Tobias Murphy and Tom Hann


DESCRIPTION: Two captains, Murphy and Hann, are on St Mary's banks in a September gale. Hann's boat runs aground rounding Cape St Mary's and all hands are lost. Murphy's boat heads for North Harbour but two men are swept overboard.
AUTHOR: Peter Leonard
EARLIEST DATE: 1983 (Lehr/Best)
KEYWORDS: death sea ship storm wreck
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Lehr/Best 110, "Tobias Murphy and Tom Hann" (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES: Lehr/Best: "According to Aunt Carrie Brennan, this sea tragedy occurred in 1878" - BS
File: LeBe110

Tochineal


DESCRIPTION: "Come a' my young lads, ye'll mak haste and be ready... An' we ane and a'... Maun leave Tochineal, nae mair to come back." "Awa to the West we maun a' gang thegither." Many are forced to depart; the singer laments that the new home will not be Tochineal
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1914 (GreigDuncan3)
KEYWORDS: home emigration
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (2 citations):
GreigDuncan3 374, "Tochineal" (1 text)
Ord, p. 353, "Tochineal" (1 text)
Roud #4591
NOTES: Nowhere does this song explain the reason for this mass emigration, but one has to suspect it is the result of the Highland Clearances.
Given the title and the metrical form, I suspect this of having been sung to "Teddy O'Neill," though neither Ord nor Grieg had a tune. - RBW
GreigDuncan3 has a map on p. xxxv, of "places mentioned in songs in volume 3" showing the song number as well as place name; Tochineal (374) is at coordinate (h6-7,v5) on that map [roughly 45 miles NW of Aberdeen]. - BS
Last updated in version 2.4
File: Ord353

Tocowa


See The State of Arkansas (The Arkansas Traveler II) [Laws H1] (File: LH01)

Toddlin' But and Toddlin' Ben (The Wee Little Totum)


DESCRIPTION: "Some say to live single it is the best plan, But I was ne'er happy till I got a man, When I got a man I soon got a wean...." "It gangs toddlin' but, and gangs toddlin' ben." The singer describes the toddler's cheerful rambles, and rejoices in her life
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1906 (GreigDuncan5)
KEYWORDS: marriage love baby wife
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (2 citations):
GreigDuncan5 1072, "Oor Wee Little Tottum" (5 texts, 5 tunes)
Ord, p. 137, "The Wee Totum" (1 text)
Roud #5551
NOTES: GreigDuncan5 quoting Gillespie: "Mrs Gillespie and myself, from a Mr Reid, precentor at Strichen and singing teacher about 1869." - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: Ord137

Toll Bar, The


DESCRIPTION: "Something cam' in" when the cart toll was twopence; at fourpence now it's "growin' vera thin; But I'll pay my rent when it comes to be due, Gin Providence send not something that's new"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1908 (GreigDuncan3)
KEYWORDS: poverty farming nonballad commerce money
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan3 458, "The Toll Bar" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #5963
File: GrD3458

Tolliver Song, The


See The Rowan County Crew (Trouble, or Tragedy) [Laws E20] (File: LE20)

Tolliver-Martin Feud Song, A


See The Rowan County Crew (Trouble, or Tragedy) [Laws E20] (File: LE20)

Tom a Bedlam (Bedlam Boys)


DESCRIPTION: The singer is determined to find her Tom. She describes (his or her) visions. Chorus: "Still I sing bonny boys, bonny mad boys, Bedlam boys are bonny. For they all go bare, and they live by the air...."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1720 (Pills to Purge Melancholy)
KEYWORDS: madness love separation
FOUND IN: Britain(England)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Logan, pp. 172-189, "Tom a Bedlam" (there are eight texts in this section; the one labelled "Mad Maudlin" on pp. 181-182 is this one)
Chappell/Wooldridge I, pp. 175-178, "Tom a Bedlam" (7 fragmentary texts, at least one of which is this one; 1 tune; the next piece, "Gray's Inn Masque, or Mad Tom, or New Mad Tom of Bedlam," (for which see also BBI, ZN910, "Forth from my sad and darksome cell") appears to be an unrelated literary song, found also in Percy, pp. 344-347, "Old Tom of Bedlam," the first of six "Mad Songs")
DT, BEDLMBOY*
ADDITIONAL: Walter de la Mare, _Come Hither_, revised edition, 1928; #310, "Tom O'Bedlam" (1 text)
ST Log172 (Full)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "A Maid in Bedlam" (theme)
NOTES: The Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem (Bedlam), in London, was the first hospital for insane men in England. Magdalene Hospital (Maudlin), mentioned in some versions of the song, was the first hospital for insane women. - PJS
"Bedlam songs" seem to have been a phenomenon in the eighteenth century and after. To make matters worse, they all seem to mix and match. Many of Percy's texts, e.g., resemble Logan's, which resemble Chappell's. It's very hard to tell them apart.
Under the circumstances, I've listed the most traditional-seeming of the bunch ("Tom a Bedlam") here, and hope cross-references in the "References" field will suffice for the others.
Aldington's The Viking Book of Poetry of the English-Speaking World we find a Tom o' Bedlams Song starting
From the hag and hungry goblin
That into rages would rend ye,
And the spirit that stands
By the naked man
In the book of moons defend ye....
It's not this piece (the chorus is different), but there is undeniable dependence. Aldington attributes the piece to Giles Earle (dates unknown but early seventeenth century). Granger's Index to Poetry, however, lists the author of this as unknown -- and it has plenty of supporting evidence, since it cites 18 different references. Nor does Granger's list any other works by this alleged Earle. - RBW
File: Log172

Tom Bird's Dog


DESCRIPTION: The singer goes bird hunting. Tom Bird's dog pursues. The singer escapes. "I don't know how many birds you got" but wishes someone had killed the dog.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1959 (Peacock)
KEYWORDS: escape hunting humorous dog
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Peacock, pp. 101-102, "Tom Bird's Dog" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #9959
File: Pea101

Tom Bo-lin


See Brian O'Lynn (Tom Boleyn) (File: R471)

Tom Boleyn


See Brian O'Lynn (Tom Boleyn) (File: R471)

Tom Bowline


See Tom Bowling (File: DTtombow)

Tom Bowling


DESCRIPTION: "Here a sheer hulk lies poor Tom (Bowling/Bowline), the darling of our crew." Tom, faithful, kind, virtuous, and beautiful, has now "gone aloft." His family and friends are mentioned. They hope he finds "pleasant weather" in heaven
AUTHOR: Charles Dibdin (1745-1815)
EARLIEST DATE: 1910 (Eliot)
KEYWORDS: death sailor religious
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Shay-SeaSongs, pp. 96-97, "Tom Bowline" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, TOMBOWLI
ADDITIONAL: Charles W. Eliot, editor, English Poetry Vol II From Collins to Fitzgerald (New York, 1910), #305, p. 502, "Tom Bowling" (by Charles Dibdin)
Roud #1984
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Frank Fidd"
NOTES: As a folk song, this hasn't been very popular (I indexed it mostly for the parallels to "Frank Fidd," which see). But, like many Dibdin pieces, it was widely published in broadsides, and has also shown up in a number of modern anthologies; there are six citations in Granger's Index to Poetry. According to Stanley J. Kunitz and Howard Haycraft, Editors, British Authors Before 1800: A Biographical Dictionary, H. W. Wilson, 1952 (I use the fourth printing of 1965), p. 153, Dibdin wrote this to commemorate the death of his brother, Captain Thomas Dibdin, who had helped introduce Charles Dibdin to the stage.
For a fuller account of Charles Dibdin, see the notes to "Blow High Blow Low," - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: DTtombow

Tom Brown


See The King Takes the Queen (File: FSWB232)

Tom Brown's Two Little Indian Boys


See Ten Little Injuns (File: OO2376)

Tom Cat


DESCRIPTION: "Funniest thing that ever I seen Was a tom cat stitchin' on a sewin' machine! O-ho, my baby, take a-one on me!" "Sewed so easy and he sewed so slow, Took ninety-nine stitches on the tom-cat's toe, O-ho, my baby...."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1925 (Scarborough)
KEYWORDS: animal technology
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Scarborough-NegroFS, p. 91, "Tom Cat" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST ScaNF091 (Full)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Take a Whiff on Me" (lyrics, form)
NOTES: Presumably from the same roots as "Take a Whiff On Me" or something like it. With only two verses, I can't really tell if it's a separate song or not -- but we're splitters, so we file it as if it is. - RBW
File: ScaNF091

Tom Cat Blues


DESCRIPTION: Singer praises old "Ring Tail Tom" for his sexual prowess: "I got an old tom cat; When he steps out All the pussy cats in the neighborhood, They begin to shout, 'Here comes Ring Tail Tom, He's boss around the town...." Etc.
AUTHOR: Probably Cliff Carlisle
EARLIEST DATE: 1934 (recording, Cliff Carlisle)
KEYWORDS: sex bawdy humorous nonballad animal
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Cohen/Seeger/Wood, p. 213, "Tom Cat Blues" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber-FSWB, p. 160, "Tom Cat Blues" (1 text)
DT, TOMCATBL*
RECORDINGS:
Cliff Carlisle, "Ringtail Tom" (Vocalion 02656, 1934); "Tom Cat Blues" (Vocalion 5492, 1940; on TimesAint04)
Jimmie Davis, "Tom Cat and Pussy Blues" (Bluebird B-6272, 1936)
New Lost City Ramblers, "Tom Cat Blues" (on NLCR01)
NOTES: I can't tell without hearing them whether the two Cliff Carlisle recordings are the same performance, but they're clearly the same song. - PJS
File: CSW213

Tom Cornealy


DESCRIPTION: Tom ships on board the Lighter Home, bound to Labrador. "At last we reached that awful land Where the snow and ice was beating" and head north to Ungava "Up in the Arctic Ocean ... the salmon was so thick" but all we found were starving "huskies"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1950 (Creighton-Maritime)
KEYWORDS: fishing ordeal sea ship Eskimo
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Creighton-Maritime, p. 188, "Tom Cornealy" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #2716
File: CrMa188

Tom Corrigan


DESCRIPTION: Corrigan is racing on the horse "Waiter." He is just overtaking the leader when he is thrown and killed.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE:
KEYWORDS: death racing horse
FOUND IN: Australia
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Meredith/Anderson, pp. 138-139, "Tom Corrigan" (1 text, 1 tune)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Donald Campbell" (theme)
cf. "The Death of Alec Robertson" (theme)
cf. "Alec Robertson (I)" (theme)
cf. "Alec Robertson (II)" (theme)
NOTES: "Banjo" Paterson wrote a piece, "Tommy Corrigan (Killed, Steeplechasing at Flemington)" -- but the two are not the same. - RBW
File: MA138

Tom Dixon


DESCRIPTION: "Tom Dixon runs a cathouse way down on Harlow street," a frequent destination for loggers. "The girls are not so pretty, but I guess they're not so slow." The singer talks of his trips back and forth between lumber camp and Dixon's establishment
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1951
KEYWORDS: logger whore bawdy
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Doerflinger, p. 251, "Tom Dixon" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #9423
File: Doe251

Tom Dooley [Laws F36A]


DESCRIPTION: Tom Dula/Dooley has killed Laura Foster. He has few regrets except that he didn't get away with it. He curses Sheriff Grayson, who has captured him.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1921 (Brown)
KEYWORDS: murder execution
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1866 (probably January 25) - Murder of Laura Foster by Thomas C. Dula (and his new sweetheart Ann Melton). Dula apparently killed Foster because he had contracted a venereal disease from her, which she had reportedly caught from Grayson.
May 1, 1868 - Dula is hanged for the murder.
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (11 citations):
Laws F36A, "Tom Dooley"
Friedman, p. 228, "Tom Dooley" (1 text)
Warner 118, "Tom Dooley" (1 text, 1 tune)
BrownII 303, "Tom Dula" (3 texts, all very short; in addition, the "B" text of Brown's #304, "Tom Dula's Lament," is a single stanza found in the Proffitt version of "Tom Dooley")
Lomax-FSUSA 82, "Tom Dooley" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax-FSNA 139, "Tom Dula" (1 text, 1 tune)
Cohen/Seeger/Wood, p. 137, "Tom Dooley" (1 text, 1 tune)
Darling-NAS, pp. 207-208, "Tom Dooley" (1 text)
Arnett, p. 188, "Tom Dooley" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber-FSWB, p. 225, "Tom Dooley" (1 text)
DT, TOMDOOLY*
Roud #4192
RECORDINGS:
Sheila Clark, "The Ballad of Tom Dula" (on LegendTomDula)
[G. B.] Grayson & [Henry] Whitter, "Tom Dooley" (Victor 40235, 1930; rec. 1929; on GraysonWhitter01)
Glenn Neaves & band, "Tom Dooley" (on GraysonCarroll1)
New Lost City Ramblers, "Tom Dooley" (on NLCR02) (NLCR12)
Frank Profitt, "Tom Dooley" [excerpt] (on USWarnerColl01)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Murder of Laura Foster" [Laws F36] (subject)
cf. "Tom Dula's Lament" (subject, lyrics)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Tom Dooly
NOTES: G. B. Grayson, who (along with Henry Whitter) made the earliest known recorded version of the song, was descended from the sheriff who captured Dula. - PJS
I know of no absolute confirmation of the story that Foster, Dula, and company suffered from a venereal disease, but the notes in Brown to "The Murder of Laura Foster" mention that Melton in later life is said to have admitted a part in the killing -- and that she later went blind. Blindness is a known side effect of syphilis.
According to court records, Dula was charged with the murder and Melton with being an accessory before the fact.
The trial was moved to a different venue, and after some maneuvering, Dula and Melton were tried separately. The trial was badly conducted, and Dula was granted a new trial by the state supreme court. The verdict did not change.
Dula, on his last day, wrote a statement to the effect that he was solely responsible for the murder. Belief at the time, and Melton's later testimony, both seem to contradict this.
Reading the accounts of Dula's behavior after the Civil War (where he fought with courage on the Confederate side) makes one wonder about some sort of post-traumatic disorder. I know of no studies on this point, but it's noteworthy that Michael Wallis (Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride Norton, 2007, pp. 30-31) observes that crime statistics in the United States soared after the Civil War. He blames the increased availability and efficiency of firearms, but in fact all major weapons types available after the war had pre-war equivalents. All recent difficult wars, from Vietnam to Iraq, have left many veterans with post-traumatic stress problems. Surely the Civil War would have done the same!
At least one witness said that Melton would have hung with Dula had she not been so beautiful.
In 2001/2, an attempt was made in North Carolina to convince the governor to grant Dula a posthumous pardon. This seems rather far-fetched. Dula may not have been guilty of murder, but he *did* abandon Foster (possibly after getting her pregnant, though of course that could have been the man who gave her the venereal disease), and was at the very least an accessory after the fact to murder by Melton. - RBW
File: LF36A

Tom Dula


See Tom Dooley [Laws F36A] (File: LF36A)

Tom Dula's Lament


DESCRIPTION: "I pick my banjo now, I pick it on my knee, This time tomorrow night, It'll be no more use to me." Dula says that Laura (Foster) loved his banjo playing, and says he never knew how true her love was. He bids Ann (Melton) to kiss him goodbye
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1952 (Brown)
KEYWORDS: death execution music love
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
BrownII 304, "Tom Dula's Lament" (2 texts, but the second is a single-stanza fragment, not found in the "A" text, and is included in the "Tom Dooley" text sung by Frank Profitt)
ST BrII304 (Full)
Roud #6645
RECORDINGS:
Sheila Clark, "Tom Dula's Own Ballad" (on LegendTomDula)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Murder of Laura Foster" [Laws F36] (subject)
cf. "Tom Dooley" [Laws F36A] (plot, lyrics)
NOTES: This song may possibly be a rewritten version of "Tom Dooley" (or vice versa); they share lyrics, and can be sung to the same tune. But this one is in the first person, "Tom Dooley" mostly in third person. Plus this one shows Dula lamenting his errors. They look separate to me, as they did to the editors of Brown. - RBW
File: BrII304

