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Origins: Leaving of Liverpool

DigiTrad:
LEAVING LIVERPOOL
LEAVING OF LIVERPOOL (new version)


Related threads:
Guitar tabs 'Leaving of Liverpool' (16)
Lyr Add: The Leaving of Limerick (19)
Lyr Req: Fare Thee Well? / Farewell (Bob Dylan) (9)
Obscure Dylan song: Fare Thee Well? / Farewell (38)
Lyr/Chords Req: The Leaving of Liverpool (3)
Chords Req: Leaving of Liverpool (7)


GUEST,MartinRyan 16 Feb 09 - 06:06 AM
Jim McLean 16 Feb 09 - 07:39 AM
GUEST,MV 16 Feb 09 - 12:29 PM
Terry McDonald 16 Feb 09 - 12:53 PM
goatfell 16 Feb 09 - 12:58 PM
wyrdolafr 16 Feb 09 - 01:21 PM
PoppaGator 16 Feb 09 - 03:27 PM
Barry Finn 16 Feb 09 - 05:08 PM
dick greenhaus 16 Feb 09 - 05:12 PM
Barry Finn 16 Feb 09 - 06:15 PM
Fred McCormick 17 Feb 09 - 05:11 AM
MartinRyan 17 Feb 09 - 06:11 AM
GUEST,TJ in San Diego 17 Feb 09 - 11:25 AM
dick greenhaus 17 Feb 09 - 12:22 PM
GUEST,George Henderson 18 Feb 09 - 06:49 AM
GUEST,MV 18 Feb 09 - 09:07 AM
Fred McCormick 18 Feb 09 - 09:24 AM
MartinRyan 18 Feb 09 - 09:25 AM
GUEST,George Henderson 18 Feb 09 - 09:37 AM
MartinRyan 18 Feb 09 - 09:49 AM
Fred McCormick 18 Feb 09 - 10:09 AM
MartinRyan 18 Feb 09 - 10:12 AM
Fred McCormick 18 Feb 09 - 10:17 AM
Fred McCormick 18 Feb 09 - 10:19 AM
MartinRyan 18 Feb 09 - 10:19 AM
MartinRyan 18 Feb 09 - 10:24 AM
Fred McCormick 18 Feb 09 - 10:42 AM
MartinRyan 18 Feb 09 - 10:50 AM
GUEST,George Henderson 18 Feb 09 - 10:56 AM
GUEST,MV 18 Feb 09 - 02:00 PM
GUEST,MV 18 Feb 09 - 02:07 PM
MartinRyan 18 Feb 09 - 02:13 PM
Terry McDonald 18 Feb 09 - 02:17 PM
GUEST,MV 18 Feb 09 - 02:29 PM
MartinRyan 18 Feb 09 - 02:39 PM
Terry McDonald 18 Feb 09 - 02:53 PM
MartinRyan 18 Feb 09 - 03:04 PM
GUEST,MV 18 Feb 09 - 03:11 PM
curmudgeon 18 Feb 09 - 06:07 PM
MartinRyan 18 Feb 09 - 06:58 PM
Barry Finn 19 Feb 09 - 03:02 AM
GUEST,MV 19 Feb 09 - 06:17 AM
Les in Chorlton 19 Feb 09 - 07:55 AM
MartinRyan 19 Feb 09 - 09:01 AM
Les in Chorlton 19 Feb 09 - 09:24 AM
Barry Finn 19 Feb 09 - 01:43 PM
Les in Chorlton 19 Feb 09 - 02:18 PM
GUEST,MV 19 Feb 09 - 04:18 PM
smpc 26 Aug 09 - 03:17 PM
Les in Chorlton 26 Aug 09 - 03:20 PM
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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: GUEST,MartinRyan
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 06:06 AM

It's as good a guess as any - in the absence of evidence! My own instinct, as noted earlier in the thread, is the reverse.

Regards


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: Jim McLean
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 07:39 AM

PAT CLANCY:
You want to know where Dylan got his stuff? There was a little folk club here in London, down in the basement [The Troubadour]; we sang in it one night... Anyway, Al Grossman [Dylan's manager] paid somebody [Anthea Joseph]and gave them a tape-recorder, and every folk-singer that went up there was taped, and Bob Dylan got all those tapes...
LIAM CLANCY:
Yes, and the tune of "Farewell"... because whoever was singing harmony was closer to the mike than the guy singing melody, and when Dylan wrote his version, he wrote it to the harmony not the melody line...


