11 Mar 98 - 01:41 AM (#23500) Subject: Ballad of Dangerous Dan McGrew From: Sandi Am looking for the words to Dangerous Dan McGrew. I caught a short version of it on PBS Guy Lombardo. It's about a man in Alaska. Glad I found your website. My Mom is 78 years old and she has given me a whole list of Ballads to try and find. Any info on Dangerous Dan will be appreciated. Email is: ashby.tena@mcleodusa.net |
11 Mar 98 - 02:45 AM (#23504) Subject: RE: Ballad of Dangerous Dan McGrew From: Bojangles It appears that you are referring to the poem by Robert Service about the barroom brawl in which, if I remember correctly, the lights go out...gunshots resound and Dangerous Dan gets wasted. The"Lady that's known as 'Lou'" comes out the big winner for she apparently"pinched his poke." |
11 Mar 98 - 07:29 AM (#23514) Subject: RE: Ballad of Dangerous Dan McGrew From: R_Kline also see current thread "Sam McGee" [see too if you can find a copy of the old book, "A Treasury of the Familiar" which is an extraordinarily fun compilation of the marvelous and mundane, includes a number of R. Service poem...] |
11 Mar 98 - 10:28 AM (#23531) Subject: RE: Ballad of Dangerous Dan McGrew From: Sheye Trivia Tidbit: Robert Service was a bank teller in the Yukon. Story goes that he went to the bank late one night to write (sleep??) or something, was mistaken for a robber and was shot at. The line: "the lights went out; two guns blazed in the dark" was supposedly inspired by said incident. |
11 Mar 98 - 05:50 PM (#23554) Subject: RE: Ballad of Dangerous Dan McGrew From: Richard It should not be too hard to find the poem in any library and most book stores. There are several collections of Service's poem out there in inexpensive editions. Also try to find the late David Perry of Ottawa Ontario's tapes of Service material, much of which he put music too. He did agreat job. The there is the wonderful bawdy version which I heard recited around a campfire on the Tatshenshini River in the Yukon/Alaska some years ago. I remember it was only recited after liberal quantities of cheap read wine flowed. The only line I remember is the last: "And there on the floor with his arsehole tore lay Dangerous Dan McGrew." Anyone know of this version? Richard. |
11 Mar 98 - 06:26 PM (#23559) Subject: RE: Ballad of Dangerous Dan McGrew From: murray@mpce.mq.edu.au You can find the words, lots of information, and links to even more information at. http://www.top.monad.net/~artude/service.html Murray |
12 Mar 98 - 08:15 PM (#23658) Subject: RE: Ballad of Dangerous Dan McGrew From: Richard Murray; Great site. Thanks. Still can't find my rude version, howedver. Richard |
19 Nov 01 - 12:04 PM (#595634) Subject: ADD: The Shooting of Dan McGrew From: Amos The Shooting of Dan McGrew
When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and the glare, There's men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell; His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze, Were you ever out in the great alone, when the moon was awful clear, And hunger not of the belly kind, that's banished with bacon and beans; Then all of a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear; The music almost died away ... then it burst like a pent-up flood; Then his lips went in in a kind of a grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm; Then I ducked my head, and the lights went out, and two guns blazed in the dark; These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know; By Robert Wm. Service (1874-1958). |
19 Nov 01 - 04:48 PM (#595805) Subject: RE: Ballad of Dangerous Dan McGrew From: Llanfair There's a fabulous part-rendition of this in the classic film "Murder most foul", an adaptation of an Agatha Christie story, and the wonderful Margaret Rutherford recites it as her audition piece so she can go undercover in a theatrical company. Classic stuff!!!! Cheers, Bron. |
19 Nov 01 - 07:02 PM (#595887) Subject: RE: Ballad of Dangerous Dan McGrew From: McGrath of Harlow That link murray gave didn't work for me. But this one did - http://www.ude.net/service/index.html The version people sing is a lot shortened. Debbbie McClatchy does it doesn't she? She definitely sings the shortened Cremation of Sam M'Gee.
I like Ballads of a Bohemian and the Red Cross Man ones as well, where he's not feeling he has to be funny.
I always feel it's curious how the taste for this kind of stories in verse just died out. You'd had Kipling, and Chesterton, and Henry Lawson and Banjo Patterson and Robvert Service, and others as well, all over the English speaking world (and I suspect in other countries - in fact I know it was, notably for example in Argentina.)
And then silence, in English anyway. Or rather, it's still going on in the folk world, but out of sight and out of mind. |
19 Nov 01 - 07:25 PM (#595904) Subject: RE: Ballad of Dangerous Dan McGrew From: nutty Folk poetry flourished in England in the late 1800 but then snobbery crept in Some people regarded Kipling as "a writer of verse" rather than "a poet in the ilk of Byron and/or Wordsworth The closest we've had to Service/Lawson etc, in recent years was the poetry of Sir John Betjamin. |
19 Nov 01 - 07:36 PM (#595920) Subject: RE: Ballad of Dangerous Dan McGrew From: katlaughing McGrath, somewhere there are students from my daughter's 7th grade class from the late 1980's who all got a good dose of Service from my reading him to them in class. They esp. loved the Cremation of Sam McGee. My kids were raised on him and Kipling etc., and I hope there are a lot of others who've done the same, so maybe there is some hope. Things tend to come full circle, so I expect there is another generation coming up just about ready to discover these great writers, at least I hope so! The moive, The Man From Snowy River did wonders for interesting kids in Banjo Patterson's stuff, too. |
19 Nov 01 - 08:04 PM (#595953) Subject: RE: Ballad of Dangerous Dan McGrew From: McGrath of Harlow Yes, it'll come round, some time, some way. The puzzle is why it why it died away.
This'll annoy some people, but in a sense rap has demonstrated that there is still an appetite for a type of verse that is grounded in storytelling and real events. I wouldn't take the parallel much further, but maybe it's a precursor of something better.
And, in the folk world, the idea that we are still entitled to listen to and to write ballads and monologues , and songs telling stories and so forth has never died. |
19 Nov 01 - 08:08 PM (#595956) Subject: RE: Ballad of Dangerous Dan McGrew From: Jeep man There is a really good Robert Service website. I have lost the address. Not hard to find. Jeep |
19 Nov 01 - 09:02 PM (#596005) Subject: RE: Ballad of Dangerous Dan McGrew From: GUEST,.gargoyle Guy Lombardo lyrics.....Posted in a previous forum.
http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=41018
Guy Lombardo vocals Kenny Gardner
Dangerous Dan McGrew
A bunch of the boys were whoopin it up at the Malamut Café
Now while Dangerous Dan, was a playin his hand, and keeping his mind on his game
When out of the night which was fifty below and into the din and the glare
Then suddenly wham, all the lights went out, and a voice cried "Die you must!"
…..
And then somebody said, "Ooww, they're so big" and then skipped across the floor.
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