Tom Halyard


DESCRIPTION: Tom Halyard, mortally wounded, asks his ship's captain if he has done his duty. Assured that he has, he asks the captain to send his love a lock of his hair. He dies with Kate's name on his lips
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1950
KEYWORDS: battle death farewell hair
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
McNeil-SFB1, pp. 42-43, "Tom Halyard" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #4773
File: MN1042

Tom Kelly's Cow


DESCRIPTION: Tom Kelly brews poteen "that exceeds them all." John's cow drinks up the still and wakes drunk with a broken horn. She makes a deal with Tom: if he won't tell John about her drinking she "will bring [him] against Lammas a fine heifer calf."
AUTHOR: John Maguire (source: Morton-Maguire)
EARLIEST DATE: 1973 (Morton-Maguire)
KEYWORDS: promise drink humorous animal
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Morton-Maguire 8, pp. 17,103,158, "Tom Kelly's Cow" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #2924
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Cow that Drank the Poteen" (theme: cow hides drinking problem)
NOTES: Morton-Maguire: John Maguire wrote the song on request of the schoolmaster who had kept John after school one day to inquire about John's cow and Tom Kelly's poteen. - BS
File: MoMa008

Tom O'Bedlam


See Tom a Bedlam (Bedlam Boys) (File: Log172)

Tom O'Neill [Laws Q25]


DESCRIPTION: A rich girl tries to convince Tom O'Neill to leave the priesthood and marry her. When he refuses, she claims that Tom got her pregnant. He is sentenced to transportation. He is reprieved when another man admits he fathered the child for money
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1853 (broadside, Bodleian Harding B 26(189))
KEYWORDS: money clergy pregnancy trick trial punishment transportation lie sex
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar) Ireland
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Laws Q25, "Tom O'Neill"
Creighton-NovaScotia 87, "Tom O'Neil" (1 text, 1 tune)
O'Conor, pp. 8-9, "Father Tom O'Neil" (1 text)
McBride 29, "Father Tom O'Neill" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT 534, TOMONEIL
Roud #1013
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 26(189), "Father Tom O'Neale," J. Moore (Belfast), 1846-1852; also 2806 b.11(240), "Father Tom O'Neale"; Harding B 26(574), "The Rev'd Father Tom O'Neil"
File: LQ25

Tom Pearce (Widdicombe Fair I)


DESCRIPTION: The singer asks Tom Pearce to lend his old mare to go to the fair. Tom wants the horse back soon, but it is slow in returning, for it has taken sick and died. (Now the horse's ghost can be seen haunting the moors at night)
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1889
KEYWORDS: horse ghost travel
FOUND IN: Britain(England) Canada(Ont)
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Kennedy 308, "Tom Pearce" (1 text, 1 tune)
OBB 171, "Widdicombe Fair" (1 text)
Silber-FSWB, p. 398, "Tam Pierce" (1 text)
DT, WIDDECOM* TAMPRCE*
ADDITIONAL: Walter de la Mare, _Come Hither_, revised edition, 1928; #80, "Widicombe Fair" (1 text)
Roud #137
RECORDINGS:
Tom Brown, "Widdlecombe Fair" (on Voice07)
George Maynard, "Lansdown Fair" (on FSB10)
Bill Westaway, "Widdicombe Fair" (on FSB10, FieldTrip1)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Widdicombe Fair (II)" (lyrics)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Bedford Fair
John Jones's Old Mare
Stow Fair
File: K308

Tom Potts [Child 109]


DESCRIPTION: A high-born lady loves Tom Potts, a serving man. She refuses Lord Phoenix's offer of marriage but her father overrides her. She sends word to Tom, who, aided by his master, challenges Phoenix. After several forms of contest he wins her.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1657 (broadside)
KEYWORDS: nobility servant courting contest father
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Child 109, "Tom Potts" (3 texts)
BBI, ZN3263, "All you lords of Scotland fair"
Roud #66
File: C109

Tom Redman


See Bold Ranger, The (File: R076)

Tom Sherman's Barroom


See The Streets of Laredo [Laws B1] (File: LB01)

Tom Taits


DESCRIPTION: Dialog: What are you called? Tom Taits. What do you do? Feed sheep and goats. Where do they feed? In the bog. What do they eat? Grass. What do they give? Milk and whey. Who eats it? Tom Taits and I (or, the cat)
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1870 (Chambers)
KEYWORDS: farming food dialog animal
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (2 citations):
GreigDuncan8 1634, "Tam Tat's" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Robert Chambers, The Popular Rhymes of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1870 ("Digitized by Google")), pp. 24-25, ("What ca' they you?")
Roud #13068
File: GrD81634

Tom Twist


DESCRIPTION: "Tom Twist was a wonderful fellow; No boy was so nimble and strong." Shipwrecked among cannibals, he escapes; he rides a condor to China and is made a mandarin; he at last returns home, then somersaults out the window and far away
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1930 (Flanders and Brown)
KEYWORDS: travel ship cannibalism talltale
FOUND IN: US(NE)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Flanders/Brown, pp. 173-176, "Tom Twist" (1 text, tune referenced)
DT, TOMTWIST*
Roud #5448
File: FlBr173

Tom, He Was a Piper's Son


See O'er the Hills and Far Away (I) (File: Arn017)

Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son (I)


DESCRIPTION: Tom, "the piper's son, Stole a pig and away did run." He eats the pig, he is beaten, and runs crying or roaring down the street.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1810 (Ritson)
KEYWORDS: punishment theft animal
FOUND IN: Britain(England(Lond)) Canada(Ont)
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Opie-Oxford2 509, "Tom, Tom, the piper's son" (1 text)
Baring-Gould-MotherGoose #126, p. 105, "(Tom, Tom, the piper's son)" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: F. Eileen Bleakney, "Folk-Lore from Ottawa and Vicinity" in The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. XXXI, No. 120 (Apr-Jun 1918 (available online by JSTOR)), #18 p. 166 ("Tom, Tom, the piper's son") (1 text)
Joseph Ritson, Gammer Gurton's Garland (London, 1810 ("Digitized by Google")), p. 35, ("Tom Thumb the piper's son") (1 text)
Elizabeth Mary Wright, "Rustic Speech and Folk-Lore" (London, 1913), pp. 119-120, ("Tom, Tom, the baker's son") (1 text)
Roud #19621
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son (II)" (lyrics)
NOTES: The Wright text is from Lincolnshire: "Tom, Tom, the baker's son. Stole a wig, and away he run; The wig was eat, and Tom was beat, And Tom went roaring down the street." Wright explains that "a wig (in gen. dial. use) is a kind of cake or bun, a plain wig is a bun without currants, .... The ordinary version substitutes 'pig' for 'wig', and makes Tom's father a 'piper'. It is a question for textual critics to settle, but natural sequence of idea and detail is on the side of the 'wig'-version being the original one; and it is easy to see how in a literary nursery, authority would say that the most omnivorous of small boys coud not eat a periwig, and therefore the word must be pig. This change once made, Tom's father becomes a piper for the sake of alliteration, rather than because there is any historical connexion between a piper and a pig." - BS
A textual critic generally looks for the reading which more easily could be corrupted into one of the others -- and Young Tom might have had some trouble carrying off a whole pig. A wig=bun would at least be easier of transport. So I don't think it can be absolutely settled. Indeed, some textual critics of the more radical sort might propose an emendation -- perhaps "fig" rather than either "pig" or "wig." - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: OO2509

Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son (II)


DESCRIPTION: When Tom plays "Over the hills and far away" on his pipe, "those who heard him could never keep still; As soon as he played they began to dance" Even pigs, cows, old Dame Trot and a "cross fellow ... beating an ass" had to dance.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1843 (Halliwell)
KEYWORDS: magic dancing music animal
FOUND IN: Britain US
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Arnett, p. 17, "Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son" (1 text, 1 tune)
Opie-Oxford2 507, "Tom, he was a piper's son" (1 text)
Baring-Gould-MotherGoose #127, p. 105, "(Tom, he was a piper's son)" (1 text)
ST Arn017 (Full)
ADDITIONAL: James Orchard Halliwell, The Nursery Rhymes of England (London, 1843 ("Digitized by Google")), #113 pp. 79-80, ("Tom, he was a piper's son") (1 text)
Roud #19621
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Over the Hills So Far Away" (lyrics)
cf. "Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son (I)" (lyrics)
cf. "Dolly and Hodge" (few lines)
NOTES: See TMI D1415.2.4, "Magic pipe causes dancing." [Not TMI, D1427.1, "Magic pipe compels one to follow"; ATU Type 570* "The Rat-Ccatcher (The Pied-Piper")]. However, Baring-Gould (p. 104 fn. 11) writes, "This song is apparently a version of an old metrical tale, 'The Friar and the Boy,' probably the nearest British approach to the German legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin." I doubt the connection to either "The Friar and the Boy" or "The Pied Piper."
Steevens summarizes "The Friar and the Boy". The boy "suffers from the capricious cruelty of a mother-in-law." A magician gives the boy three gifts: "the first is an unerring bow; the second a pipe which would compel all who heard it to dance; the third must explain itself [makes his mother-in-law fart]." For revenge, mother-in-law employs "the frere ... to persecute the boye" who makes the friar dance until his clothes are shredded. The friar calls in a magistrate for relief. The magistrate, against the friar's warning, asks to hear the boy play; so, the boy "throws all the participants into another fit of dancing, in which the offycyall himself is compelled to join, and the stepdame [sic] exhibits fresh proofs of her flatulency. The tired magistrate at last entreats our hero to suspend his operations, and, on his compliance, immediately reconciles him to his enemies." (JS Vol. II, pp. 338-341).
"Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son" (II) shares two lines with "Dolly and Hodge". For example, Baring-Gould-MotherGoose #127, ll. 15, 18: "As Dolly was milking her cow one day ... Till the pail was broken and the milk ran on the ground" as the pail was knocked over when Tom played and "Doll and the cow danced." In the "Dolly and Hodge" broadsides, ll. 1,20 [LOCSinging as101460 and Bodleian Johnson Ballads 616]: "As Dolly sat milking her cow ... [the cow] Kick'd the stool, milking pail, down and all" as the cow grew impatient to be milked while Dolly ignored her in favor of Hodge. - BS
BibliographyLast updated in version 2.5
File: OO2507

Tom's Gone to Hilo


See Tommy's Gone to Hilo (File: Doe030)

Tom's Gone to Ilo


See Tommy's Gone to Hilo (File: Doe030)

Tomah Stream


DESCRIPTION: The singer warns against drinking and hiring out to Tomah Stream. Instead of the easy work and good food he was promised, he finds mud roads, thin shelters, and poor and inadequate rations. He ends by exchanging insults with the boss Natty [Lamb].
AUTHOR: attributed to Larry Gorman
EARLIEST DATE: 1951
KEYWORDS: logger work drink hardtimes boss
FOUND IN: US(NE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Doerflinger, pp. 216-217, "Tomah Stream" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #4074
NOTES: Tomah stream is in eastern Maine, not far from the Canadian border.
This song is item dC53 in Laws's Appendix II. - RBW- RBW
File: Doe216

Tomahawking Fred (Tambaroora Ted)


DESCRIPTION: The singer is "just about to cut for the Lachlan To turn a hundred out...." He shears for the money, not for pleasure: "Give me sufficient cash and you'll see me make a splash, for I'm (Tambaroora Ted), the ladies' man." He boasts of his shearing skills
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: "Tomahawking Fred" prined 1912 by Jack Bradshaw; collected in 1974 from Joe Watson by Warren Fahey
KEYWORDS: sheep work Australia bragging
FOUND IN: Australia
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Fahey-Eureka, pp. 138-139, "Tambaroora Ted" (1 text, 1 tune)
Paterson/Fahey/Seal, pp. 198-200, "Tambaroora Ted" (1 text)
NOTES: To "tomahawk" was to sheer a sheep too close to the skin, and was a common result when a poor shearer tried to shear too fat. - RBW
File: FaE138

Tommy


See Somebody's Tall and Handsome (File: R380)

Tommy Jones


See Row Boat (Ride About) (File: R678)

Tommy Murphy was a Soldier Boy


DESCRIPTION: Tommy Murphy leaves Katy to join a marching regiment. He loses a leg. It is replaced by a hickory limb. He can't help marching when he hears the band. Katy sees him "after six months or more of adventures in war" but he marches away when the band plays
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1928 (for USBallinsloeFair, according to site irishtune.info, Irish Traditional Music Tune Index: Alan Ng's Tunography, ref. Ng #2614)
KEYWORDS: war injury humorous soldier separation
FOUND IN:
RECORDINGS:
Dinny (Jimmy) Doyle and Larry Griffin, "Tommy Murphy was a Soldier Boy" (on USBallinsloeFair)
File: RcTMWaSB

Tommy o'Lin, and His Wife, and Wife's Mother


See Brian O'Lynn (Tom Boleyn) (File: R471)

Tommy Robin


See Who Killed Cock Robin? (File: SKE74)

Tommy Song, The


See Old Roger is Dead (Old Bumpy, Old Grimes, Pompey) (File: R569)

Tommy Tompkins and Polly Hopkins


DESCRIPTION: "Howdy do, Mr. Tommy Tomplins, Howdy do, Howdy do?" "Howdy do, Miss Polly Hopkins." "Oh, say, Mr. Tommy Tompkins, Won't you buy a broom?" "Oh, yes, Miss Polly Hopkins, I will buy a broom... If you'll be my bride And sweep the room."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1934 (Henry, from Elsie Burnett)
KEYWORDS: courting marriage
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
MHenry-Appalachians, p. 227, "Tommy Tompkins and Polly Hopkins" (1 text)
NOTES: I can't prove it, but I would guess that this has something to do with the custom of marrying by jumping over a broom. - RBW
File: MHAp227

Tommy's Gone Away


See Tommy's Gone to Hilo (File: Doe030)