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: GUEST,MV
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 12:29 PM

A leaving song would be appealing in Ireland in the 19th Century. I have a feeling that in the same way as Irish groups and singers adopted the Liverpool song in the 20th Century maybe it was adopted in the same way in 19th Century Ireland. A case of history repeating itself?

MV


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: Terry McDonald
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 12:53 PM

There is nothing in the lyrics to the 'standard' version of the Leaving of Liverpool' to suggest emigration. It's his second voyage, he expects to come home, he's clearly a member of the crew and he's going to California, not the usual east coast ports such as New York or Boston where British and Irish emigrants arrived.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: goatfell
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 12:58 PM

here in Ayrshire they line dance to this how ?


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: wyrdolafr
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 01:21 PM

Terry McDonald wrote: "There is nothing in the lyrics to the 'standard' version of the Leaving of Liverpool' to suggest emigration. It's his second voyage, he expects to come home, he's clearly a member of the crew and he's going to California, not the usual east coast ports such as New York or Boston where British and Irish emigrants arrived."

I agree completely. I don't understand why there's actually any debate to it. Aside from the words themselves, it's not exactly an unlikely context or setting given Liverpool's importance as a port during the 19th C.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: PoppaGator
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 03:27 PM

I was glad to see this verse (above):

    I've shipped in a Yankee clipper ship,
    Davy Crockett is her name.
    Captain Burgess he is tough, me lads,
    And the mate he's just the same.

In several sources, including Rise Up Singing, this verse ends on a glaringly non-rhyming word, which I've never liked very much.

Like Little Robyn and probably many others, I knew Dylan's "Farewell" before I ever heard the original "Leaving of Liverpool." I like Bob's verses, but I prefer singing and playing the chorus of the older song, especially for the line that contains the title.

I get the feeling, however, that that very line gives the melody an element of momentum that encourages the singer(s) to speed up the rendition, perhaps to the detriment of the song's intended meaning/feeling. In the Dylan song, "It's not the lea-ea-vin'/ that's a-grievin' me" is more readily sung in a less rowdy, more contemplative manner than the original title-line.


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Subject: Lyr Add: THE LEAVING OF LIVERPOOL (Doerflinger)
From: Barry Finn
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 05:08 PM

From "Shanteymen & Shantyboys" by William Main Doerflinger. (Snips)

"The first (song)is a sailor's farewell to Liverpool".

Thousands of Yankee shellbacks knew Liverpool well. Many of the Famous American clippers, too, were familiar sights in the Mersey, among the three-skysail-yarder 'David Crockett' of New York, the merchant ship mentioned in this song.

"It was in 1863 that she first arrived in the port (Liverpool) while under the command of Captain John A Burgess of Massachusetts, her skipper for many yrs. In 1874, on what was to have been his last voyage before retiring from sea, Captain Burgess was lost overboard in a storm in the South Atlantic."

Dick Maitland, who sang "The Leaving of Liverpool," learned it about 1885, when he was bosun of the American ship "General Knox". "I was on deck one night", he said, "when I heard a Liverpool man singing it in the fo'c'sle...Yessir, that song hit the spot"!

Seeing as this is a one-source song "that's how it was sung" anything else is a change through the folk process, maybe but in 'Rise Up Singing' they at least should have repeat the printed source rather than what I suspect change the words deliberately to their own flowing tastes.

If Dick heard this coming from the fo'c'sle then it came from a crew member, as passengers weren't even allowed in the fo'c'sle. I've heard Dan Milner sing this many times, his is much like Lou Killen (except I can understand Dan better than Lou). I see no reason to believe this is a song of emigration & as Doeflinger says himself it's a "sailor's farewell".

I put Doerflinger's text here because there's been such wild speculation over the song, it's origin and words. Sing it as you will but here's how it is.

Leaving of Liverpool

Fare you well, the Prince's Landing Stage, River Mersey, fare you well
I'm off to California, a place I know right well

Chorus
So, fare you well, my own true love
When I return united we will be
It's not the leaving of Liverpool that grieves me,
But darling when I think on you

I'm off to California
By way of stormy Cape Horn
And I will send you a letter, love
When I am homeward bound

Farewell to Lower Frederick Street
Anson Terrace and Park Lane,
Farewell, it well be some long time
Before I see you again

I've shipped on a Yankee clipper ship
Davy Crockett is her name;
And Burgess is the captain of her
And they say she's a floating hell

It's my second trip with Burgess in the Crockett,
And I think I know him well.
If a man's a sailor, he can get along,
But if not, he's sure in hell.

