Origins: was Deportees based on Bold Robert Emmet

Subject: RE: Origins: was Deportees based on Bold Robert Emmet
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 06:54 PM

G'day Big Tim,

(Flippantly ... ;-) In a line ... but the order is unclear!

Regards,

Bob

Subject: RE: Origins: was Deportees based on Bold Robert Emmet
From: Big Tim
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 04:09 PM

Where, for those of you with a better ear for tunes than me, do "Bard of Armagh,"Streets of Laredo", and "St James Infirmary Blues" fit in, if anywhere!

Subject: RE: Origins: was Deportees based on Bold Robert Emmet
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 02:56 PM

Chanted is more of a percussive voicing of the words. Singing has more tone and inflection. You are right, it would be very subjective to consider chanting as being "sung".

Subject: RE: Origins: was Deportees based on Bold Robert Emmet
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 02:49 PM

Colm O Lochlainn has Bold Robert Enmett in his collection "Irish Street Ballads", published 1939, with the note: "Learnt it in childhood from Dublin ballad singers with whom it was very popular up to 1914.**Printed BS." (And BS means Ballad Sheets in this context...)

I'm not sure where the distinction kicks in between chanted and sung. Might be a bit subjective.

Subject: RE: Origins: was Deportees based on Bold Robert E
From: greg stephens
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 02:28 PM

Do we haqve a date for the"Bold Robert Emmet" song? I dont know anything much of its history, but in style it sounds vaguely contemporary to Deportees. For Guthrie to have based Deportess on it, he would have to have heard it first. Is that in fact possible? When did Bold Robert Emmet get popular?

Subject: RE: Origins: was Deportees based on Bold Robert Emmet
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 02:07 PM

From what I've heard, Guthrie never SANG the song but did sort of a chanting recitation of the words.

Subject: RE: Origins: was Deportees based on Bold Robert Emmet
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 01:55 PM

Woody Guthrie did sing Deportees on at least one occasion - that was brought up on a thread here one time, but he didn't use the tune we know, which came a lot later.

I doubt if he'd have been thinking of Robert Emmett when he wrote Deportees. Streets of Laredo more likely (which uses a version of the same tune). Someone writing a song will often have a tune running through their head which keeps the lines scanning, even if it's not the tune they end up using.

Subject: RE: Origins: was Deportees based on Bold Robert Emmet
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 01:45 PM

Deportee was never put to music by Woody Guthrie. The music was put in by Martin Hoffman about 10 years later.

Since Guthrie used folk songs as the base for his music, I would not be surprised that he used Bold Robert Emmett when constructing his poem.

Subject: RE: Origins: was Deportees based on Bold Robert Emmet
From: Mark Ross
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 01:44 PM

Woody didn't write the tune to DEPORTEES. I think that was someone named Martin Johnson.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Origins: was Deportees based on Bold Robert Emmet
From: Wolfgang
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 01:44 PM

Mick,

I know all three songs. Folktunes are often similar. Tunewriters sometimes get their ideas consciously or less consciously from other songs. So I don't contradict your remark about the tune.

However, I am still not at all convinced regarding similarity of lyrics.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Origins: was Deportees based on Bold Robert Emmet
From: GUEST,guest
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 01:31 PM

Wolfgang ,Do you know both songs ? Do you think the tune could be based on Streets of Laredo? It's the feel of both songs when playing them that made me think there might be some connection rather than the first lines..........mick the guest

Subject: RE: Origins: was Deportees based on Bold Robert Emmet
From: Wolfgang
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 12:59 PM

The crops are all in and the peaches are rotten
The battle is over ,the boys are defeated

If that is close enough for you to suspect a 'based upon', I bet there are more than 100 poems out there being candidates for an even better fit.

Wolfgang

Subject: Origins: was Deportees based on Bold Robert Emmet
From: GUEST,guest
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 12:20 PM

The streets of laredo tune fits Deportees , but I was thinking more of the lyrics ,particularly the doom laden first lines-"The crops are all in and the peaches are rotten" (deportees )The battle is over ,the boys are defeated (Emmet).Compare also the lines - "they drive us like outlaws ,like rustlers like thieves" (deportees) with - "condemened as an outlaw a rebel a spy." (emmet)