Tommy's Gone to Hilo


DESCRIPTION: Shanty. Characteristic line: "Away, (H)ilo... Tommy's gone to (H)ilo!" The girl complains that her Tommy has left her and gone to Liverpool, Baltimore, Bombay, or wherever it is that she least wants him to be. She may offer/threaten to follow
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1917 (Robinson)
KEYWORDS: shanty separation sailor
FOUND IN: US(MA,MW,NE) Ireland
REFERENCES (13 citations):
Doerflinger, p. 30, "Tommy's Gone to Hilo" (1 text, 1 tune)
Walton/Grimm/Murdock, pp. 67-68, "Tommy's Gone to Hilo" (1 text, 1 tune)
Bone, pp. 61-62, "Tom's Gone to Hilo" (1 text, 1 tune)
Colcord, p. 71-72, "Tom's Gone to Hilo" (1 text, 1 tune)
Harlow, p. 73-74, 260, "Tommy's Gone to Hilo" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hugill, pp. 261-264, "Shiloh Brown," "Tom's Gone to Hilo," "Tommy's Gone Away" (5 texts, 3 tunes - 1st text is only a fragment that might appear to be a variant of "Shallo Brown" due to the first chorus of "Shiloh, Shiloh Brown," but all the rest of it is "Tommy's Gone to Hilo") [AbEd, pp. 191-194]
Sharp-EFC, LX, p. 64, "Tommy's Gone Away" (1 text, 1 tune)
Linscott, pp. 150-151, "Tommy's Gone to Hilo" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
Shay-SeaSongs, pp. 36, "Tommy's Gone to Hilo" (1 text, 1 tune)
SHenry H53d, p. 96, "Tom's Gone to Ilo" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber-FSWB, p. 92, "Tommy's Gone to Hilo" (1 text)
DT, TOMMYHLO*
Captain John Robinson, "Songs of the Chantey Man," a series published July-August 1917 in the periodical _The Bellman_ (Minneapolis, MN, 1906-1919). A fragment of "My Tom's Gone to Hilo!" is in Part 3, 7/28/1917.
Roud #481
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Hieland Laddie" (floating lyrics)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Johnny's Gone to Hilo (Ilo)
NOTES: Most versions of the song use the name "Hilo" (Hugill says all; this was before the Henry collection was published), but the town, according to Doerflinger, Shay, etc., is not the village in Hawaii but the port of Ilo in southern Peru, a major source of nitrates.
That's nitrates as in "saltpeter." As in "gunpowder." Gunpowder consists of sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter -- with the mixes used in the nineteenth century requiring 75% saltpeter and just a handful of the other two components (Field p. 171). And saltpeter was the hardest component to find -- since ancient times, a little had been made from human urine, and Europe had set up major factories in India starting around the eighteenth century (Bown, p. 40). But it still wasn't enough. (For background on this, see the notes to "Chamber Lye.")
It was Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Baron von Humboldt (1769-1859) who made the next key step. He went on a world tour in 1799 in which he explored the west coast of Latin America and discovered the nitrate deposits of Chile and Peru (Asimov-Encyc, p. 238, entry #334).
Bown, p. 143, notes that the Latin American coast is washed by a cold current from Antarctica (the "Humboldt Current"). This carries much organic material, and since the water is cold, it also has much oxygen. As a result, it is full of fish and other life forms which attract birds. The birds nest on the shores nearby, leaving their droppings behind. And the major component of those droppings is urea -- a good source of nitrates. (So much so that the Incas apparently rationed the guano as a fertilizer among their various provinces; Bown, p. 145).
A curiosity of the climate in the area is that. due to peculiar air circulation patterns, it almost never rains. So there is absolutely nothing to disturb the heaps of guano. They just kept on piling higher (Bown, pp. 144-145).
Chile had a slightly different source of nitrate. Its deserts were never home to much life; according to Asimov-Build, the nitrates there were the residue from dried-up ancient lakes.
Exports of Chilean nitates began in 1830 (Darrow, p. 216). At this time they were presumably used mostly for explosives -- though the Chilean deposits, known as "caliche," were largely sodium nitrate, with about a 50% mixture of miscellaneous dirt, so they had to be purified and then converted to potassium nitrate (Bown, pp. 148-149). But, once it was learned how to convert sodium nitrate and potassium chloride into saltpeter (a process discovered in 1846), caliche became a fully viable product (Bown, p. 156). In addition, methods were eventually discovered to keep sodium nitrate from absorbing moisture, so it could be made into a fairly reliable gunpowder (Bown, p. 156).
The Peruvian guano also found another use: It was one of the main sources of dyes in the early eighteenth century; it wasn't until 1856 that William Henry Perkin found the first of the analine dyes (Schwartz, pp. 218-222, 225), which eventually eliminated the need for organic hues.
Shortly before the discovery of the caliche conversion process, Justus von Liebig (1803-1873) conducted his experiments in soil fertility which proved that nitrogen was a necessary fertilizer. So the demand for nitrates, already high, took another jump. And the guano was organic, and made a better fertilizer than caliche, and was coveted as such. (Though caliche too would be used for fertilizer in time.) Plus the caliche, though readily accessible, was inland, and shipping it to the coast was tricky (Bown, p. 149). This made the guano, available right at the coast, that much more valuable. Indeed, for some decades, fees on the trade provided the vast majority of revenue for Peru, and were all that kept that nation solvent (Bown, pp. 153-154).
Liebig went so far as to predict future wars over fertilizers and other resources, noting that Great Britain was consuming more than its share (Buckingham, p. 64). Buckingham poo-poos the notion of wars over resources -- but let's not forget the Persian Gulf War. What's more there was a war fought over nitrates, though it did not involve a major power; the participants were Bolivia, Chile, and Peru. The problems went back to the period of Spanish rule. "The War of the Pacific (1879-83) was a contest for possession of the bleak Atacama Desert reaching six hundred miles from Chilean Copiapo to Peruvian Arica.... In disdain for this sorry land, Spain had never bothered to establish a boundary between Peru (which in colonial days included Bolivia) and Chile" (Herring, p. 585).
When the war began, Chile was much smaller than today. The region from roughly Talta in what is now Chile to the mouth of the rive Loa north of Tocopilla was in Bolivian hands, giving Bolivia a large chunk of the Andean nitrates as well as access to the sea. The region north or that, including the town of Iquique, was part of Peru, and it too contained nitrate beds, though they were not as large as those in Bolivia (for a map of this, Barraclough, 97). But it was Chile which was exploiting the beds, backed by European capital, though they paid royalties to Bolivia and Peru. It was an attempt by Peru and Bolivia to increase these royalties that led to the war.
Bolivia and Chile had already been involved in diplomatic wrangles over the caliche beds; Despite controlling part of the Pacific coast of Latin America, Bolivia had very poor access to its seacoast due to the Andes (Roberson, p. 422) -- the Bolivians had almost no way to defend the region. When a dictator in Bolivia set aside the fragile agreement between the two countries, Chile promptly attacked (though the declaration of war came slightly later; Robertson, p. 423). Peru (which also had only tenuous links to its nitrate region, according to Bown, p. 160) soon joined the Bolivian side, but as Bolivia dissolved in internal squabbles, the allies were utterly defeated by Chile, which conquered the entire nitrate region, and even occupied Lima from 1881 to 1884 (Herring, p. 586).
A peace treaty was finally made in 1884. Robertson, p. 426, notes that "This treaty embodied a thinly veiled cession of the nitrate desert to the victor in the War of the Pacific." It also left Bolivia entirely landlocked, and largely lacking in natural resources that could be exploited at the time; little wonder that the nation remained poor and subject to frequent revolutions! (To this day, they want the land back, according to Bown, p. 162, and maintain a navy of sorts on Lake Tititcaca in hopes they will someday have an ocean fleet again.)
It is reported that, in the 1850s and 1860s, guano was mined from Peru at an average rate of four hundred thousand tons per year, with about a quarter of that going to the United States and the rest to various ports served by British ships. The guano trade was messy, smelly, and sometimes led to outbreaks of illness, but even so, the profits were high -- according to Bown, p. 146, the demand for South American guano consistently outstripped supply in the mid- to late nineteenth century, and Herring, p. 586, says that it supplied two-thirds of the Chilean government's revenue in the 1890s. The jingoistic American governments of the period went so far as to capture some of the islands, according to Bown, p. 147.
The need to bring as much guano as possible to market produced terrible abuses. Heaven help the sailor who got drunk in Callao or Ilo or even Chilean Valparaiso and ended up working the Chincha islands (the best source of guano, off the Peruvian coast not too far from Lima and Callao). Bown, pp. 150-151 describes slavery conditions worse than even those in the American south. The workers sometimes worked 100 hours a week, were given inadequate shelter, limited and poor food, were driven by merciless overseers -- and, of course, had to breath the extraordinary fumes of ammonia and other dangerous chemicals; many also contracted diseases carried by the bird feces. Suicide was common.
Bown, p. 152, says that most of the workers were Chinese brought in on five year "contracts" which few of them survived. Others came from the Pacific Islands. This form of slavery was not controlled until the 1870s.
Although the quality of guano declined after the 1870s, when the best beds were used up (there was lots of guano left, but it wasn't as high quality due to rain leaching out the nitrates, according to Bown, p. 154), demand for nitrates did not really start to decline until the early twentieth century, when the Haber process and its successors allowed artificial nitrates to be generated, and the guano trade was still strong going into the 1920s -- but Darrow, p. 233, notes its collapse in that period. In particularly, in the year 1926, the nitrate companies had a market value of 3,578,000 British pounds at the beginning of 1926, but only 1,634,000 pounds at the end of the year.
According to Shay, even ships not carrying guano (e.g. whalers) were likely to stop at Ilo; there were periods when Chilean ports were closed to foreigners, leaving Ilo as the major watering-port for ships rounding Cape Horn. The Panama Canal would have cut into that trade also, starting in 1914. Little wonder, then, that Ilo is now just another medium-sized town in Peru.
Incidentally, though effectively all nitrate fertilizer is now artificial, the Chilean nitrate beds are now used as a source for iodine. Roughly 40% of the world's current iodine needs are supplied by Chile (Emsley, p. 198); the compounds involved are sodium iodate, NAIO3, and calcium iodate, Ca(IO3)2. (Heiserman, p. 195) Emsley also observes, p. 197, that the element iodine was actually discovered during the Napoleonic Wars by French scientists who were trying to increase saltpetre manufacture. - RBW
BibliographyLast updated in version 2.5
File: Doe030

Tommy's on the Tops'l Yard


See Sally Brown (File: Doe074)

Tone de Bell Easy


See Jesus Gonna Make Up My Dyin' Bed (Tone the Bell Easy) (File: LxA605)

Tons of Bright Gold


DESCRIPTION: "Down by the Launey" the singer meets "a handsome and charming young dame ... herding her kine." If he owned many fine lands he would give them all "to obtain her." "For tons of bright gold, of course, I won't tell her name" until their wedding day
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1978 (OCanainn)
KEYWORDS: love marriage animal
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
OCanainn, pp. 88-89, "Tons of Bright Gold" (1 text, 1 tune)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Pride of Kilkee" (motif: hiding a sweetheart's name) and references there
cf. "Ar Eirinn Ni Neosfainn Ce hi (For Ireland I Will Not Tell Whom She Is)" (motif: hiding a sweetheart's name)
NOTES: OCanainn: "[This song's] text is clearly related to the Maigue poem "Ar Eirinn ni neosfainn ce hi" (For Ireland I'd not tell her name)." [In this song the promise not to tell, or to tell, her name is the last line of each verse; that is also the pattern of "Ar Eirinn Ni Neosfainn Ce hi."] - BS
File: OCan088

Tony Went Walking


DESCRIPTION: Tony goes walking on a summer day and finds an apple tree. He climbs, to pick some apples, but the branch breaks and "down came Tony, apples and all"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1961 (recording, Stanley G. Triggs)
KEYWORDS: food injury
FOUND IN: Can(West)
RECORDINGS:
Stanley G. Triggs, "Tony Went Walking" (on Triggs1)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Rock-A-Bye Baby" (lyrics)
NOTES: Talk about a minimal plot. But a plot it is. - PJS
File: RcTonWWa

Too Late


See The Last Farewell (The Lover's Return) (File: R761)

Too Much of a Name


DESCRIPTION: "Some people are anxious for honor and fame And they strive all their lifetime in getting a name. But too much of a name is a possible thing" As a practical joke my parents named me Jonathan Joseph Jeremiah ... Jehosaphat." So long a name causes problems
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1929 (Greenleaf/Mansfield)
KEYWORDS: wedding humorous nonballad talltale clergy
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Greenleaf/Mansfield 170, "Longest Name Song" (1 text)
Pankake-PHCFSB, p. 201, "Too Much of a Name" (1 text)
DT, TOONAME
Roud #7041 and 4824
NOTES: Greenleaf/Mansfield states that this is "a variant of a once popular music-hall song 'Jonathan, Joseph, Jeremiah.'" - BS
File: GrMa170

Too Much Time for the Crime I've Done


DESCRIPTION: "I got too much time, buddy... for the crime I done.... If I had just a-knowed it, could a broke and run." The singer thinks he should have gotten two or three years, but got ten or more. He wishes he had a gun, and thinks about what to do if free
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1965 (recorded from J. B. Smith by Jackson)
KEYWORDS: prison hardtimes violence
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Jackson-DeadMan, pp. 151-154,"Too Much TIme for the Crime I've Done" (2 texts, both from the same informant; 1 tune)
NOTES: This song, and several others by J. B. Smith, brilliantly illustrates the problem of classifying Black prison songs. This is clearly a personal song by Smith, who was serving a life term for killing his girlfriend, but the themes and many of the words come from other songs. Given the extent of Smith's rewriting, I classified it separately, but there is no good way to file such things. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.4
File: JDM151

Too Rally


DESCRIPTION: This quatrain ballad of naval origins describes the special privileges accorded to officers of increasingly high rank.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE:
KEYWORDS: scatological sailor humorous
FOUND IN: Britain(England) US
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Cray, pp. 400-403, "Too Rally" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #10300
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Botany Bay (I)" (tune)
NOTES: This was collected by Pete Seeger in the Pacific theater during the Second World War. - EC
File: EM400

Too Young


See Pretty Little Miss [Laws P18] (File: LP18)

Too Young to Marry


DESCRIPTION: Dance tune with slight lyrics: "I'm my mammy's youngest child (youngest son, darling child), I am my mother's (baby), I'm my mammy's youngest child, I am too young to marry."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1915 (Brown)
KEYWORDS: youth marriage nonballad
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
BrownIII 107, "Too Young to Marry" (3 texts)
Roud #16864
NOTES: I have to suspect that this is the mnemonic lyric to some well-known fiddle tune. But there is no way to tell *which* tune. - RBW
File: Br3107

Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, That's an Irish Lullaby


DESCRIPTION: The singer remembers a quiet, peaceful home and the lullaby his mother sang: "Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, Too-ra-loo-ra-li, Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, hush now don't you cry. Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral... That's an Irish lullaby."
AUTHOR: J. R. Shannon
EARLIEST DATE: 1913 (sheet music)
KEYWORDS: nonballad lullaby
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Fuld-WFM, p. 585, "Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, That's an Irish Lullaby"
DT, LULLBY
SAME TUNE:
Study Oft on Sunday (Pankake-PHCFSB, p. 98)
NOTES: This, obviously, is not a folk song -- and it's not a lullaby! (It contains one, but there is a song around it.) But people think it's a folk song, so here it is.... - RBW
File: DTlullby

Too-Ril-Te-Too (The Robin and the Cat)


DESCRIPTION: "Oh! Too-ril-te-too was a bonny cock robin, He tied up his tail with a piece of blue bobbin, His tail was no bigger than the tail of a flea, Too-ril-te-too Thought it pretty as a tail could be." The bird flies to a rail to show off and is eaten by a cat
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1939 (Linscott)
KEYWORDS: bird food death animal
FOUND IN: US(NE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Linscott, pp. 293-294, "Too-Ril-Te-Too" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST Lins293 (Full)
Roud #3745
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Rory O'More" (tune)
File: Lins293

Took My Gal a-Walkin'


DESCRIPTION: "I took my gal a-walking', it was on one Saturday night... I asked her if she's marry me... She said she wouldn't marry me If the rest of the world was dead." The lonely singer vows he will "milk the cows and chickens" on the farm if he can't find a girl
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1928 (recording, Charlie Poole)
KEYWORDS: courting farming love nonballad
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Rorrer, p.81, "Took My Gal a Walkin'" (1 text)
Roud #11550
RECORDINGS:
Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers, "Took My Gal a Walkin'" (Columbia 15672-D, 1931, rec. 1928; on CPoole01, CPoole05)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Going Across the Sea" (floating lyrics)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
I Ain't Got Nobody
NOTES: Rorrer observes that there is no known source for this recording; Charlie Poole may well have created the piece. It has, however, proved to be popular with Old-Time performers, and for this reason I include it here.
The key verse, about the girl not marrying "if the rest of the world were dead" *is* traditional; a variant is found in the southeastern banjo tune "Italy." - RBW
File: RcTMGAW

