Victorian song popular in 1885

Subject: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: Gulliver
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 04:23 PM

I'm looking for a song that was popular in 1885 in the UK/Ireland for a story I'm writing. Any ideas?

As usual, thanks in advance.

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: IanC
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 04:53 PM

Danny Boy

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: IanC
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 04:57 PM

Sorry, just joking ... did you mean a traditional song or a recently composed one in 1885?

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: Jim Lad
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 05:09 PM

Give us a theme and the name of a real country, Gulliver.

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 05:24 PM

Popular Victorian Song equals Music Hall. Some useful links in this thread.

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 05:26 PM

If you put "Victorian" in the search box by the thread names, then set the drop down search date to "All" there are a few threads which have some songs from this era.

kat

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 06:06 PM

Music Hall, or maybe Parlour Ballad. Or Gilbert and Sullivan.

If you want a song that would have been popular then and is still well known, Love's Old Sweet Song (Just a Song at Twilight) might be a good choice - it was first published in 1884, words James Lynam Molloy, tune Clifton Bingham.

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: Gulliver
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 06:10 PM

Well, in this story, set in Dublin in 1900, the narrator encounters a mysterious lady who had visited Dublin in her youth, ie 1885. She recalls a song or piece of music from her youth.

I'd prefer something "genteel", ie not music-hall. The narrator's favourite piece of music that reminds him of his younger days is "Bingen on the Rhine".

I'm just thinking, I suppose I could take a look in Joyce...

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: Gulliver
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 06:17 PM

Thanks, McGrath, I think you've hit the nail on the head with Song at Twilight! Never thought it was that old, considering how often it's still sung (well, around here at any rate!)...

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 06:44 PM

Any of Tom Moore's might do as well - they would have been half a century or more old then, but "Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms" and the others were still extremely popular, as they still are of course.

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 06:54 PM

Bear in mind that the phrase "Love's Old Sweet Song" will be associated in the minds of many readers with Joyce's Ullysses, in which it's something of a refrain.

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 06:58 PM

'The Sunshine of your Smile' is a really nice song from that era.

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: Gulliver
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 07:20 PM

That's not too bad--Joyce appears in the story (which is actually a novel...). In fact, I'm just thinking of an interesting new twist...

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: Jim Lad
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 07:26 PM

"Oft in the Stilly Night" is fairly haunting. Could have the same effect as Brendan Behan's "Ould Triangle" in the"Quare Fella".

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 07:26 PM

What? Let me guess: Joyce is ambling by, looking preoccupied, through an open window hears heroine singing, "Love's old sweet song" - stops dead in his tracks, whips out a notebook, scribbles furiously, puts notebook away, and ambles on looking like the cat that stole the cream ... ?

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: Jim Lad
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 07:31 PM

That's it. Somebody save me from meself!
Sounds like he's working on a winner here.
Gulliver's in the zone.

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 07:57 PM

Yeah - Gulliver better write that novel fast, before I beat him to it! (You play your cards right, Jim Lad, and you could have a walk-on role. Hmmm - maybe it'll be a busker that Joyce hears singing 'Love's Old Sweet Song'. Or that Behan hears singing 'The Auld Triangle'. Or that More hears singing 'Oft in the Stilly Night'. Lots of possibilities - just give me a minute here ... Where's my quill?).

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: masato sakurai
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 08:18 PM

These may be of some help.

Victorian Popular Music (sheet music collection).

Maurice Willson Disher, Victorian Song (1955). The whole book is downloadable.

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: masato sakurai
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 08:30 PM

At Levy Sheet Music Collection Search Page, enter "1885 to 1885" in the Date Range box. 131 documents are found.

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: Jim Lad
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 08:43 PM

Be interested to know what you come up with, Gulliver.

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: Gulliver
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 10:02 PM

Well folks you have actually stumbled on a small sub-plot of the novel (most of which, about 220 pages is written, BTW). In 1900 Joyce, a student, was hanging around with the Sheehy family, staunch Nationalists, and was keen on one of the daughters of the house. His first published piece appeared in the Fortnightly Review that year. So I wanted to bring him in, briefly, with a light-hearted attempt to show what gave him the ideas he used in his writings.

