Lyr Req: for this story line:afflicted parents etc

Subject: Lyr Req: for this story line
From: BB
Date: 21 Dec 06 - 03:19 PM

I'm trying to find a song about a 'the afflicted parents of the damsel come and "see the sad sight" and that they incontinently take a ship to Plymouth "and cross the raging main".

This appeared in a book of 1863 describing singing taking place locally. We have been able to identify most of the songs described, but not this one. If anyone has any ideas as to what it might be, and where we might find it, we would be exceedingly grateful.

Malcolm Douglas, are you out there?

TIA

Barbara

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: for this story line
From: Little Robyn
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 03:42 PM

I tried 'cross the raging main' and a search brought up the Walloping Window blind and some Broadside ballads about a lad going to sea but no mention of afflicted parents of a damsel.
Malcolm?
Robyn

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: for this story line
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 06:14 PM

I also found "cross the raging main" in the Handcart Song and in Lovely Ann, both referenced on another site, to the Digital Tradition. Lovely Ann was done by Dan Milner, but the words don't follow the story you're noted.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: for this story line
From: Little Robyn
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 09:24 PM

Seems like a cross between Jamie (Jimmy) Raeburn and the Convict Maid. Some sort of transportation broadside ballad?
Robyn

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: for this story line:afflicted parents etc
From: BB
Date: 23 Dec 06 - 05:05 AM

Could be. I think the listener was quite confused, because this apparently came at the end of 'Bold Johnson' or 'The Three Butchers'!

Barbara

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: for this story line:afflicted parents etc
From: BB
Date: 28 Dec 06 - 12:28 PM

Refresh

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: for this story line:afflicted parents etc
From: BB
Date: 29 Dec 06 - 01:46 PM

Refresh - waiting for Malcolm Douglas to return to Mudcat!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: for this story line:afflicted parents etc
From: BB
Date: 30 Dec 06 - 02:32 PM

Refresh

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: for this story line:afflicted parents etc
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 30 Dec 06 - 08:55 PM

G'day B(arbara)B,

This is not, exactly, your song - but Ten Thousand Miles Away, as it has been found in Australia looks like an ancestor of the more "Music Hall" Walloping Window Blind, certainly using the much same tune. (This is by no means an exclusively Australian tale - although this particular does have her transported 10,00 miles ... roughly the 'great circle' route sea voyage to the Australian penal colonies of 1788 - 1850s [-1860s for EWestern Australia). There may be something in this version to help you.

Regards,

Bob Bolton (as one BB to another)

TEN THOUSAND MILES AWAY

Sing oh, for a brave and valiant bark,
And a brisk and lively breeze,
A bully crew, and a captain too,
To carry me over the seas,
To carry me over the seas, my boys,
To my true love so gay,
She has taken a trip on a government ship,
Ten thousand miles away.
Chorus:
          So blow the winds, I, O,
          A roving I will go,
          I'll stay no more on England's shore,
          So let the music play,
          I start by the morning train,
          To cross the raging main,
          For I'm on the move to my own true love,
          Ten thousand miles away.

My true love she is beautiful,
My true love she is young,
Her eyes are blue as the violet's hue,
And silvery sounds her tongue,
And silvery sounds her tongue, my boys,
But while I sing this lay,
She is doing the grand in a distant land,
Ten thousand miles away.

Oh! that was a dark and dismal day,
When last she left the strand,
She bade good-bye with a tearful eye,
And waved her lily hand.
She waved her lily hand, my boys,
As the big ship left the bay,
Adoo, says she, remember me,
Ten thousand miles away.

Oh! if I could be but a bos'n bold,
Or only a bom-ba-dier,
I'd hire a boat, and hurry afloat,
And straight to my true love steer,
And straight to my true love steer, my boys,
Where the dancing dolphins play,
And the whales and sharks are having their larks,
Ten thousand miles away.

Oh! the sun may shine thro' a London fog,
And the Thames run bright and clear,
The ocean's brine be turned to wine,
And I may forget my beer,
And I may forget my beer, my boys,
And Landlord's quarter day,
But I'll never part from my own sweetheart,
Ten thousand miles away.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: for this story line:afflicted parents etc
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 30 Dec 06 - 11:47 PM

Interesting; but that was one of the things that wasn't what Barbara was looking for.