Toolie Low


DESCRIPTION: "Toolie low, toolie low, toolie low, I am Mammy's little black baby chile. Toodie noodie, mammy's baby, Toodie noodie, mammy's child. Toodie, noodie, toodie."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1925 (Scarborough)
KEYWORDS: love children nonballad lullaby
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Scarborough-NegroFS, p. 153, (no title) (1 short text)
File: ScNF153B

Top Hand


DESCRIPTION: "While you're all so frisky I'll sing a little song... It's all about the Top Hand when he's busted flat." The Top Hand/top screw boasts of his prowess as a cowhandler, but it's all boasting and lies. The cowboys try to expose him, and label him a Jackass
AUTHOR: (Credited by Thorp to Frank Rooney, c. 1877)
EARLIEST DATE: 1899
KEYWORDS: cowboy bragging lie trick
FOUND IN: US(SW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Thorp/Fife V, pp. 61-65 (17-18), "Top Hand" (2 texts)
Roud #8050
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Top Screw
Waddie Cowboy
File: TF05

Top Loader


DESCRIPTION: Recitation; Bill Kirk is top loader. One day he's knocked off the load by a "cannon." His comrades rush to save him, but he's wedged into a crack. They pull the log out, and by a miracle he's not hurt, but he curses because his new pipe is cracked.
AUTHOR: Probably Marion Ellsworth
EARLIEST DATE: 1941 (Beck)
LONG DESCRIPTION: Recitation; Bill Kirk is top loader at Pollock's camp; one day he's knocked off the load by a "cannon" (a log that pivots sideways on top of the load). His comrades, thinking him crushed, rush to save him, but he's wedged into a crack. They pull the log out, and by a miracle he's not hurt, but he curses because his new pipe is cracked.
KEYWORDS: lumbering work logger recitation rescue
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Beck 100, "Top Loader" (1 text)
Roud #8880
NOTES: Top loaders were always in danger, trying to get the maximum number of logs on the load.
This, like the other pieces probably written by Ellsworth, does not seem to have entered oral tradition. - PJS
File: Be100

Top of Mount Zion


DESCRIPTION: "On the top of Mount Zion is a city" -- the city of salvation. The singer briefly describes it and makes plans to go there.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1966 (recorded from Buna Vista Hicks)
KEYWORDS: Bible religious nonballad
FOUND IN: US(SE)
Roud #7133
RECORDINGS:
Buna Hicks, "Top of Mt. Zion" (on USWarnerColl01)
NOTES: In secular usage, the name "Zion" and "Mount Zion" referred to the more eastern of the hills on which Jerusalem rested -- the name first occurs in the Bible in 2 Samuel 5:7, where David attacks the "stronghold of Zion," the key to the city of the Jebusites, which became the City of David -- i.e. the citadel of the Davidic capital. The term is generally used in the Psalms to include the broader area around the Temple -- i.e. the City on Mount Zion is the whole city of Jerusalem.
The name is not common in the New Testament, and six of the eight New Testament usages to be Old Testament citations -- most notably, Romans 11:16 (citing Isaiah) says that the deliverer comes from Zion. But the two uses of the name not derived from the Hebrew Bible are noteworthy: Hebrews 11:22 refers to coming to "Mount Zion and the city of the living God, while Revelation 14:1 says that the lamb stood on Mount Zion. Thus Mount Zion is an accepted, though not a common, name for the heavenly city. - RBW
File: RcToMZi

Topsail Shivers in the Wind, The


DESCRIPTION: "The topsail shivers in the wind, Our ship she casts to sea, But yet my soul, my heart, my mind, Are, Mary, moored with thee." The singer touches on the difficulties of the voyage and thinks constantly of his return home
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1776 (Journal from the Ann)
KEYWORDS: sailor home love
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Huntington-Whalemen, pp. 59-60, "The Topsail Shivers in the Wind" (1 text plus part of another, 1 tune)
Roud #2017
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Sailor's Adieu
File: SWMS059

Tornado Blues


DESCRIPTION: "I uster own the Chickabee farm, I'm washing dishes today, Becaws a tornado comes along And takes my farm away." "It takes the cows, and the gelding... The doggone thing leaves me nothing But the wife and the mortgage due."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1933 (Cambiaire)
KEYWORDS: disaster storm farming hardtimes
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
March 7, 1933 - "[A] terrible tornado caused great damage in East Tennessee (Cambiaire)
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Cambiaire, p. 10, "Tornado Blue" (1 text)
Roud #12636
File: Camb010

Toronto Volunteers, The


DESCRIPTION: "In the year of Eighty-five Sure the tidings did arrive.... From the snowy plains afar Where those roving Indians are...." "Oh those volunteers did go And face the storms and snow... And when the drums did beat How the rebels did retreat"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1957
KEYWORDS: battle Canada soldier
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
May 12, 1885 - Battle of Batoche. Defeat of the Metis under Louis Riel
FOUND IN: Canada(Ont)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Fowke/Mills/Blume, pp. 130-131, "The Toronto Volunteers" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #4515
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Riel's Song" and references there (subject)
NOTES: For the history of Louis Riel and the Metis Uprising, see "Riel's Song." Edith Fowke's informant claims to have had this piece from soldiers who had actually campaigned in Saskatchewan. - RBW
File: FMB130

Torramh an Bhairille (Wake of the Barrel)


DESCRIPTION: Irish. It's a delight to be at a Ballymacoda wake. No one is turned away without a drink in that pub. "The poor wretch without food or purse will get the cask free To drink without stint"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1978 (OCanainn)
KEYWORDS: foreignlanguage drink death nonballad
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
OCanainn, pp. 68-69, "Torramh an Bhairille" (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES: The description follows O Canainn's "rough guide to what it's all about." - BS
File: OCan068

Torry Brig, The


DESCRIPTION: "Noo friens I think ye're like mysel' and anxious for to see" the new Torry bridge across the Dee. The singer describes the celebration he expects: lasses in new hats, men in new suits, "gently walking sweetly talking" dancing and drinking beer
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1917 (GreigDuncan8)
KEYWORDS: clothes technology dancing drink nonballad
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
July 1881 - Formal opening of Victoria Bridge across the Dee from Aberdeen to Torry (source: GreigDuncan8).
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan8 1904, "The Torry Brig" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #13561
File: GrD81904

Toss the Turk


DESCRIPTION: "One evening lately I dressed up nately, With Sunday clothes, plug had and all." The singer meets a gang which intends to rob him. But he backs up against a wall, and beats them off using tricks he learned at Donegal.
AUTHOR: Tom Cannon
EARLIEST DATE: 1877 (sheet music)
KEYWORDS: fight
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Dean, pp. 114-115, "Toss the Turk" (1 text)
Roud #21718
NOTES: Eric Partridge's A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English lists "Turk" as a gutter word for an Irishman, though it cannot trace it before 1949. This song gives evidence that it is much older, since "Toss the Turk" seems to mean "rob the Irishman." - RBW
File: Dean114

Tossed and Driven (The Poor Pilgrim)


DESCRIPTION: "I am a poor pilgrim of sorrow, I am left in this wide world to roam... I've started to make Heaven my home." "Sometimes I'm so tossed and driven. Sometimes I know not where to roam." The singer has left his family; after death he hopes to see them again
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1926 (Randolph)
KEYWORDS: religious death travel
FOUND IN: US(Ap,So)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Randolph 610, "Tossed and Driven" (2 text plus a fragment, 1 tune)
BrownIII 643, "Tossed and Driven" (1 text, a seemingly-simplified form with the same chorus but the verses consist of advice from relatives: "(Father/Mother/Sister/Brother) told me when he was dying... Dear daughter, live for Jesus; This world is not my home")
Roud #5425
RECORDINGS:
I. D. Beck & congregation, "Poor Pilgrim of Sorrow" (on LomaxCD1704)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "I Am a Pilgrim"
NOTES: This song instantly made me think of "Man of Constant Sorrow," and also of "Wayfaring Stranger," but I cannot tell if there is any connection. And "pilgrim" songs all sound alike somehow. - RBW
George Pullen Jackson sees a resemblance between this song and the one we've indexed as "Green Mossy Banks of the Lea". Maybe. - PJS
File: R610

Tossing of the Hay


DESCRIPTION: The singer goes out on a summer morning and sees a beautiful girl tossing her hay alone. She reports that her brother has left her alone. He kisses her; she screams; he promises that if she marries him, there will be time to mow the hay
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1906 (GreigDuncan5)
KEYWORDS: love courting marriage work
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber)) Canada(Newf) Ireland
REFERENCES (3 citations):
SHenry H635, pp. 455-456, "The Tossing o' the Hay" (1 text, 1 tune)
Karpeles-Newfoundland 80, "The New Mown Hay" (1 text, 1 tune)
GreigDuncan5 957, "The Turnin' o' the Hay" (7 texts, 4 tunes)
Roud #2940
RECORDINGS:
Eddie Butcher, "Tossing the Hay" (on Voice05, IREButcher01)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Raking of the Hay
The Shaking of the Hay
NOTES: Why do I get the feeling that this happened somewhere along the Banks of the Bann?
According to Purslow, this occurs as a broadside called "Joy After Sorrow," but the text of that title I've seen does not appear to be the same piece. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: HHH635

Tottenham Toad, The


See Fox and Hare (They've All Got a Mate But Me) (File: FlBr121)

Touch Not the Cup


DESCRIPTION: "Touch not the cup, it is death to the soul... Many I know that have quaffed from that bowl... Little they thought that a demon was there, Blindly they drank and were caught in the snare...." A sermon, without illustrations, on the evils of drink
AUTHOR: Words: J.H. Aikman (?) / Music: T.H. Bayley?
EARLIEST DATE: 1885 (Franklin Square Song Collection 3)
KEYWORDS: drink virtue
FOUND IN: US(NE,So)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Randolph 330, "Touch Not the Cup" (1 text)
Warner 76, "Touch Not the Cup" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST R330 (Partial)
Roud #6951
NOTES: Yes, this piece is as obnoxiously moralizing as it sounds... and I say that as a teetotaler. - RBW
File: R330

Toura for Sour Buttermilk


DESCRIPTION: "Toura for sour buttermilk Belleek for the brandy The Commons was the divil's hole But Mulleek was the dandy"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1979 (Tunney-StoneFiddle)
KEYWORDS: Ireland nonballad drink
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Tunney-StoneFiddle, p. 52, "Toura for Sour Buttermilk" (1 fragment)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Fermoy Lasses" (tune, according to Tunney-StoneFiddle)
NOTES: The current description is all of the Tunney-StoneFiddle fragment.
Mulleek, Belleek and Toura are in County Fermanagh. Commons may be in Belleek.
The words of the Tunney-StoneFiddle fragment remind me of "Coffee Grows" and "Weavily Wheat" though its reel tune is not at all similar. - BS
File: TSF052

Tout Pitit Negresse


DESCRIPTION: Creole French: "Tout pitit Negresse en bas bayou, A-pe laver chimise ye' mama! A, alla, mamselle, les blanchiseuses! (x2)" A very small black woman washes shirts on the bayou; a boy washes underclothes
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1925 (Scarborough)
KEYWORDS: worker
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Scarborough-NegroFS, pp. 212-213, "Tout Pitit Negresse" (1 text, 1 tune)
File: ScaNF212

Tower of Babel, The


See The Plumb and Level (File: GrD3472)

Town I Loved So Well, The


DESCRIPTION: The singer recalls growing up in hard times in "the town I loved so well." He formed a band and married. The music is gone but he hopes for peace and a bright new day "in the town that I loved so well"
AUTHOR: Phil Coulter (source: notes to IRHardySons)
EARLIEST DATE: 1980 (IRHardySons)
LONG DESCRIPTION: "In my memory I can always see The town that I loved so well" The singer recalls playing school ball by the smoky, smelly, gas yard wall and "running up the dark lane By the jail." Mothers were called from Creggan, the Moor, and the Bog to work in the shirt factory early in the morning. Men on the dole minded the children and trained the dog without complaining. The singer formed a band and married. Now the music is gone. He hopes for peace. "We can only pray for a bright new day, In the town that I loved so well"
KEYWORDS: poverty violence unemployment work hardtimes Ireland
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
DT, TWNLVD*
RECORDINGS:
Big John Maguire and daughter Kate, "The Town I Loved So Well" (on IRHardySons)
NOTES: Notes to IRHardySons: "This is a contemporary song written by Phil Coulter in the early 1970s that has been sucked into the tradition and altered somewhat in the process. Recorded by The Dubliners."
Wikipedia re "The Town I Loved So Well": "'The Town I Loved So Well's a song written by Phil Coulter about his childhood in Derry, Northern Ireland. The first three verses are about the simple lifestyle he grew up with in Derry, while the final two deal with the Troubles, and lament how his placid hometown had become a major military outpost, plagued with sectarian violence."
"The Town I Loved So Well" at Triskelle site, dated Dec. 13, 2005: "After 21 June 1972, Bloody Friday, the British army started a huge scaled military operation known as Operation Motorman. Army units with tanks and bulldozers cleared the barricades surrounding the so-called no-go areas in Creggan, Bogside and Andersontown. Northern Ireland really had become a war-zone." - BS
The mention of the Dole is, in many ways, even more indicative of Ulster's situation in this period than are the references to the Troubles. Violence in Ulster was not as high as we sometimes think -- the murder rate was lower than most big American cities in the same period (according to the chart on p. 260 of Ruth Dudley Edwards, An Atlas of Irish History, second edition, Routledge, 1981, even the worst year of the Troubles, 1972, saw fewer than 400 killed, and no other year witnessed as many as 300 deaths -- dreadful, yes, but not so high as to automatically destabilize a society. Northern Ireland's population at this time was about one and a half million, so we have a murder rate of about 25 per 100,000. Comparing this to the data for the United States (as found in the Statistical Abstract of the United States 2000, which covers the year 1998 -- the lowest crime rate year I found in a quick and incomplete sample), the murder rate in Detroit was 43.0 per 100,000; that in Baltimore was 47.1; that in New Orleans 48.8; that in Washington, DC, 49.7. In all, there are at least *nine* American cities which, in that good year, had higher murder rates than Ulster in its *worst* year.
But the decline of the British merchant fleet, and of the whole British economy, doomed the Belfast shipbuilding industry. The region's other major industry was textiles, and that too faded in the period. And the small size of Ulster made it economically inefficient, and the Irish Republic was an economic basket case due to the inefficiencies of the de Valera period, and the border regions were generally worst of all. Unemployment in Northern Ireland rose steadily in the 1970s to levels well above 10% -- by 1980, half the regions of Ulster had unemployment rates exceeding 15% (Edwards, p. 263); in perhaps a fifth of the country, it exceeded 20%. Edwards shows the Derry area as being in the 15-20% unemployment range. - RBW
File: RcTTILSW