The tug is waiting at the pierhead
To take us down the stream.
Our sails are loose and our anchor secure,
So I'll bid you good-bye once more

I'm bound away to leave you,
Good-bye, my love, good-bye.
There ain't but one thing that grieves me;
That's leaving you behind.

Now, fare you well, the Prince's Landing Stage,
River Mersey, farewell you well.
I'm off to California,
A place I know right well.

Barry


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 05:12 PM

That's a lot of debate about a song with a single source.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: Barry Finn
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 06:15 PM

Who'd of thunk?

Barry


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 05:11 AM

I've come to this thread late as usual, so apologies if someone has mentioned this already. However, Ciarain MacMathuna, the former RTÉ radio presenter collected it from a Limerick woman, I think in the 1950s. Certainly, I recall MacMathuna broadcasting it on a midweek programme he used to compere, as far back as the mid 1970s. I have only heard the singer's name on whistly medium wave radio, but it would have been Una Tuohy, or some such variation, and she came from Co. Limerick. A posthumous CD of her was published by her family and/or friends.

Anyone who wants to follow this up could contact the Irish Traditional Music Archive http://www.itma.ie/ .

"I'd normally be quite dubious about claims for an Irish antecedent for a song like The Leaving of Liverpool (mainly on the grounds that people are always saying things like that, but rarely seem able to back it up), but, according to Dan Milner, the suggestion came from Tom Munnelly, who I'd expect to be reliable on that sort of thing. I've never seen or heard The Leaving of Limerick, though. Is anyone able to quote it? Any reference to a traditional source would be useful, too; revival recordings may be of little help unless they provide substantive information. I know that Deirdre Scanlan, for example, has recorded a song of that title; but does she say anything about it?"


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: MartinRyan
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 06:11 AM

I see Nora Butler's CD on sale HERE , with a (very) short sample of The Leaving of Limerick

Regards


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 11:25 AM

I first heard the song from the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, circa 1963. At least two references I recall credited authorship to Ewan McColl as if it were a composition of his and not older material possibly reworked. It appears now to be a much older song, at least in some form.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 12:22 PM

The first--and prolly the last word on the subject:

"Dick Maitland, who sang "The Leaving of Liverpool" learned it about 1885, when he was bosun of the American ship "General Knox". '"I was on deck one night"', he said, '"when I heard a Liverpool man singing it in the fo'c'sle...Yessir, that song hit the spot'"!


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: GUEST,George Henderson
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 06:49 AM

Of course Dick Maitland Heard a Liverpool man singing it. And there is no doubt that Doerflinger collected it. And we must thank them both for allowing us the opportunity to sing it now.

However, The Leaving of Limerick is also a very fine song. Deirdre Scanlan got it from the singing of Nora Butler and I asked Tom Munnelly for his thoughts on it. He was not definitive but he felt that the Leaving of Limerick was the older song. He did not research it, as far as I am aware, and this is only conjecture.

But who cares, they are both very good songs and both should be sung.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: GUEST,MV
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 09:07 AM

Thanks Martin for the clip of Leaving Of Limerick. The clip doesn't include the chorus so I don't if it sounds like Leaving Of Liverpool when it gets to the chorus. The melody in the clip I heard didn't sound to me like Leaving Of Liverpool. The leaving theme in both songs may well go way back there may be other leaving songs we have lost over time. Maybe Leaving Of Liverpool and Leaving Of Limerick were created independent of each other?

MV


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 09:24 AM

MV."Maybe Leaving Of Liverpool and Leaving Of Limerick were created independent of each other?"

No. One was definitely created from the other and gut feeling tells me "Limerick" is the older of the two.

Incidentaaly, the two tunes are so close that I was listening to it on the radio once and somebody walking past said, "That's The Leaving of Liverpool".

Here's another, slightly longer text, which was sent to the RTÉ broadcaster Donagh McDonough in the 1950s. McDonough used to get people to send the texts of ballads to him, and he would then get singers to put airs to them and broadcast the results over the radio.

His son, Martin McDonough (I think) posted the collection on the Internet some years, and it included some rare and invaluable material. Unfortunately, I've just been to look for the site now and it seems to have disappeared. If anyone has an extant website address, do please post it.