Not that I can add anything much at the moment. What we know so far isn't a lot to work on. Although it does sound vaguely familiar, that may just be because there are commonplaces involved. You can easily get to a point where everything reminds you of something else. There are probably hundreds of songs in which somebody crosses the raging main, for one thing.

So, a few questions instead. What is the book? Who wrote it? Where is "locally"? Could you post the entire passage concerned, or at least all that relates to the song in question? Knowing what the other songs were might provide useful context; at all events we need to know everything that you know on the subject if we are to get any further.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: for this story line:afflicted parents etc
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 31 Dec 06 - 08:52 PM

G'day Barbara,

Er .. well, I forgot to add that the song found in Australia uses the general theme and structure in a way that reflects a story significant to our particular history. In this case the female is transported - and her male lover proposes going to Australia to be with her. (Most unlikely, I would have thought, in most cases ... but this seems to be a music hall confection, almost certainly based on earlier material.)

What I forgot to suggest was the possibility that there may well have been another version (if only in the mind of the author of the 1863 book!) where the words are from the viewpoint of the parents seeing their daughter transported ... and with their (equally unlikely) decision to take ship and follow her.

I know of no song in collection (recorded ... or in written form) that actually fills the bill. I was just surmising that this song model could have been (locally?) reset to suit some actual instance (a characteristic handling of "folksong") - or one was imagined by the author.

Regards,

Bob

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: for this story line:afflicted parents etc
From: BB
Date: 01 Jan 07 - 10:18 AM

Thanks, Bob, we already sing that song, and a very close version to the one you've given, but Malcolm's right, it's not what we're looking for.

Malcolm, welcome back. Hope you've had a good Christmas.

The passage occurs in 'The North Devon Scenery Book' by the Rev. Tugwell, and the specific bit we're looking at is:

"... a song of some forty verses in length quite in the style of the sensational novels of the day with the subjoined plot.:

One Paul Johnson, who appears to have been "a jolly pirate" comes in the course of his rovings upon a young lady who, in a state of extreme dishabille, is being tied by her hair to the ground by a gang of eight robbers. P.J. immediately advances to the rescue like a valorous soldier of fortune as he is and promptly slays six of the band. In the next verse he is slain himself, in an obviously incoherent manner, by the young lady whom he has released. After this, one is not surprised to hear that the afflicted parents of the damsel come and "see the sad sight" nor that they incontinently take a ship to Plymouth "and cross the raging main" which... concludes the story."

Now obviously the song in question is 'Bold Johnson' or 'The Three Butchers', but we've never come across this ending in any version of it, and are inclined to think that the Rev. Tugwell got it confused with another song, but the question is, which one?

If you've any ideas, we'd be very glad to hear them!

Barbara

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: for this story line:afflicted parents etc
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 01 Jan 07 - 11:50 AM

Thanks; context is vital in questions of this sort.

Having said that, there isn't much I can add at the moment. Broadside and oral versions of the song are many and widespread, but I don't think I've ever come across one where the hero is anything but a butcher by trade. Perhaps, as you suggest, elements of another song have crept in in this case; I suppose at a pinch that the singer (or Tugwell) may have had Paul Jones in mind when giving Johnson a first name and a new occupation, but that may be quite wrong.

As to the epilogue, it may perhaps be a distorted memory of what appears to be the earliest known print form of the song: a broadside called 'The Three Worthy Butchers of the North' published by Phillip Brooksby at West Smithfield, London, in the last quarter of the 17th century. It was written by Paul Burges, and in the final part the surviving robbers escape justice "for they took ship at Yarmouth, and so went over sea". See Roxburghe Ballads, VII, 59-63. The Burges text is also quoted in Helen Hartness Flanders et al., New Green Mountain Songster, 238-244, along with a set from Vermont tradition which, unusually (most oral versions derive from later broadside re-writes in which the action is condensed and the original ending dropped) derives from the earlier form; there, the robbers "took shipping for Portsmouth And sailed far o'er the Main".

That leaves your question mostly unanswered, but at least provides some speculation as to how the unusual elements mentioned might have found their way into that particular Devon version; though not where those elements might have come from. Perhaps something will turn up later.