Town o' Arbroath, The


DESCRIPTION: "Although far awa frae my ain native heather, And thousands o' miles across the blue sea," the singer still dreams of his home in Arbroath. He recalls the lessons his parents taught him. Now rich, he intends to return to his home.
AUTHOR: Words: Charles Myles ?
EARLIEST DATE: 1905 (GreigDuncan3); 19C (broadside, NLScotland L.C.Fol.70(29b))
KEYWORDS: home emigration return
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Greig #136, p. 2, "The Town o' Arbroath" (1 text)
GreigDuncan3 520, "The Toon o' Arbroath" (3 texts, 1 tune)
Ord, p. 345, "The Town o' Arbroath" (1 text)
Roud #3946
BROADSIDES:
NLScotland, L.C.Fol.70(6b), "Toon of Arbroath," Poet's Box (Dundee), c. 1880-1900
File: Ord345A

Town of Antrim, The


DESCRIPTION: The singer bids farewell to Ireland; he will wander "far from Paddy's green countrie."He recalls the beauties of County Antrim, his birthplace. He promises to remember all these things in his new home
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1921 (JIFSS)
KEYWORDS: emigration home
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (3 citations):
SHenry H632, p. 203, "Paddy's Green Countrie" (1 text, 1 tune)
OLochlainn 20A, "The Town of Antrim" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hayward-Ulster, p. 25, "The Town of Antrim" (1 text)
Roud #2746
File: HHH632

Town of Oranmore, The (If You Ever Go Over to Ireland)


DESCRIPTION: Singer, possibly American, warns against women of Ireland; one of them has made a fool of him. He picks her up; she asks him to take her to dinner at Cleary's; he wraps her in his cloak; she scratches his nose, tears his clothes, and, apparently, robs him
AUTHOR: Shaun O'Nolan
EARLIEST DATE: 1955 (sung by Margaret Barry on Voice04)
KEYWORDS: request warning travel theft humorous
FOUND IN: Ireland
Roud #5277
RECORDINGS:
Margaret Barry, "If You Ever Go Over to Ireland" (on Voice04)
Margaret Barry w. Michael Gorman, "If You Ever Go Over to Ireland (The Town of Oranmore)" (on Pubs1)
NOTES: The plot is somewhat confused. Oranmore is located at the extreme east of Galway Bay, and it was a popular place for Travellers to part their caravans, especially around the time of the Galway race meeting. The song originated in the Irish music-halls. - PJS
Hall, notes to Voice04: "in the McNulty Family's original it is his bank roll she swipes." - BS
File: RcToOran

Town of Passage (I), The


DESCRIPTION: "The town of Passage is neat and spacious, All situated upon the sea." The boats, sailors, bathers, lovers, and ferry to Carrigaloe are described. Molly Bowen has a lodging house where "often goes in one Simon Quin" to his bed among the fleas.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1839 (Croker-PopularSongs)
KEYWORDS: sea ship shore humorous nonballad bug
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Croker-PopularSongs, pp. 254-256, "The Town of Passage" (1 text)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Town of Passage (II), (III)" (subject)
NOTES: Croker-PopularSongs: "The town of Passage ... is situated between Cork and its Cove...."
Croker-PopularSongs: "This song was introduced, with considerable effect, upon the London stage by the late Mr Charles Connor, in Lord Glengall's very amusing farce of the 'Irish Tutor.'" - BS
File: CrPS254

Town of Passage (II), The


DESCRIPTION: "Passage town is of great renown." Steamboats on Lough Mahon, whale-boats "skipping upon the tide," prison ships bound for Botany Bay, foreign ships, ferries, and fishing boats are described. The women hunt snails, shrimp, and cockles at low tide.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1839 (Croker-PopularSongs)
KEYWORDS: commerce fishing sea ship shore nonballad
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Croker-PopularSongs, pp. 256-258, "The Town of Passage" (1 text)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Town of Passage (I), (III)" (subject)
NOTES: Croker-PopularSongs: "The town of Passage ... is situated between Cork and its Cove...."
Croker-PopularSongs points out that "The Town of Passage (II)" quotes "The Town of Passage (I)" and must therefore be "a subsequent composition to No. I." - BS
File: CrPS256

Town of Passage (III), The


DESCRIPTION: "The town of Passage ... situated Upon the say, 'Tis nate and dacent." Ships at anchor, ferries to Carrigaloe, but also mud cabins, melodious pigs and dead fish abound. Foreign ships deal in whisky-punch. Convicts are bound for Botany Bay.
AUTHOR: Father Prout [Rev Francis Sylvester Mahony (1804-1866)] (source: Croker-PopularSongs)
EARLIEST DATE: 1839 (Croker-PopularSongs)
KEYWORDS: sea ship shore humorous nonballad
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Croker-PopularSongs, pp. 258-260, "The Town of Passage" (1 text)
Dean, pp. 99-100, "The Town Passage" (1 text)
Roud #9574
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Town of Passage (I), (II)" (subject)
NOTES: Croker-PopularSongs: "The town of Passage ... is situated between Cork and its Cove...."
Croker-PopularSongs notes Father Prout's comment on his "The Town of Passage (III)" as a parody of I and II: "Its reverend author, or rather concocter, has described it as 'manifestly an imitation of that unrivalled dithyramb, 'The Groves of Blarney,' with a little of its humour, and all its absurdity.'" - BS
Father Prout, however, did not compose "The Groves of Blarney"; his great work is "Bells of Shandon." - RBW
File: CrPS258

Town Passage, The


See The Town of Passage (III) (File: CrPS258)

TP and the Morgan


DESCRIPTION: Work song for tie-tamping: "TP throwed the water, Water in Morgan's eye...."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1940
KEYWORDS: worksong railroading
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Botkin-RailFolklr, p. 448, "TP and the Morgan" (1 text)
File: BRaF448

Trace-Boy on Ligoniel Hill, A


DESCRIPTION: The singer recalls with pride the days of the horse trams when he was a trace-boy on Ligoniel Hill. Today his "friends all departed, and work now so scarce," he sleeps on open brick kilns. "The only thing left is a ride in a hearse"
AUTHOR: Hugh Quinn (1884-1956) (source: Leyden)
EARLIEST DATE: 1978 (Hammond-Belfast)
KEYWORDS: age poverty pride unemployment hardtimes nonballad
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Leyden 16, "A Trace-Boy on Ligoniel Hill" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hammond-Belfast, p. 50, "A Trace Boy on Ligoniel Hill" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, LIGONIEL*
Bell/O Conchubhair, Traditional Songs of the North of Ireland, pp. 78-80, "A Trace-Boy on Ligoniel Hill" (1 text, 1 tune)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Green Gravel" (tune)
NOTES: Leyden: Two horses were added to a Belfast horse-drawn tram team for the pull up steep inclines. "This task was done by trace-boys who waited at the bottom of steep hills such as Ligoniel.... The Ligoniel Tramway system started up in the summer of 1885." The kiln reference is to open kilns at brick manufacturing companies: "After a day's firing the kilns retained their heat for a considerable time so that many tramps and paupers took advantage of the free heat for the night." - BS
File: Leyd016

Track Lining Song


See Can'cha Line 'Em (File: LxU078)

Track to Knob Lake, The


DESCRIPTION: The singer signs a contract to spike three months on the Knob Lake track. Food is awful. After a month 18 men quit. Each day the first to finish has lots of food but none is left for the last. He still hopes to come back the next year.
AUTHOR: Albert Roche
EARLIEST DATE: 1961 (Peacock)
KEYWORDS: railroading worker food
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Peacock, pp. 797-798, "The Track to Knob Lake" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #9811
ALTERNATE TITLES:
cf. "Twin Lakes" (lyrics)
NOTES: First verse -- only -- is stolen from "Twin Lakes." Peacock says "the track to Knob Lake [is] a railroad pushed through the wilderness of central Quebec to rich deposits of iron ore." The track was laid in the 1950s. "In ballads of this type it is customary to complain about working and living conditions, and the composer does his best.... However, with planes flying the workers in and out I suspect that most Newfoundlanders never had it so good." - BS
File: Pea797

Trader, The


DESCRIPTION: The singer tells of the wreck of the Trader, bound from Galway to London. A dream warns the Captain of disaster. A storm blows up; the rudder is wrecked; the ship goes aground; seven of the crew are drowned. The singer hopes they will be remembered
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1924 (Sam Henry collection; reportedly found in an 1827 broadside)
KEYWORDS: ship death storm wreck disaster dream
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
SHenry H11, pp. 110-111, "The Trader" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #2952
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Ye Banks and Braes of Bonnie Doon" (tune)
File: HHH011

Trading-Out Blues


DESCRIPTION: "In the middle of the night if you hear a scream And there's a flame burnin'... the road... It's just a bunch of cowboys Tradin' out at the next rodeo." The song describes the wild driving cowboys do as they travel from rodeo to rodeo
AUTHOR: Johnny Baker
EARLIEST DATE: 1973
KEYWORDS: cowboy travel technology
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Ohrlin-HBT 97, "Trading-Out Blues" (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES: According to Ohrlin, professional rodeo cowboys would often rearrange their riding schedules so that they could appear at two events simultaneously. This was known as "trading out." Not all rodeos permit trading out, but some do in order to increase the number of top-flight cowboys entered. But, of course, it leaves the riders having to really make time between events. Hence this song.
File: Ohr097

Tragedia de Heraclio Bernal


DESCRIPTION: Spanish: "Ano de noventa y quatro en la ciudad de Mazatlan...." Bernal is a robber who steals from the rich, gives to the poor, kills the police (and uses their skin for boots). But he is killed by treachery in Mazatlan in 1894.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1934
KEYWORDS: foreignlanguage outlaw robbery death police funeral
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Lomax-ABFS, pp. 368-371, "Tragedia de Heraclio Bernal" (1 text plus prose translation, 1 tune)
File: LxA368

Tragic Romance


DESCRIPTION: Singer recalls a girl he loved long ago; he left her her in the arms of another man. Many years later he meets the girl's brother. He learns she died awaiting his return, never knowing why he left. (The brother was the man who was in her arms.)
AUTHOR: Louis M. "Grandpa" Jones
EARLIEST DATE: 1946 (recording, Morris Bros.)
KEYWORDS: infidelity love rambling abandonment death family
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Cohen/Seeger/Wood, p. 41, "Tragic Romance" (1 text with variants, 1 tune)
RECORDINGS:
Morris Brothers, "Tragic Romance" (RCA Victor 20-1905, 1946)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Poor Omie (John Lewis) (Little Omie Wise)" [Laws F4] (tune)
cf. "After the Ball" (plot)
cf. "Fatal Rose of Red" (theme)
NOTES: When this song first came to my attention, I refused to accept the attribution to "Grandpa" Jones, since the plot is straight from "After the Ball" and the tune is "Omie Wise." Jones, however, confesses, "I had been singing the old 1890s song, After the Ball, and I borrowed the story from that and the tune from the old folk song Naomi Wise and began to work it out." - RBW
File: CSW041

Tragical Death of an Apple Pie, The


See A Is for Apple Pie (File: R874)

Trail to Mexico, The [Laws B13]


DESCRIPTION: The singer is hired by A.J. Stinson to drive a herd to Mexico. While away, his sweetheart has left him for a richer man. Though she asks him to remain at home and safe, he sets out for the trail again and swears to spend the rest of his life on the trail
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1910 (Lomax)
KEYWORDS: cowboy rejection poverty
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (9 citations):
Laws B13, "The Trail to Mexico"
Larkin, pp. 61-63, "Trail to Mexico" (1 text, 1 tune)
Sandburg, pp. 285-286, "The Trail to Mexico" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fife-Cowboy/West 66, "The Trail to Mexico" (5 texts, 1 tune, of which only the "A" and "B" texts go here; "C" and "D" are "Early, Early in the Spring" and "E" is "Going to Leave Old Texas")
Botkin-AmFolklr, pp. 858-859, "Trail to Mexico" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ohrlin-HBT 62, "Trail to Mexico" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Saffel-CowboyP, pp. 197-199, "The Trail to Mexico" (1 text)
DT 380, TRAILMEX
ADDITIONAL: _Sing Out_ magazine, Volume 25, #4 (1977), pp, 22-23, "Following the Cowtrail" (1 text, 1 tune, the Carl T. Sprague version)
Roud #152
RECORDINGS:
Len Nash & his Country Boys, "The Trail to Mexico" (Brunswick 354, 1929; Supertone S-2069, 1930)
Harry "Mac" McClintock, "The Trail to Mexico" (Victor V-40016, 1929; Montgomery Ward M-4469 [as Harry "Mac" McClintock and his Haywire Orchestra], 1934)
Pete Seeger, "Trail to Mexico" (on PeteSeeger07, PeteSeeger07a)
Carl T. Sprague, "Following the Cow Trail" (Victor 20067, 1925; Montgomery Ward M-4468, 1934; on AuthCowboys)
Texas Rangers, "The Trail to Mexico" (Decca 5183, 1936)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Early, Early in the Spring" [Laws M1] (plot)
cf. "Buffalo Skinners" [Laws B10a] (a few overlapping lyrics)
NOTES: Cox and Fife both consider this to be derived from "Early, Early in the Spring" [Laws M1], and even Laws concedes kinship. Roud in fact lumps the songs. However, as Laws also notes, "the cowboy ballad... shows considerable reworking." - RBW
It's also worth noting that this song, "Boggy Creek," and "Buffalo Skinners" share enough lyrics, plot elements, etc. to make life interesting and confusing. - PJS
Last updated in version 2.4
File: LB13

Train 45


See Reuben's Train; also Nine Hundred Miles (File: Wa133)

Train Is A-Coming, The


DESCRIPTION: "The train is a-coming, oh, yes! Train is a-coming, oh, yes! Train is a-coming, train is a-coming, Train is a-coming, oh, yes!" "Better get your ticket...." "King Jesus is conductor...." "I'm on my way to heaven...."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1925 (Scarborough)
KEYWORDS: train religious nonballad
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Scarborough-NegroFS, pp. 253-254, "The Train Is A-Coming" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #11618
File: ScaNF253

Train on the Island (June Apple/June Appal)


DESCRIPTION: Floating verses, "Train on the island, thought I heard it blow, Go tell my true love, I'm sick and I can't go." "Train on the island, listen to it squeal, Go and tell my true love how happy I do feel." Verses mostly about courting and separation
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (recording, J. P. Nestor)
KEYWORDS: courting separation floatingverses separation abandonment nonballad music
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Asch/Dunson/Raim, p. 97, "Train on the Island" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, TRAINIS
RECORDINGS:
Charlie Higgins et al, "June Apple" [instrumental] (on LomaxCD1702)
J. P. Nestor, "Train on the Island" (Victor 21070A, 1927; on AAFM3, TimesAint01)
New Lost City Ramblers, "Train on the Island" (on NLCR13)
Crockett Ward & his Boys "Train on the Island" (OKeh, unissued, 1927); Fields Ward, Glen Smith & Wade Ward, "Train on the Island" (on HalfCen1)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Going Across the Sea" (floating lyrics)
NOTES: As a rule of thumb, this seems to be called "Train on the Island" when it is sung but "June Appal" when played as a fiddle tune. There are exceptions, of course. - RBW
File: ADR97

Train Run So Fast


DESCRIPTION: "Train, train, train, train run so fast, Couldn't see nothing but de trees go past." "Don't tell mama where I'm gone, Cause I'm on my way back home." ""Mister, Misters, I don't want to fight, I got de heart disease, don't feel just right."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1919 (Brown)
KEYWORDS: train disease floatingverses home nonballad
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
BrownIII 466, "Train ... Run So Fast" (1 short text, probably a mixture of several songs)
Roud #11786
NOTES: This has a good deal in common with Darby and Tarlton's recording "Captain Won't You Let Me Go Home" ("Show Me the Way to Go Home," emphatically not the same as the other Brown fragment, "Show Me the Way to Go Home, Babe"); there is clearly dependence one way or the other. But the recording uses a different stanza form and is all about war service; I tentatively treat them as separate songs. - RBW
File: Br3466

