Songs about Banjoes

Subject: RE: Songs about Banjoes
From: Charley Noble
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 10:04 AM

Bob Coltman-

Lovely, truly lovely verses! It is comforting to think of that much abused banjo finally at rest at the Mastertone Museum. Was it murder in the first degree? Was it murder in the third? No, it was unpremeditated banjo slaughter!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Songs about Banjoes
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 07:11 PM

I like that song Amos posted (back in 2005, but I've only just read the post):

I plays the banjo better now
Than him what taught me do
Because he plays for all the world
An' I just plays for you...

Any idea of who wrote it or where it comes from?

Subject: RE: Songs about Banjoes
From: Charley Noble
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 07:18 PM

And they played all night,
The fiddles and the banjos;
Their drifting tunes seemed to fill the air;
So long ago, I still rememember,
How we fell in love at the Roseville Fair.

I'll have to dig up a few sea shanties which mention banjos.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Songs about Banjoes
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 01:38 PM

I puit in Kipling's Song of the Banjo up the thread. Here is Robert Services spin-off (he's a little scornful of the "jammy banjo" in one verse - but he used to play one anyway):

The Song of the Mouth-Organ

(With apologies to the singer of the "Song of the Banjo".)

      I'm a homely little bit of tin and bone;
          I'm beloved by the Legion of the Lost;
      I haven't got a "vox humana" tone,
          And a dime or two will satisfy my cost.
      I don't attempt your high-falutin' flights;
          I am more or less uncertain on the key;
      But I tell you, boys, there's lots and lots of nights
          When you've taken mighty comfort out of me.

      I weigh an ounce or two, and I'm so small
          You can pack me in the pocket of your vest;
      And when at night so wearily you crawl
          Into your bunk and stretch your limbs to rest,
      You take me out and play me soft and low,
          The simple songs that trouble your heartstrings;
      The tunes you used to fancy long ago,
          Before you made a rotten mess of things.

      Then a dreamy look will come into your eyes,
          And you break off in the middle of a note;
      And then, with just the dreariest of sighs,
          You drop me in the pocket of your coat.
      But somehow I have bucked you up a bit;
          And, as you turn around and face the wall,
      You don't feel quite so spineless and unfit --
          You're not so bad a fellow after all.

      Do you recollect the bitter Arctic night;
          Your camp beside the canyon on the trail;
      Your tent a tiny square of orange light;
          The moon above consumptive-like and pale;
      Your supper cooked, your little stove aglow;
          You tired, but snug and happy as a child?
      Then 'twas "Turkey in the Straw" till your lips were nearly raw,
          And you hurled your bold defiance at the Wild.

      Do you recollect the flashing, lashing pain;
          The gulf of humid blackness overhead;
      The lightning making rapiers of the rain;
          The cattle-horns like candles of the dead
      You sitting on your bronco there alone,
          In your slicker, saddle-sore and sick with cold?
      Do you think the silent herd did not hear "The Mocking Bird",
          Or relish "Silver Threads among the Gold"?

      Do you recollect the wild Magellan coast;
          The head-winds and the icy, roaring seas;
      The nights you thought that everything was lost;
          The days you toiled in water to your knees;
      The frozen ratlines shrieking in the gale;
          The hissing steeps and gulfs of livid foam:
      When you cheered your messmates nine with "Ben Bolt" and "Clementine",
          And "Dixie Land" and "Seeing Nellie Home"?

      Let the jammy banjo voice the Younger Son,
          Who waits for his remittance to arrive;
      I represent the grimy, gritty one,
          Who sweats his bones to keep himself alive;
      Who's up against the real thing from his birth;
          Whose heritage is hard and bitter toil;
      I voice the weary, smeary ones of earth,
          The helots of the sea and of the soil.

      I'm the Steinway of strange mischief and mischance;
          I'm the Stradivarius of blank defeat;
      In the down-world, when the devil leads the dance,
          I am simply and symbolically meet;
      I'm the irrepressive spirit of mankind;
          I'm the small boy playing knuckle down with Death;
      At the end of all things known, where God's rubbish-heap is thrown,
          I shrill impudent triumph at a breath.

      I'm a humble little bit of tin and horn;
          I'm a byword, I'm a plaything, I'm a jest;
      The virtuoso looks on me with scorn;
          But there's times when I am better than the best.
      Ask the stoker and the sailor of the sea;
          Ask the mucker and the hewer of the pine;
      Ask the herder of the plain, ask the gleaner of the grain --
          There's a lowly, loving kingdom -- and it's mine.

Subject: RE: Songs about Banjoes
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 02:04 PM

McGrath - the song from Amos is called A Banjo Song. I recently chanced across it online here - http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/sheetmusic/n/n06/n0640/n0640-2-72dpi.html.
Quack!
Geoff the Duck.

Subject: RE: Songs about Banjoes
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 02:29 PM

That Robert Service opus comes from Ballads of a Cheechako , and from this site.
......
Thanks Geoff - I see its by "Howard Weedon". Here's a site about her Maria Howard Weeden (1846-1905) Sounds an interesting lady - here is another banjo song I found by her (from this site). Somewhat questionable lyrics, but here goes:

The Banjo of the Past

By Howard Weeden

YOU ax about dat music made        
On banjos long ago,        
An' wants to know why it ain't played        
By niggers any mo'.        

Dem banjos b'longed to by-gone days               5
When times an' chunes was rare,        
When we was gay as children—'case        
We did n't have a care.        

But when we got our freedom, we        
Found projeckin' was done;               10
Our livin' was to make—you see,        
An' dat lef' out de fun.        

We learned to vote an' read an' spell,        
We learned de taste ob tears—        
An' when you gets dat 'sponsible,               15
De banjo disappears!

Subject: RE: Songs about Banjoes
From: Ferrara
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 03:31 PM

Sigh... "A Banjo Song" by Maria Howard Weeden is a tiny jewel, but "The Banjo of the Past" is worse than "questionable" from my point of view.   I know it was a view advanced by a lot of people in Reconstruction days. Arghhhh! " We learned de taste ob tears [after emancipation]" indeed! Well it was a long time ago and it is characteristic of a certain place and time. Apparently most of her other artistic endeavors also featured saccharine sentiments. I still like "A Banjo Song." It might be interesting to see a bit of Howard Weeden's writings, or some of her art work.