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 17 Mar 07 - 08:48 PM

Let us know how it all pans out, eh?

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Mar 07 - 10:45 PM

Sweet Rose of Allendale (English) and Rose of Tralee (Irish) would fit that fill nicely, I think - but I may be wrong and those songs may be more recent.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 18 Mar 07 - 08:46 AM

Aaaaahhh Joe, you beat me to it! Anyhoo, Rose of Tralee IS in the time loop:

Originally posted by IanC and nicked from THIS THREAD: "In the case of 'The Rose of Tralee', most authorities seem to agree that the lyrics are by C. Mordaunt Spencer, published in London in 1845 and the music is by Charles W. Glover."

[Me again]: I also heard somewhere that the background of this song was that Mary was a young girl the writer had been in love with but there was some obstacle to their marriage (that she was only a servant, I think) and by the time he'd sorted it out and he returned to claim her, she had died; so this Rose blooms only in memory. That's only hearsay (a.k.a. "the oral tradition"!) so it's open to correction or further clarification. Anyway, the period is right - it would certainly have been frequently heard in drawing rooms forty year later.

Another possibility is I Dreamt I Dwelt In Marble Halls, which is actually an opera aria (Dublin-born Michael Balfe, from The Bohemian Girl) - but it's sung here so often in informal settings, even now, that it's attained a similar status to Moore's melodies in the public imagination. Lovely song, slightly ambiguous if you don't know the story because you wonder if "you loved me still" is truth or just wishful thinking on the part of the singer. (In fact, she's singing about a real memory which she thinks is a dream, and all ends happily.)

Both in their differing ways are songs about loyalty and steadfastness of heart. Do please let us know what you decide upon - this thread is fascinating!

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 18 Mar 07 - 10:29 AM

> the narrator encounters a mysterious lady who had visited Dublin in her youth, ie 1885. She recalls a song or piece of music from her youth.

Gulliver, I may be telling you something you already know, but since no one's mentioned it in this thread yet: James Joyce himself was quite a good singer – is it any use having HIM sing this song, which sparks her memories of her youth? (Getting awfully close to the theme of The Dead!! There's a good thread on this if you're interested but I don't think that song is really what you're looking for.)

What subject did Joyce write about in that Fortnightly Review article? And is this scene taking place in the Sheehy house? Only asking in order to focus ideas for possible songs more clearly – not trying to get you to give the plot away! Looking forward to reading it, though -

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: nutty
Date: 18 Mar 07 - 03:31 PM

Putting that date into the Bodleian site brings up Pretty Polly Perkins and The Blaydon Races.

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: Gulliver
Date: 20 Mar 07 - 02:29 PM

Was playing over the Paddy's weekend, getting back to reality (or fiction!) now.

Bonnie Shaljean, yes, Joyce was a good singer. He attended the singing evenings that were held in the Sheehy's house in Belvedere Place on alternate Sundays. The Sheehy's father was an old Fenian and an MP in the Irish Parliamentary Party (which until January 1900 was split between the pro- and anti-Parnell factions). Joyce liked singing Italian songs and was keen on one of the Sheehy daughters (I think it was Mary, who later married Tom Kettle who was killed in WW1). Another daugher was Hanna who married Francis Skeffington.

Joyce's article was on Ibsen, whom he revered at the time.

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 17 Nov 13 - 07:40 AM

Since this thread is back up (thanks Guest):

Gulliver... is your book written? Where can we get it? (If Amazon, everybody remember to enter it through the Mudcat link.)

You have one guaranteed sale here, if you'll supply some details.

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Nov 13 - 08:20 AM

The sun has got his hat on

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: GUEST,gutcher
Date: 17 Nov 13 - 08:33 AM

I seem to remember that "Home Sweet Home" appears in one of RLS American based books written in conjunction with his stepson around the date mentioned above.
The same book, if my memory is correct, makes the first written mention of "Gordon Bennett".

Subject: RE: Victorian song popular in 1885
From: GUEST,gutcher
Date: 17 Nov 13 - 01:53 PM

Could the book mentioned above be called "Across the Plains".?
It takes time nowadays but hopefully a correct result eventually casts up!!.