Train That Carried My Girl from Town, The


DESCRIPTION: Singer asks about the train that's just left; "if I knew the number I'd flag her down." He wishes it would wreck and kill the crew; "some low rounder stole my jelly roll." He asks if there's a woman a man can trust.
AUTHOR: possibly Frank Hutchison
EARLIEST DATE: 1926 (recording, Frank Hutchison)
LONG DESCRIPTION: Singer asks about the train that's just left; "if I knew the number I'd flag her down." He wishes it would wreck and kill the crew; "some low rounder stole my jelly roll." He asks if there's a woman a man can trust. Chorus: "Hate that train that carried my girl from town/Hey, hey, hey"
KEYWORDS: grief jealousy loneliness infidelity sex train travel abandonment railroading floatingverses lover hate
FOUND IN: US(Ap,SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Cohen-LSRail, pp. 426-430, "The Train That Carried My Girl from Town" (1 text plus a text of Maynard Britton's "I Wish That Train Would Wreck"; 1 tune)
Roud #7027
RECORDINGS:
Frank Hutchison, "The Train That Carried the Girl from Town" (OKeh 45064, 1926) (OKeh 45111 [45114?], 1927); "Train That Carried My Girl from Town" (OKeh 45114, 1927)
Doc Watson, "The Train That Carried My Girl From Town" (on Watson01)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Hate the Train the Carried My Girl from Town
NOTES: A white blues; it's possible Hutchison composed this, but he also may have learned it from black musicians. Certainly his performance, with knife-slide guitar, sounds very African-American. - PJS
Cohen speculates that Hutchison had it from an acquaintance, Bill Hunt. It's not clear to me why Cohen lists Hunt rather than Hutchison; in any case, the song resembles other blues in that it has many floating lines. - RBW
File: RcTTCMGF

Train That Never Returned, The


DESCRIPTION: A train sets out, but "Did she ever return? No, she never returned, Though the train was due at one. For hours and hours the watchman stood waiting For the train that never returned." The song describes some of those who waited for it
AUTHOR: Music by Henry Clay Work
EARLIEST DATE: 1928 (recording, Fiddlin' John Carson)
KEYWORDS: train railroading separation death derivative
FOUND IN: US(SE,So)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Randolph 694, "The Train that Never Returned" (1 text)
BrownII 215, "The Ship That Never Returned" (1 text, filed as "c" under the parodies)
Spaeth-WeepMore, p. 139, "The Train that Never Returned" (1 text, tune referenced)
Roud #775
RECORDINGS:
Fiddlin' John Carson, "Did He Ever Return" (OKeh 45176, 1928)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Ship that Never Returned" [Laws D27] (tune & meter) and references there
cf. "The Wreck of Old 97" (tune & meter)
cf. "The Rarden Wreck of 1893" (tune & metre, theme)
cf. "The Flying Colonel" (tune)
SAME TUNE:
Whitey Johns, "The Train That Never Arrived" (Romeo 1205, 1930)
NOTES: I am assigning the Whitey Johns recording to this title, without having heard it, but I'm calling it a SAME TUNE to be on the safe(r) side. - PJS
File: R694

Train Whistle Blues


DESCRIPTION: "When a woman gets the blues, she hands her little head and cries... When a man gets the blues, he grabs a train and rides." The singer wishes the train would take him home. His whole world is blue; he can't find a job
AUTHOR: Jimmie Rodgers (but based on much traditional material)
EARLIEST DATE: 1929 (recording, Jimmie Rodgers)
KEYWORDS: train home travel
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Cohen-LSRail, pp. 452-455, "Train Whistle Blues" (1 text, 1 tune)
RECORDINGS:
Jimmie Rodgers, "Train Whisle Blues" (Victor 22379, 1930; rec. 1929)
File: LSRai452

Tramp (I), The


DESCRIPTION: The hobo has been wandering till his shoes are worn to pieces. He asks a woman for work; she replies, "Tramp, tramp, tramp, keep on a-tramping, There is nothing here for you." Everywhere he tries, he is threatened with prison if he returns
AUTHOR: Joe Hill
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (Sandburg)
KEYWORDS: work hardtimes poverty prison hobo unemployment IWW
FOUND IN: US(Ro)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Sandburg, p. 185, "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, Keep On a-Tramping" (1 text)
Darling-NAS, pp. 281-282, "The Tramp" (1 text)
Silber-FSWB, p. 52, ""The Tramp (1 text)
DT, THETRMP*
RECORDINGS:
Frank Crumit, "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, Keep On A'Tramping" (Victor V-40214, 1930)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!" (tune) and reference there
NOTES: For the life of Joe Hill, see "Joe Hill." - RBW
File: San185

Tramp (II), The


DESCRIPTION: "I'm a broken-down man without money or friends... I wisht I had never been born." The tramp reports that people constantly tell him to get a job, but none will offer a job. He recalls another tramp thrown off a train and killed on the track
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (recording, McGee Brothers); a version was printed c. 1880 in _De Marsan's Singer's Journal_
KEYWORDS: hobo death hardtimes unemployment
FOUND IN: US(MW,So) Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Cohen-LSRail, pp. 347-350, "Because He Was Only a Tramp" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Dean, p. 71, "The Tramp's Lament" (1 text)
Randolph 843, "The Tramp" (1 text, 1 tune)
Greenleaf/Mansfield 48, "Broken-Down Sport" (1 text)
Roud #4305
RECORDINGS:
Jack Edwards, "The Tramp" (Supertone 9711, 1930)
McGee Brothers, "The Tramp" (Vocalion 5171, 1927)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Remember the Poor Tramp Has to Live" (plot)
NOTES: Cohen theorizes that this started as two songs, one about a tramp who can't find work, the other about a tramp thrown from a train and killed. As evidence he prints a version which lacks the dying tramp stanzas. This seems not unlikely, but until we find a version of the song with the tramp thrown from the train *without* the other part, there isn't much point in splitting. - RBW
File: R843

Tramp (III), The


See Can I Sleep in Your Barn Tonight? (File: R841)

Tramp Song, The


See Remember the Poor Tramp Has to Live (File: RcRtPTHL)

Tramp the Bushes of Australia


See True-Born Irish Man (With My Swag All on My Shoulder; The True-Born Native Man) (File: MA062)

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, Keep On a-Tramping


See The Tramp (I) (File: San185)

Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!


DESCRIPTION: The prisoner cries as he recalls mother and home. He recalls the battle where he was taken. But then he recalls that the troops are coming, and cheers his fellows: "Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching, Cheer up comrades they will come...."
AUTHOR: George F. Root
EARLIEST DATE: 1864
KEYWORDS: Civilwar prisoner freedom
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (6 citations):
RJackson-19CPop, pp. 214-217, "Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! or The Prisoner's Hope" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber-CivWar, pp. 86-87, "Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!" (1 text, 1 tune)
Darling-NAS, pp. 347-348, "Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!" (1 text)
Silber-FSWB, p. 66, "Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!" (1 text)
Fuld-WFM, p. 588+, "Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!"
DT, TRMPTRMP*
ST RJ19214 (Full)
RECORDINGS:
S. H. Dudley, "Tramp Tramp Tramp" (Berliner 0157-Y, rec. 1898)
Frank J. Gaskin, "Tramp Tramp Tramp" (Berliner 0157-Z, rec. 1896)[
Arthur] Harlan & [Frank] Stanley, "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp" (Victor 5021, 1907) (CYL: Edison 9439, 1907) (CYL: Edison [BA] Special E [as Harlan & Stanley w. chorus], n.d.)
Frank C. Stanley, "Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!" (CYL: Edison 5002, c. 1898)
Unknown baritone "Tramp Tramp Tramp" (Berliner 0157, rec. before 1895)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Tramp (I)" (tune)
cf. "An Anti-Fenian Song" (tune)
cf. "The Bounty Jumper's Lament" (tune)
cf. "God Save Ireland" (tune)
cf. "The Salutation" (tune)
SAME TUNE:
The Wallaby Brigade (File: FaE186)
The Little Busy Bee (by William McGavin; in _The Song Wave for School and Home_, 1882)
File: RJ19214

Tramp's Lament, The


See The Tramp (II) (File: R843)

Tramp's Story, The


DESCRIPTION: The tramp asks to sit and rest. Tramps have to live, "though folks don't think we should." He used to be a blacksmith. Then a stranger led his love Nellie astray. She died soon after he abandoned her. The tramp intends to find and punish the stranger
AUTHOR: Edward Harrigan?
EARLIEST DATE: 1930
KEYWORDS: hobo love abandonment betrayal death revenge
FOUND IN: US(SE,So)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Randolph 844, "The Tramp's Story" (1 text)
BrownIII 358, "Tale of a Tramp" (1 text)
Roud #7448
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Can I Sleep In Your Barn Tonight?" (plot)
cf. "The Lehigh Valley" (plot)
cf. "Remember the Poor Tramp Has to Live" (plot)
cf. "The Deserted Husband" (theme)
NOTES: This is a difficult conundrum: It is unquestionably related to "The Lehigh Valley," with which it shares a plot and occasional words. The question is, which is original?
The natural inclination, of course, is to think that "Lehigh Valley," which is more firmly traditional and, in its crude way more vigorous, is the source. And yet, "The Tramp's Story" is *so* much more feeble that it's hard to imagine "Lehigh Valley" being expurgated so far.
It is worth noting that Brown's version contains a reference to the Lehigh Valley.
Plus, this song adds the moralizing conclusion about the girl's death. It's really a bit thick -- as any half-decent songwriter would surely recognize. So I'm just not sure.
The original by Edward Hannigan is said to be from the 1882 play "Squatter Sovereignty."
Milburn prints no fewer than six songs on this theme. Obviously the plot proved popular.
For background on Edward Harrigan, see the notes to "Babies on Our Block." - RBW
File: R844

Tramps and Hawkers


DESCRIPTION: "Come a' ye tramps and hawker lads and gaitherers o' blaw... I'll tell tae ye a rovin' tale, an' places I hae been, Far up intae the snowy north or sooth by Gretna Green." The singer describes his travels, sights he has seen, worries he hasn't had
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1909 (GreigDuncan3)
KEYWORDS: rambling
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
GreigDuncan3 487, "Come All Ye Tramps and Hawkers" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Kennedy 358, "Tramps and Hawkers" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, HAWKRS*
Roud #1874
RECORDINGS:
Jimmy MacBeath, "Come All Ye Tramps And Hawkers" (on Lomax43, LomaxCD1743, Voice20)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Davy Faa (Remember the Barley Straw)" (tune)
cf. "Paddy West" (tune)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Jolly Beggar
NOTES: This song is best known not for its banal lyrics but for its widely-recognized and used tune (also known as "Paddy West"). - RBW
Yates, Musical Traditions site Voice of the People suite "Notes - Volume 20" - 15.1.04: "It was first collected from both James Angus and James Morrison in 1909 and appears in the Greig-Duncan Collection Vol 3 p.271."
GreigDuncan3: "Hamish Henderson mentions in the notes to the record Come A' Ye Tramps and Hawkers(Collector Records,Jes 10) that the song 'is reputed to have been composed by 'Besom Jimmy,' a much travelled Angus-born hawker of the last century." - BS
Last updated in version 2.4
File: K358

Tramway Line, The


DESCRIPTION: "Men are toiling night and day" to finish the Belfast Tramway. "Red Roger he's to be a guard ... to keep people from falling out." Lord Lurgan and Lord Lieutenant Went looked it over. A Belfast girl "says she knows Red Roger" who may get her a ticket.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1989 (Leyden)
KEYWORDS: commerce humorous nonballad
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Leyden 18, "The Tramway Line" (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES: Leyden: "This song recalls the opening of [the Belfast tramway system service to Balmoral] ... in the early 1890s. It is very much in the music hall idiom with its sing-along chorus and light-hearted content."
Leyden's tune is close to that of "The Crummy Cow"/"The Bigler." SHenry p. 25, about that tune: "The air is a 'stock' Irish air to which many old songs were sung ...." Unlike the SHenry tune, Leyden's includes the chorus ("Pipe it, twig it, it is a gorgeous show...."). - BS
File: Leyd018

Tranent Muir


DESCRIPTION: "The Chevalier, being void of fear, did march up Birslie brae, man," and prepares for battle against John Cope. The battle results in a complete win for the Jacobites. Many soldiers taking part in the battle are listed.
AUTHOR: "Mr. Skirving" (source: Hogg2)
EARLIEST DATE: 1797 (Scots Musical Museum #102)
KEYWORDS: Jacobites battle moniker humorous
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Sept 21, 1745 - Battle of Prestonpans. Bonnie Prince Charlie's Highland army routs the first real Hannoverian force it encounters
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Hogg2 62, "The Battle of Prestonpans" (1 text)
DT, TRANMUIR
SAME TUNE:
Praelium Gillicrankianum (Scots Musical Museum, appendix to #102; a Latin piece along the same lines but apparently about Killiecrankie)
NOTES: Hogg2: "This popular song was made by Mr. Skirving, a Lothian farmer...."
The tune is Hogg1 17, "The Battle of Killicrankie." - BS
This has been recorded by Archie Fisher (on "The Fate o' Charlie," under the title "The Battle of Prestonpans"), so it's perhaps worth indexing.
Despite the quality of the source, I rather doubt it's traditional; I know no field recordings, and the only printed version prior to Hogg seems to be that in the Scots Musical Museum. Which is extremely long (15 8-line stanzas), and quite dull unless you're a Jacobite trying to recall all the officers at Prestonpans. Whoever chopped the song down to the length recorded by Fisher did everyone a favor.
On the other hand, the Scots Musical Museum tune isn't the same as Fisher's, so maybe there has been some oral tradition in there somewhere.
I checked three sources to try to understand the battle: Reid, pp. 29-34; Wilkinson, pp. 95-108; and Magnusson, pp. 592-596. These sources can only be reconciled by assuming that the map on p. 103 of Wilkinson is printed with north and south reversed. But the general story is clear.
In September, the newly-assembled Jacobite army arrived in Edinburgh. Even as this was happening, Lt. General John Cope was landing his force at Dunbar (Wilkinson, p. 95). Cope's force was small (Reid, p. 32, give estimates on the order of 2000 soldiers), mostly inexperienced (though many of the troops were from famous regiments, including the Black Watch, they were generally reserve companies and new formations), and ill-equipped. Still, that description applied to the Jacobite army also; they had, according to Magnusson, p. 593, "no artillery and not many muskets." Although Cope's plan to defend Edinburgh had failed, he still decided to advance.
When he learned that the Jacobite army had marched out to meet him, he took up a strong position on the road from Haddington to Edinburgh. He was on a height, and his right was protected by the sea (Firth of Forth), while his left was guarded by a broad, boggy meadow known as the Meadow or Moor of Tranent. The hamlet of Tranent was to the south of the meadow. Preston and Prestonpans, the town for which the battle was named, were west of the battle site (Prestonpans, according to Smout, pp. 102-103, earned its name because it house the [salt]-pans of Preston, which will tell you how close to the sea it is). Had the Highlanders followed the main road, they would have passed through Prestonpans to attack Cope.
Unfortunately for Cope, a local led the Jacobite army by a track through the Tranent Moor (Wilkinson, p. 100; Magnusson, p. 593). Cope learned of this early enough to reface his army east (so the map in Magnusson, p. 595) or southeast (so Wilkinson and Reid), but his positional advantage was lost. Plus the sun was in the defenders's eyes. And he didn't have enough artillery to slow a Highland Charge.
Prestonpans was hardly a battle; it was an almost instant rout. The conflict is typically said to have lasted only ten minutes (Magnusson, p. 594). It ended with Cope's entire army in flight, with the general eventually carried away himself.
The Highlanders had no cavalry with which to pursue, so Cope's losses were relatively light -- Reid, p. 38, and Magnusson, p. 594, both accept that about 150 were killed. But over a thousand were taken prisoner, and the Jacobites also picked up a fair number of muskets, Cope's handful of artillery, and some cash. Plus, of course, they gained a huge morale boost.
For more details on Prestonpans, see the notes to "Johnnie Cope."
Incidentally, the reference to Charles as a Chevalier was more than just poetry; one of his father's titles was "Chevalier de Saint George." - RBW
BibliographyLast updated in version 2.5
File: DTtranmu