The Leaving of Limerick

As I roved out one evening down by the Assembly Mall
I heard two lovers talking as me and my love passed on;
The words that passed between them they were but very few:
"It isn't the leaving of Limerick that grieves me,
But my darling when I think of you!"

"In the morning when I'm going I'll wave my lily-white hand,
I'll wave it all over my shoulder, and adieu to Limerick Strand;
And farewell to the girls of Thomond Gate, 'tis to them I bed adieu;
It isn't the leaving of Limerick that grieves me,
But my darling when I think of you!"

"when I think of the pleasant days we spent in search of treasure trove
And the hours we spent in courting away in Gabbet's Grove;
I did not then deceive you when I vowed I would be true;
It isn't the leaving of Limerick that grieves me,
But my darling when I think of you!"

"And now that we must be parted 'tis hard to understand
Why I must go broken hearted away from Limerick strand;
Though, My fond love, I must leave , you know my heart it is true;
It isn't the leaving of Limerick that grieves me,
But my darling when I think of you!"


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: MartinRyan
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 09:25 AM

MV

The clip is too short to be helpful, alright - but there's no doubt about the similarity when you hear the full version.

Regards


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: GUEST,George Henderson
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 09:37 AM

Fred. Thanks for the extra verses. But I am not so sure that the Limerick song is older. It does not appear to be a translation from Irish (Gaelic) and I am not sure when Limerick was "converted" from Irish language to the English Language but I have doubts that it was older than the dates for Liverpool mentioned above.

Martin, would English have been used in Limerick at that time or sooner?


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: MartinRyan
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 09:49 AM

George

To me, there's nothing in either the words or the tune to suggest an Irish-language song origin. Limerick city, at least, would have been mostly English-speaking throughout the 19C.

Fred's additional verse is very interesting. "Gabbet's Grove" sounds like a name that will have disappeared by now. Wonder when?

Regards


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 10:09 AM

I don't know when Irish died out in Limerick but I imagine it was fairly early. Certainly I'd expect well before 1885, which is when Dick Maitland first heard "Liverpool".

I'd be almost certain that "Limerick" isn't a translation from the Irish. In fact very few Gaelic songs made it into the Anglo-Irish folk tradition. Plus there aren't all that many emigration songs in Irish anyway. In fact the vast bulk of emigration songs postdate the famine of the mid 1840s and are in English.

It's likely therfore that Limerick was written some time from the mid nineteenth century on. The reason why I think Limerick-Liverpool is more likely than Liverpool-Limerick is simply tht it would reflect the pattern of emigration. At that time, emigration was very much a one way ticket and you didn't get much in the way of returnees. Hence a song written in Limerick had more chance of being turned up in Liverpool than a song written in Liverpool would have had of finding its way to Limerick.

On the other hand, the way that sailors kicked about the world, you would never know for certain.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: MartinRyan
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 10:12 AM

Fred

Click here for the Donagh McDonagh (note spelling!) site.

Regards


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 10:17 AM

Martin. Yes. I was thinking of Co. Limerick, but the city would have been English speaking long before most of the rural parts of the county. I've just googled Assembly Mall Limerick, and it turns out to be a thoroughfare in that city. Does anybody know whether the other places mentioned are in Limerick City also?


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 10:19 AM

Martin. Thanks for the link, and the corrected spelling. No wonder I couldn't find it. I downloaded all the songs when the site was first put up and would encourage others to do the same in cas eit ever vanishes altogether.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: MartinRyan
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 10:19 AM

Thomondgate is an area in Limerick city. I've never heard of Gabbet's Grove - but will see what I can find.

Regards


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: MartinRyan
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 10:24 AM

Click here then scroll to the bottom of the page for Gabbet's Grove, in Limerick. Gabbet was a 19 C. landowner in that area, it seems.

Regards


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 10:42 AM

Actually spelt Gabbett's, it seems to have been somewhere pretty close to Limerick. But look what I turned up by googling Gabbett.

From http://www.freewebs.com/vitaphone1/victor2.html . Victor 20713 was a 78 RPM record with a tune called Gabbett's Grove on one side and Devil's Bit on the other. Played by the P. J. McNamara Quartet.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: MartinRyan
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 10:50 AM

Yes - both spellings seem to have been used. Gabbett's Grove is in Corbally, now a suburb of Limerick city.

