these?

--Judy Cook

Subject: RE: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: Les B
Date: 08 Nov 02 - 01:03 AM

Deckman - funny you should mention Burt's book and "The Star of Bannack" - I sort of learned that song a few years ago and then put it on the back burner.

I've been meaning to resurrect it. Our little group sometimes plays at Bannack's Heritage days in the summer, and I've had intentions of doing that song there. We usually play on a porch across from the saloon where she may have been shot. I've even looked in the Bannack cemetery but couldn't find any markers matching the girl's name in the book. I'm also not sure just how old that song really is - it may have been generated in the 1930's? (But it's a good song, anyway).

Subject: RE: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: Deckman
Date: 08 Nov 02 - 09:38 AM

Hello Les B., this song is quite wonderful. I've enjoyed singing it for many years. By the way, I see that I misspelled Bannack! When I get more time today, I'll submitt the background notes as written in "American Murder Ballads." By the way, I can remember hearing this melody played in an olde black and white western movie. You know, just after the wagons are circled for the night and the bonfire is lit, out comes the instruments and you hear this melody. More later, CHEERS, Bob Nelson

Subject: RE: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: breezy
Date: 08 Nov 02 - 08:20 PM

Mike Deavin sang 2 good-bye songs at his gig tonight, one to end, then one to complete his encore.That was at the St. Albans folk club.

Subject: RE: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: mg
Date: 08 Nov 02 - 09:02 PM

Star of B. is a grat sog...sorr. m kboar is big ba toigt...

mg

Subject: RE: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: Genie
Date: 09 Nov 02 - 02:41 AM

Check out the threads on the song "Grace" and its history. It's a real tear-jerker, written for his new bride by an Irish lad who is to be executed in the morning. The couple wed while he was in his prison cell that night and he was shot (?) the next morning.

Subject: RE: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: CraigS
Date: 09 Nov 02 - 06:06 PM

To reply to the question of what these songs are called, the only term I have come across is RANT. MacPherson's Rant is the commoner title in Scotland, and I have come across one or two others I can't name right now. Strictly speaking, a rant should be an outpouring from the heart against some supposed injustice (like being hanged unnecessarily or unjustly), so if repentance is expressed in the song it would have to be called something else. Unless, of course, such repentance is to say "I'm sorry, but hey, it shouldn't end like THIS"

Subject: RE: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: greg stephens
Date: 09 Nov 02 - 06:13 PM

"Armstrong's Last Goodnight" is a good old border song, also the title of John Arden's play on the subject. Probably the best known in folky circles are "Captain Kidd" and "Sam Hall", both first-person confession/apology songs from the gallows.

Subject: RE: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: Harry Basnett
Date: 09 Nov 02 - 06:40 PM

Thank God for that!! We're back to Goodnight Ballads again and not getting massively sidetracked...'Hang down your head, Tom Dooley' - - for goodness' sake!!

Subject: RE: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: greg stephens
Date: 09 Nov 02 - 06:50 PM

Another couple of crackers are "Turpin Hero"(James Joyce drew attention to the clever dramatic device of changing from first to third person in the course of the song): and "John hardy", and I will draw attention to the fact that it changes from third to first, equally effective.

Subject: RE: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: Harry Basnett
Date: 09 Nov 02 - 07:58 PM

Good on yer, Greg.........

Subject: RE: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: Deckman
Date: 09 Nov 02 - 11:00 PM

To Les B. I PM'd you regarding "Star of Bannack." CHEERS, Bob

Subject: RE: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: mg
Date: 10 Nov 02 - 01:03 AM

I think we are looking for songs that the person about to die actually wrote or said some of the words to, aren't we...or perhaps to stretch it someone writing in his/her voice..like Sam Hall etc...as opposed to songs about someone about to die...like Rody McCorly which is a great song. As is the Star of Bannock..love that one.

mg

Subject: RE: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: Deckman
Date: 10 Nov 02 - 09:41 AM

I remember a song called "Hang Me, Oh Hang Me". I think I first heard it from Roger Abrams back in the fifties. Bob

Subject: RE: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: curmudgeon
Date: 10 Nov 02 - 09:56 AM

This type of song is called "Confessi0n from the Gallows" and was indeed the stuff of more lurid broadsides. One of the best I have heard is "Spence Broughton" which was recordedd by Ewan MacColl on the Riverside album "Bad Lads and Hard Cases." I'm not sure if I have it in print anywhere, but I'll try to look later. -- Tom

Subject: RE: Goodbye songs - info ?
From: mg
Date: 10 Nov 02 - 11:45 PM

well, as long as we are stretching it...the croppy boy...long black veil...mg