Travel On (Trabel On)


DESCRIPTION: "Sister Rosy, you get to heaven before I go, Sister, you look out for me, I'm on the way, Trabel on, trabel on, you heaven-born soldier, Trabel on, trabel on, Go hear what my Jesus say."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1867 (Allen/Ware/Garrison)
KEYWORDS: religious nonballad
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Allen/Ware/Garrison, p. 31, "Travel On" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #11986
File: AWG031

Traveling Coon


See Traveling Man (Traveling Coon) (File: RcTMTC)

Traveling Man (Traveling Coon)


DESCRIPTION: Protagonist, a trickster, makes his living stealing chickens/money; he's arrested, shot, sent home for burial, but escapes his coffin, etc. Cho: "He was a travelin' man, certainly was a travelin' man/Travelin'est coon that ever come through the land..."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1919 (Brown)
LONG DESCRIPTION: The protagonist is a trickster who makes his living stealing chickens and money; he's arrested, shot, and sent home for burial, but escapes from his coffin; he sails on the Titanic, but when it sinks he's found shooting dice in Liverpool. Carrying water ten miles from a spring, he stumbles, but runs home for another bucket and catches the water before it hits the ground. Chorus: "He was a travelin' man, certainly was a travelin' man/Travelin'est coon that ever come through the land...."
KEYWORDS: rambling travel crime theft punishment resurrection burial death gambling ship wreck England humorous talltale thief
FOUND IN: US(SE,So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
BrownIII 428, "The Traveling Coon" (1 text plus mention of 1 more)
Roud #11771
RECORDINGS:
Smilie Burnett, "He Was a Travelling Man" (Perfect 13011/Melotone 13046, 1934)
Virgil Childers, "Traveling Man" (Bluebird B-7487, 1938)
Sid Harkreader, "Travelling Coon" (Paramount 3101, 1928)
Tony Hollins, "Traveling Man Blues" (OKeh 06523, 1941)
Prince Albert Hunt's Texas Ramblers, "Travelling Man" (OKeh 45446, 1930; rec. 1928)
Jim Jackson, "Traveling Man" (Victor V-38617, 1930; rec. 1928)
Coley Jones, "Traveling Man" (Columbia 14288-D, 1928; rec. 1927)
Luke Jordan, "Traveling Coon" (Victor 20957, 1927)
Charlie & Bud Newman, "The Old Travelling Man" (OKeh 45431, 1930)
Phineas [or 'Finious'] "Flat Foot" Rockmore, "Traveling Man" (AFS 3988 B1, 1940; on LomaxCD1821-2)
Dock Walsh, "Travelling Man" (Columbia 15105-D, 1926)
Washboard Sam, "Traveling Man" (Bluebird B-8761, 1941)
Henry Whitter, "Travelling Man" (OKeh 40237, 1924)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Didn't He Ramble" (lyrics)
NOTES: This was the theme song of the East Coast medicine show singer Pink Anderson. - PJS
The oldest version, in the Brown collection, bears an interesting relation to "Didn't He Ramble"; in this text, the chorus runs, "Well, he travelled and was known for miles around, And he didn't get enough, he didn't get enough Till the police shot him down." - RBW
File: RcTMTC

Traveling Shoes


DESCRIPTION: Death comes to the door of the sinner, the gambler, the Christian, etc., asking if they are "ready to go." The sinner says, "I'm not ready to go; I ain't (got/put on) my travelin' shoes." The Christian, by contrast, is ready and eager to go
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1939 (recording, Selah Jubilee Quartet)
KEYWORDS: religious death
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Courlander-NFM, p. 70, "(Got No Travellin' Shoes)" (1 text); p. 233, "Traveling Shoes" (1 tune, partial text)
Roud #10968
RECORDINGS:
Selah Jubilee Quartet, "Traveling Shoes" (Decca 7628, 1939)
Vera Hall Ward, "Travelling Shoes" (on NFMAla5)
File: CNFM070A

Travelling Candyman, The


DESCRIPTION: Singer Pat O'Flanagan sails to Glasgow, can't find work, so becomes a "candyman" -- a rag dealer. A woman accuses him of stealing her frock from the line; he denies it, and she hits him. Chorus: "For I take in old iron/I take in old bones and rags..."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1954 (recorded from Jennie Davison)
LONG DESCRIPTION: Singer, Pat O'Flanagan, sails from Belfast to Glasgow, can't find work, so as a last resort becomes a "candyman" -- a rag dealer. A woman accuses him of stealing her frock from the line; he denies it, and she hits him. Chorus: "For I take in old iron/I take in old bones and rags...My name is Pat O'Flanagan/I'm a travelling candyman"
KEYWORDS: poverty accusation violence rambling travel theft clothes commerce work worker Gypsy migrant
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Kennedy 359, "The Travelling Candyman" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #2163
RECORDINGS:
"Rich" Johnny Connors, "Rambling Candyman" (on IRTravellers01)
NOTES: Not to be confused with the American blues song "Candy Man." While ragpicking was usually considered to be a last resort among Travellers, in fact several seem to have made considerable fortunes at the trade. - PJS
The version on IRTravellers01, "made and sung by 'Rich' Johnny Connors," describes an event that happened to the singer. Instead of the frock episode, his episode is about an old man who tried to sell him a sack weighted with "bricks you could plainly see" with which he could not fool "any rambling candy man." - BS
File: K359

Travelling Down the Castlereagh


See The Castlereagh River (File: MA045)

Treadmill, The


DESCRIPTION: "The stars are rolling in the sky, The earth rolls on below, And we can feel the rattling wheel Revolving as we go." The singer urges others to take their turns at the treadmill, and praises the pleasures of life among the mill workers
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1892 (Trifet's Budget of Music)
KEYWORDS: work technology
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Randolph 497, "The Treadmill" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #7587
File: R497

Treat Me Right


DESCRIPTION: "If you treat me right, I'd sooner work than play; If you treat me mean, I won't do neither way."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1934 (Henry)
KEYWORDS: work nonballad
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
MHenry-Appalachians, pp. 197, "Treat Me Right" (1 text)
File: MHAp197

Treat My Daughter Kindly (The Little Farm)


DESCRIPTION: The singer meets and falls in love with a girl. Her father asks him to "Treat my daughter kindly, never do her harm. When I die I'll leave you my little house and farm." The two are happily married and live a contented life
AUTHOR: James Bland
EARLIEST DATE: 1878 (sheet music for "The Farmer's Daughter, or The Little Chickens in the Garden" published)
KEYWORDS: courting marriage father
FOUND IN: US(MW,NE,SE,So) Britain(England) Ireland
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Gardner/Chickering 119, "I Once Did Know a Farmer" (1 text plus an excerpt)
Randolph 668, "The Little Chickens in the Garden" (1 text plus a fragment, 1 tune)
BrownII 175, "The Farmer's Daughter" (1 text)
Warner 77, "Treat My Daughter Kindly (or, The Little Farm)" (1 text)
McBride 68, "Treat My Daughter Kindly" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST R668 (Partial)
Roud #2552
RECORDINGS:
Riley Puckett, "Farmer's Daughter" (Columbia 15686-D, 1931; rec. 1928)
Arthur Smith Trio, "The Farmer's Daughter" (Bluebird B-7893, 1938)
BROADSIDES:
NLScotland, L.C.Fol.70(62a), "The Chickens in the Garden," Poet's Box (Dundee), c. 1890
File: R668

Tree in Paradise


See All My Trials (and others) (File: FSWB359B)

Tree in the Wood (I), The


See The Rattling Bog (File: ShH98)

Tree in the Wood (II), The


See Little Bird (File: Fus089)

Tree of Liberty, The


DESCRIPTION: "Sons of Hibernia, attend to my song, Of a tree call'd th' Orange." Barbarians and Frenchmen are joined against the tree. "Hundreds they've burn'd of each sex, young and old". Exit Sheares and other traitors. "Derry down, down, traitors bow down"
AUTHOR: "by J.B. Esqu, of Lodge No. 471" (Source: Zimmermann)
EARLIEST DATE: 1798 (Zimmermann)
KEYWORDS: rebellion execution Ireland patriotic
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Zimmermann 95, "The Tree of Liberty" (1 text, 1 tune)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Brothers John and Henry Sheares" (subject of the Sheares Brothers)
cf. "Croppies Lie Down (I/II)" (tune)
NOTES: Zimmermann: "John and Henry Sheares, who were United Irishmen -- and Protestants --, were hanged in Dublin in July 1798." - BS
Very many leaders of the 1798 -- including Wolfe Tone -- were in fact Protestant; they had the education and the income to be in position to form such conspiracies. And Ireland was not yet so polarized over religion as it later became; as Robert Kee points out (see The Most Distressful Country, being Volume I of The Green Flag, p. 99):
"This whole system of torture [and repression of the rebellion] was being carried out on the Irish population largely by Irish soldiers, a great proportion of them Catholics of the poorest class in the milition, who were ready enough to do their duty against their fellow-countrymen as unworthy rebels. Of all the troops available for the government in Ireland before and during the coming rebellion, over four-fifths were Irish."
The Sheares brothers were lawyers (Kee, p. 54), who succeeded to high places in the United Irish leadership after the arrests of the initial leadership council in March 1798. They themselves were in custody on May 21 (Kee, pp. 100-101). Thus they played no real part in the rebellion, but they were hung as what we might call accessories before the fact.
In any case, they don't seem to have been very well equipped for their role; Thomas Pakenham, The Year of Liberty, p. 59, says they were "hardly the stuff to lead a revolutionary army," and they were far too trusting, bringing an informant into their confidence based simply on his taste in literature (p. 78). Maybe it was because John Sheares, at least, was given to bombast himself; Pakenham (p. 96) prints a proclamation he was found to have written at the time of his arrest, and it's way over the top.
The Liberty Tree was originally a French symbol (which in English was spread by the writings of Thomas Paine), but the idea became popular in areas governed by England; this song and "Ireland's Liberty Tree" are examples of its use in Ireland. Scotland also had Liberty Tree songs, although there is little evidence that they became traditional; for an example, see p. 109 of Kenneth Logue's article "Eighteen-Century Popular Protest: Aspects of the People's Past" in Edward J. Cowan, editor, The People's Past: Scottish Folk, Scottish History 1980 (I use the 1993 Polygon paperback edition). There are also some Liberty Tree songs in American songsters, and Jean Thomas published something we have filed as "The Liberty Tree (I)," although I again question whether these are traditional. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: Zimm095

Tree Toad, The


DESCRIPTION: "A tree toad loved a she toad... She was a three-toed tree toad, A two-toed tree toad he." The male toad courts the female because she lives in a beautiful tree. But "He couldn't please her whim... The she toad vetoed him."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1987
KEYWORDS: animal wordplay love recitation
FOUND IN: Australia
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Meredith/Covell/Brown, p. 169, "The Tree Toad" (1 text)
File: MCB169

Tree, The


See The Rattling Bog (File: ShH98)

Trees So High, The


See A-Growing (He's Young But He's Daily A-Growing) [Laws O35] (File: LO35)

Trees They Do Be High, The


See A-Growing (He's Young But He's Daily A-Growing) [Laws O35] (File: LO35)

Trees They Do Grow High, The


See A-Growing (He's Young But He's Daily A-Growing) [Laws O35] (File: LO35)

Trees They Grow So High, The


See A-Growing (He's Young But He's Daily A-Growing) [Laws O35] (File: LO35)

Trenton Town


See The Farmer and the Shanty Boy (File: Wa033)

Trial of John Twiss, The


DESCRIPTION: Twiss bids sister Jane farewell from the scaffold. He is innocent of the murder of Donovan. "Paid spies and informers, my life they swore away." At the Cork assizes he is tried, convicted, and sentenced. He blesses the mayor of Cork and other supporters.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1978 (OCanainn)
KEYWORDS: execution murder trial
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
OCanainn, pp. 44-45, "The Trial of John Twiss" (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES: OCanainn: "John Twiss from Castleisland was sentenced to death at the Cork assizes for the murder of James Donovan and was hanged in Cork in 1895." - BS
File: OCan044

Trial of Willy Reilly, The


See William (Willie) Riley (Riley's Trial) [Laws M10] (File: LM10)

Trifling Woman


DESCRIPTION: "Oh, Lord, I been working like a dog all day, Just to make another dollar for you to throw away." The husband (?) complains of his wife's profligacy; she won't cook or work, but wants fine clothes to look good in. He wishes she would leave or he would die
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1959 (Warner)
KEYWORDS: clothes husband wife poverty work
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Warner 136, "Trifling Woman" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST Wa136 (Partial)
Roud #4626
File: Wa136

Trimble's Crew


DESCRIPTION: "Oh, it's of a pair of jobbers who had a jolly time All in some old log shanty where the jobbers settle down." A disjointed song describing the work in Trimble's camp and how hard the life is: "A man who'd work for Trimble might better be in jail."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1965 (Fowke)
KEYWORDS: logger lumbering work hardtimes
FOUND IN: Canada(Ont)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Fowke-Lumbering #8, "Trimble's Crew" (1 text, tune referenced)
ST FowL08 (Partial)
Roud #4467
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Lumber Camp Song" (theme, tune)
File: FowL08

Trinity Bay Tragedy


DESCRIPTION: The small boats out sealing in Trinity Bay on February 27, 1892, are caught in wind and sleet. Some make shore at Heart's Delight the next morning but most freeze to death.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1960 (Leach-Labrador)
KEYWORDS: death fishing sea storm
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Feb 28, 1892 - the Trinity Bay tragedy
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Leach-Labrador 71, "Trinity Bay Tragedy" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ryan/Small, pp. 37-38, "Trinity Bay Tragedy" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST LLab071 (Partial)
Roud #9983
NOTES: Leach-Labrador reprints a detailed account from D. W. Prowse History of Newfoundland (London, 1896), p. 520.
Heart's Delight is on the northwest corner of the Avalon Peninsula, which is separated from the main body of Newfoundland by Trinity Bay - BS
The extent of this disaster is somewhat unclear. The Northern Shipwrecks Database says 250 men perished. Prowse's account, as cited by Leach, lists a much smaller total: 215 men out sealing, most of whom survived; 24 froze or otherwise died of exposure. - RBW
File: LLab071

Trinity Cake (Mrs. Fogarty's Cake)