Regards

p.s. IIRC, the Devil's Bit is a feature in a mountain range in Tipperary!


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: GUEST,George Henderson
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 10:56 AM

Yes. And right underneath the Devils Bit there is a village called Killea. The Killea singers circle meets on the second Monday of every month (October to May) in Sullivans pub.

And a great session it is too.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: GUEST,MV
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 02:00 PM


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: GUEST,MV
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 02:07 PM

Sorry blank post above.

It's quite possible that Irish settlers in Liverpool introduced the song to the city. The considerable numbers of Irish people living here in the 1840s and after would facilitate the link. However if Limerick was not a port on the coast I would be more convinced by the Limerick first case. The port link could take the song the other way.

MV


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: MartinRyan
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 02:13 PM

In a way, of course, what's most interesting is that they BOTH survived - each by its own slender, traditional thread.

Regards


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: Terry McDonald
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 02:17 PM

Until someone produces evidence of the Leaving of Limerick being mentioned or collected in Ireland before 1885, any suggestion that Leaving of Liverpool is based upon it seems like wishful thinking to me.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: GUEST,MV
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 02:29 PM

If you date the link from the 1840s/1850s the Liverpool singer of the song would surely know it was based on an Irish song of his or his father's generation. Would the Liverpool sailor have passed on the song without revealing it's roots? Would he have known it's roots? How well known was the Limerick song? If anyone can date the Limerick song to the 1840s/1850s period or before then that would make me start thinking that the Limerick song came before the Liverpool song.

MV


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: MartinRyan
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 02:39 PM

Terry

We're talking about tradition - not print. That's the point. I assume nobody believes that "Limerick" was produced from "Liverpool" post Doerflinger . In that case, what we're saying is that in the late 19C., both songs existed in oral tradition - and neither were well-known! Whichever direction the transfer happened in, it's unusual. Can anyone think of another such example?

Regards


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: Terry McDonald
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 02:53 PM

Martin - I've no axe to grind either way! It's just that 'tradition' is such an elusive word - do you know when the Leaving of Limerick was first mentioned, as opposed to appearing in print?


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: MartinRyan
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 03:04 PM

Terry

Not really - nothing more than the rather vague references by the late Tom Munnelly which are mentioned earlier in this thread. These suggest that he was conscious of it being in the tradition in the Limerick/Munster area (probably 1970's?). It is not clear if he collected versions himself. If he did, his usual meticulous notes will be attached. I'll make enquiries.

Regards

p.s. With a strong interest in both the maritime and Irish song traditions - I've no axe to grind either, believe me!


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: GUEST,MV
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 03:11 PM

This is from www.movinghere.org.uk about Irish migration to Liverpool in the 19th Century. It includes a line about seasonal workers returning to Ireland so it is possible Irish people took the song home with them:-

"Liverpool already had a substantial Irish population of about 50,000 in 1841, making it the most densely settled Irish town in mainland Britain.

It became the main pressure point for Famine refugees in 1847-1848. The historian David Fitzpatrick estimates that, at the height of the Great Famine, a quarter of a million passengers were arriving in Liverpool from Ireland every year. Of these, two-thirds departed overseas and many others were seasonal workers who later returned to Ireland."

MV


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: curmudgeon
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 06:07 PM

I learned the Leaving of Liverpool from the singing of Ewan MacColl on the Prestige LP, A Sailor's Garland. I had never heard of the Leaving of Limerick prior to finding it this week in this thread.

Upon listening to the fragmentary clip of "Limerick," I heard a tune somewhat similar to "Liverpool," but with more Irish flavor. If I could hear the whole song, I might find more similarity, but I doubt it. Over many years I have observed that those who are most likely to find similarities in tunes just haven't heard enough tunes.. Also the words as printed here do not scan well to the "Liverpool" tune and would need to be forced and/or altered. The words seem to be a bit contrived; they have neither the honesty of a trad song nor the art of a parlour song.

Doerflinger published "Shantyboys and Shantymen" in 1951. "Limerick" supposedly appeared in that same decade. Dick Maitland died in 1942 which meams that "Liverpool" had to have been collected that year or earlier. Did Doerflinger ever give anyone transcripts of the songs he was collecting prior to the publication of the book?

While we will never know when either song was composed, we do know which was first to surface.

Just a few random observations - Tom Hall


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: MartinRyan
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 06:58 PM

Hi Tom!

Upon listening to the fragmentary clip of "Limerick," I heard a tune somewhat similar to "Liverpool," but with more Irish flavor. If I could hear the whole song, I might find more similarity, but I doubt it.

That's all I can find online for now - We'll see if we can organise a full verse!

Over many years I have observed that those who are most likely to find similarities in tunes just haven't heard enough tunes..

You may take it that I (and Fred McCormick, an earlier contributor) have heard more than enough tunes in both genres (Irish and maritime) to recognise similarities!


Also the words as printed here do not scan well to the "Liverpool" tune and would need to be forced and/or altered. The words seem to be a bit contrived; they have neither the honesty of a trad song nor the art of a parlour song.

Nobody claimed the two were identical! Given the much freer approach to time in Irish singing, I'd be highly suspicious if they DID match! The "contrived" language you mention is excellent evidence of 19 C. Irish origin. Placing them between "traditional" in the strict sense and "parlour" (for which read Moore etc. in Ireland) is perceptive.

Doerflinger published "Shantyboys and Shantymen" in 1951. "Limerick" supposedly appeared in that same decade. Dick Maitland died in 1942 which meams that "Liverpool" had to have been collected that year or earlier. Did Doerflinger ever give anyone transcripts of the songs he was collecting prior to the publication of the book?
This implies a possibility that "Limerick" was composed in the light of Doerflinger's publication of Maitland's song. The language of "Limerick" is such that it would amount to a truly wonderful pastiche of 19 C. Hiberno-English. Taking only the limited timeline we currently have, this is technically possible - but highly unlikely!


While we will never know when either song was composed, we do know which was first to surface.

Now - THAT is perfectly true!

Regards


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: Barry Finn
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 03:02 AM

One thought, no a couple thoughts. How odd it would be for a song sung in the custom of sailors would be heard in Liverpool by a Irish laborer, taken back to Liverpool been adopted into a very different singing tradition & then not only be taken into that tradition but then have another song grow out of it & that be exceptable enough to have survived while the orginal died off???

I think that it's possible but highly unlikely & nothing more than a wild guess.

Think of the possibilities
A song sung in Limrick going to Liverpool & being taken into, again a very different tradition, being adopted into that tradition but nearly disappearing in the tradition of it's origin. If it weren't good enough to nearly survive in it's birth place why would it be good enough to survive in a foriegn tradition??

I think that's also possible too, but again highly unlikely & is, again nothing more than a wild guess

But it is a sand pit worth digging around in.

Barry


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: GUEST,MV
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 06:17 AM

There would have been Irish men in Liverpool working on both the docks and on the ships. Irish sailors or dockers or labourers could have taken it back to Ireland. Limerick is a port like Liverpool so the song could easily go either way.

My feeling is that the Liverpool song came first because I can't imagine a more polite song such as "Limerick" being taken up and reworked by dockers and sailors in Liverpool. I can imagine the chorus and melody of "Liverpool" being admired and reworked for Irish folk music.

The words of "Limerick" are in observer mode rather than first person like "Liverpool". Maybe the writer of the Limerick song is revealing his distance from the song's origins. We'll probably never get to the bottom of this mystery.

MV


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 07:55 AM

Has anybody detected Bert Lloyd's fingerprints?

L in C


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: MartinRyan
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 09:01 AM

To answer my own earlier question about similar "orphan twins", to coin a phrase, I suppose the most obvious one is the weird and wonderful "Jimmy Murphy", which also seems to have survived in oral tradition in two pockets on either side of the Atlantic. HOWEVER in its case there is a broadsheet version known.

Regards
p.s. Re Bert Lloyd: No reason to suspect the accused, m'lud!


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 09:24 AM

True enough Martin, the accused's previous cannot be taken into account, and in fact his fingerprints have not been found at the scene

Cheers

L in C


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: Barry Finn
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 01:43 PM

Not only are there no fingerprints but in the absence of any DNA, feelings & speculations about the origins don't count. We have no evidence to base anything on.

Barry


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 02:18 PM

Barry,

"We have no evidence to base anything on".

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

L in C


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: GUEST,MV
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 04:18 PM

Yes but opinions are fun LOL if we didn't speculate we wouldn't accumulate!

MV


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: smpc
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 03:17 PM

ever think they might not have any connection at all i no plenty of songs that have similer lines but are not connected? ? ?


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Subject: RE: Origins: Leaving of Liverpool
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 03:20 PM

Is that Rip van Wincle smpc?


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