DESCRIPTION: "As I leaned o'er the rail of the Eagle The letter boy brought unto me A little gilt edged invitation Saying the girls want you over to tea" for "a slice of the Trinity Cake." Everyone tries the inedible cake and "all of them swore they were poisoned"
AUTHOR: Johnny Burke ?
EARLIEST DATE: 1922 (Dean); a probable version is from the Golden Gate Songster of 1888
KEYWORDS: party food humorous moniker nonballad talltale
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf) US(MW)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Doyle3, p. 62, "Trinity Cake" (1 text, 1 tune)
Dean, pp. 43-44, "Mrs. Fogarty's Cake" (1 text)
Roud #5000
RECORDINGS:
Omar Blondahl, "Trinity Cake" (on NFOBlondahl05)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Mrs. Fogarty's Cake
Miss Fogarty's Cake
NOTES: According to GEST Songs of Newfoundland and Labrador site the author died in 1930. - BS
The above presumably refers to Johnny Burke. Given the likely songster version, I doubt Burke wrote the original. He may well have created the Newfoundland ("Trinity Cake") version. - RBW
File: Doyl3062

Trip on the Erie, A (Haul in Your Bowline)


DESCRIPTION: "You can talk about your picnics and trips on the lake, / But a trip on the Erie you bet takes the cake!" A summary of life on the Erie canal, ending with comments about the cook: "A dumpling, a pet, / And we use her for a headlight at night on the deck!"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1933 (collected from E. W. Armstrong and Edward Navin by Walton)
KEYWORDS: cook canal humorous
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1825 - Erie Canal opens (construction began in 1817)
FOUND IN: US(MA,MW) Canada(Ont)
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Walton/Grimm/Murdock, pp. 167-168, "The E-ri-o Canal" (1 text)
FSCatskills 94, "Haul in Your Bowline" (1 text+fragments, 1 tune)
Warner 35, "A Trip on the Erie" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax-ABFS, pp. 455-457, "Ballad of the Erie Canal" (1 text, composite and probably containing stanzas from other Erie Canal songs); pp. 459-463, "The Erie Canal Ballad" (8 texts, some fragmentary, most of which belong here though at least one is "The E-ri-e"); pp. 465-466, "A Trip on the Erie" (1 text)
DT, TRIPERIE*
Roud #6555
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The E-ri-e" (theme) and references there
cf. "The Erie Canal"
NOTES: The Erie Canal, as originally constructed, was a small, shallow channel which could only take barges. These vessels -- if such they could be called -- were normally hauled along by mules or, in a few cases, oxen ("horned breezes").
The Lomaxes, in American Ballad and Folk Songs, thoroughly mingled many texts of the Erie Canal songs (in fairness, some of this may have been the work of their informants -- but in any case the Lomaxes did not help the problem). One should check all the Erie Canal songs for related stanzas.
It does appear that, of all the Erie Canal songs, this is the most amorphous. The Walton text (which may also be composite) has an eight--line chorus, starting with the "Haul in your bo'lin" chorus characteristic of this song, then tacking on the "For the Erie she's a-rising" chorus of "The E-ri-e." The verses are also a mix: The crew thinks they've spotted a pirate in the fog; they hit a lump of coal; they end up in jail. I've tagged the song "humorous" mostly based on that wild text.
I really wish Walton had obtained a tune for his version. It must have been interesting.- RBW
Last updated in version 2.4
File: Wa035

Trip on the George C. Finney, A


DESCRIPTION: "Come all you bold sailors who follow the Lakes And in a canaller your living do make." The singer tells of sailing the Finney on the Great Lakes, starting in the Erie Canal and traveling up the Lakes to Chicago. Many ports are mentioned
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1933 (collected from John S. Parsons by Walton)
KEYWORDS: sailor ship travel
FOUND IN: US(MA)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Walton/Grimm/Murdock, pp. 124-125, "A Trip on the George C. Finney" (1 text)
NOTES: The notes to Walton/Grimm/Murdock think this is based on "Red Iron Ore," which it obviously resembled thematically. The difficulty is that its form is more typical of "The Dreadnought" [Laws D13]. Of course, Walton/Grimm/Murdock's version of "Red Iron Ore" seems to use the tune of "The Dreadnought." But at least one other Great Lakes version of "Red Iron Ore," Dean's, uses the Derry Down tune. So we have a complicated question of dependence here, which Walton/Grimm/Murdock ignore. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.4
File: WGM124

Trip on the Lavindy, A


DESCRIPTION: "Cone all you yoiung sailors and landlubbers too, An' listen to a song that I'll sing to you, It's about the Lavindy, the schooner of fame." The ship leaves Port Huron and heads for Mackinac. They cross the big lake (Superior) in record time
AUTHOR: probably J. Sylvester "Ves" Ray
EARLIEST DATE: 1934 (collected from "Ves" Ray by Walton)
KEYWORDS: sailor ship travel
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Walton/Grimm/Murdock, pp. 139-142, "A Trip on the Lavindy" (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES: Walton lists this as being sung to "The Cumberland Crew" [Laws A18]. However, it is not the tune I know for that song. Many "Cumberland Crew" versions are in minor, and use eight lines stanzas; "A Trip on the Lavindy" is in major, and the stanzas are four lines long. Metrically, it does match the first half of "The Cumberland Crew." - RBW
Last updated in version 2.4
File: WGM139

Trip on the Schooner Kolfage, A


DESCRIPTION: "We shipped aboard the Kolfage at Chatham, County Kent, The fourth day of October, for Johnson's Harbor bent. Commanded by MacDonald...." The Vick takes her onto the lake. They bump a sreamer, then win a race with it. The singers quit the ship.
AUTHOR: Jack MacCosh and Herb Pettigrew?
EARLIEST DATE: 1934 (collected from John MacDonald b Walton)
KEYWORDS: ship sailor separation
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Walton/Grimm/Murdock, pp. 147-149, "A Trip on the Schooner Kolfage" (1 text)
NOTES: According to John "Red" MacDonald, his father Captain John MacDonald, when short-handed, had brought in the two untrained men, Jack MacCosh and Herb Pettigrew, to help man the Kolfage. They soon wanted out, but were not permitted to leave the ship until they composed this song. One wonders what they would have written had they not been trying to butter up Captain MacDonald. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.4
File: WGM147

Trip Over the Mountain, The


DESCRIPTION: The singer comes to his girlfriend's door at midnight. He asks if she will come with him over the mountain. (After some hesitation,) she consents; they sneak off while her parents are still asleep. She never regrets her decision
AUTHOR: Hugh McWilliams (source: Moulden-McWilliams)
EARLIEST DATE: 1831 (according to Moulden-McWilliams)
KEYWORDS: courting elopement
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (3 citations):
SHenry H161a+b, pp. 459-460, "I'm from over the Mountain" (1 text, 1 tune)
Tunney-SongsThunder, pp. 27-28, "The Trip We Took Over the Mountain" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: John Moulden, Songs of Hugh McWilliams, Schoolmaster, 1831 (Portrush,1993), p. 9, "The Trip o'er the Mountain"
Roud #9632
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 11(2794), "The Truelover's Trip O'er the Mountain" ("One night as the moon illumined the sky"), H. Such (London),1863-1885; also Firth c.18(281), 2806 c.15(129), Harding B 19(92), 2806 b.9(262), "The Truelover's Trip O'er the Mountain"; Firth c.14(377), Harding B 17(319a), "Trip O'er the Mountain"
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Come With Me Over the Mountain
NOTES: The Bodleian broadsides do not agree on some interesting details. She says, in considering elopement, that "it might be attended with danger": her friends or parents would frown. Then, what happened after the trip over the mountain to "the alter of Hymen"?
So now in contentment we spend the long day,
Tho' the anger of marriage was soon blown away,
We oftimes chat when we've little to say,
On the trip we took over the mountain. [Harding B 11(2794), Firth c.18(281), 2806 c.15(129), Harding B 19(92), 2806 b.9(262)]
or
The danger of marriage was soon blown to an end,
And often times talk when with a friend. [Firth c.14(377)]
or
And the pleasure of it is not soon stole away; [Harding B 17(319a)]
but
The anger of parents it soon wore away [Tunney-SongsThunder]
Moulden-McWilliams' original has "the anger of marriage...." and, quoting a local source, speculates "that McWilliams' wife married without parental blessing...." - BS
File: HHH161B

Trip to the Grand Banks, A


DESCRIPTION: When spring comes, "The Penobscot boys are anxious their money for to earn." They set out for the Grand Banks and send out their dories. They persist through summer, despite bad conditions; at last they get to head for home
AUTHOR: Amos Hanson ?
EARLIEST DATE: 1932
KEYWORDS: ship fishing work
FOUND IN: US(NE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Doerflinger, pp. 179-180, "A Trip to the Grand Banks" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #9430
RECORDINGS:
Omar Blondahl, "Off to the Grand Banks" (on NFOBlondahl04)
NOTES: Blondahl04 has no liner notes confirming that this song was collected in Newfoundland. Barring another report for Newfoundland I do not assume it has been found there. There is no entry for "A Trip to the Grand Banks" in Newfoundland Songs and Ballads in Print 1842-1974 A Title and First-Line Index by Paul Mercer. - BS
File: Doe179

Triplett Tragedy, The


DESCRIPTION: On Christmas the Triplett brothers are drinking Marshall Triplett's wife tries to stop a fight, but Lum Triplett stabs him to death. Lum meets Marshall's son Gran and confesses. Gran beats him; he dies. Gran is sentenced to 18 months on the chain gang.
AUTHOR: Lyrics: Ed Miller/tune: traditional
EARLIEST DATE: 1962 (recorded by Sophronie Miller)
LONG DESCRIPTION: On Christmas the Triplett brothers are drinking together when a fight breaks out. Marshall Triplett's wife tries to stop them, but Lum Triplett stabs him to death. Lum goes away, intending to surrender, but he meets Marshall's son Gran, a deputy, and confesses the murder. Gran beats him severely and takes him to jail, where his injuries become inflamed and he dies. The brothers are buried together; Gran is arrested and sentenced to 18 months on the chain gang. Listeners are warned about the perils of drink
KEYWORDS: fight violence abuse crime murder law prison punishment revenge death drink brother family
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Dec. 25, 1909: Marshall Triplett of Elk, NC is stabbed to death by his brother, Columbus (Lum) Triplett during a fight over whiskey. Lum attempts to surrender to Marshall's son Granville, a deputy; despite Lum's pleas for mercy and refusal to fight back, Granville beats and kicks him and takes him to the jail at Boone, where he dies, either as a result of his injuries or possibly from a heart attack.
Mar. 20, 1910: After Sophronie Triplett, Lum's widow, testifies that her husband was subject to heart trouble, which might have caused his death rather than the beating, Granville Triplett is sentenced to 18 months on the chain gang; he seems to have served only 3 months of his sentence.
FOUND IN: US(SE)
RECORDINGS:
Sophronie Miller, "The Triplett Tragedy" (on Watson01)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Claude Allen" (tune)
NOTES: The singer, Sophronie Miller, was the widow of Columbus Triplett; this is the only ballad of which I'm aware that was verifiably collected from one of the principals in the story it relates. - PJS
I don't know if this is the Ed(ward B.) Miller who is also credited with "The Rich Man and Lazarus," but time and place make it possible. - RBW
File: RcTripTra

Tripping Over the Lea [Laws P19]


DESCRIPTION: The singer sees a pretty girl on a (May) morning. (Even though she is very young,) he seduces her, then tells her he has no interest in marriage. She is left alone to await the birth of her baby.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1839 (Scots Musical Museum)
KEYWORDS: seduction pregnancy abandonment age
FOUND IN: Ireland Britain(England(South))
REFERENCES (6 citations):
Laws P19, "Tripping Over the Lea"
SHenry H794, pp. 385-386, "Under the Shade of a Bonny Green Tree" (1 text, 1 tune)
OLochlainn-More 10, "The Bonny Green Tree" (1 text, 1 tune)
McBride 12, "The Bonnie Green Tree" (1 text, 1 tune)
MacSeegTrav 69, "The Bonnie Green Tree" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT 501, AEMAYMRN
Roud #2512
RECORDINGS:
Louis Killen, "One May Morning" (on BirdBush2)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Willie Archer (The Banks of the Bann)" (plot)
File: LP19

Trois Mois d'Campagne (Three Months in the Country)


DESCRIPTION: French. Three months in the country, I'll never do more. My wife is drunk and I have more to drink. Chorus: "P'tits pois, p'tits pois fayot, c'est la musique, sique, sique, c'est la musique tchqu'emploi" meaning "Peas, bean peas, the music of work"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1959 (Peacock)
KEYWORDS: foreignlanguage drink food humorous nonballad
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Peacock, p. 799, "Trois Mois d'Campagne" (1 text, 1 tune)
File: Pea799

Trois Navires de Ble (Three Wheat Ships)


DESCRIPTION: French. Three wheat ships are blown to land. The youngest daughter of the king asks a sailor the price of wheat. She asks him to give up sailing and play here with her. She says she hears her children crying. He says she has no children yet.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1972 (Lehr/Best)
KEYWORDS: foreignlanguage courting bargaining sea ship shore storm sailor food
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Lehr/Best 111, "Trois Navires de Ble" (1 text, 1 tune)
File: LeBe111

Trooper and Maid [Child 299]


DESCRIPTION: A trooper comes to a girl's door and convinces her to sleep with him. In the morning he is called to the colors; she follows and begs him to return or let her come with him. He will not let her come and will not promise to return
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1828 (Buchan)
KEYWORDS: courting soldier abandonment
FOUND IN: Britain(England(West),Scotland(Aber,Bord,High)) Ireland Canada US(Ap,MW,NE,SE,So)
REFERENCES (18 citations):
Child 299, "Trooper and Maid" (4 texts, 1 tune) {Bronson's #3}
Bronson 299, "Trooper and Maid" (27 versions)
SharpAp 45, "The Trooper and the Maid" (3 short texts, 3 tunes) {Bronson's #11, #12, #10}
BarryEckstormSmyth pp. 371-373, "The Trooper and the Maid" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #14}
Randolph 41, "A Soldier Rode From the East to the West" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #8}
Randolph-Legman I, pp. 209-212, "A Soldier Rode" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Davis-Ballads 51, "Trooper and Maid" (2 texts, 1 tune entitled "The Trooper and Maid") {Bronson's #16}
Davis-More 46, pp. 356-360, "Trooper and Maid" (1 fragment, probably this but short enough that it might be something else)
BrownII 49, "Trooper and Maid" (1 text)
Brewster 27, "Trooper and Maid" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #9}
Leach, pp. 684-686, "The Trooper and Maid" (1 text)
Kennedy 121, "As I Roved Out" (1 text, 1 tune)
GreigDuncan7 1470, "The Trooper and the Fair Maid" (5 texts, 3 tunes) {A=Bronson's #7, B=#2, C=#4}
GreigDuncan8 1852, "I'm Nae Awa" (1 fragment)
Ord, pp. 365-366, "The Trumpet Sounds at Burreldales; or, The Trooper and the Maid" (1 short text)
Niles 65, "Trooper and Maid" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Silber-FSWB, p. 161, "The Trooper And The Maid" (1 text)
DT 299, TROOPRMD (TROOPRM2*) LGHTDRAG
Roud #162
RECORDINGS:
Harry List, "The Light Drag'on" (on FSB2, FSB2CD)
Dillard Chandler, "The Soldier Traveling from the North" (on OldLove)
Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, "The Trooper and the Maid" (on SCMacCollSeeger01) {the text is Bronson's #18, but the tune is different}
Jimmy McBeath, "The Trooper and the Maid" (on FSB5 [as "The Trooper Lad"], FSBBAL2) {Bronson's #17}
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "I Love My Love (I) (As I Cam' Owre Yon High High Hill)" (lyrics)
cf. "Ung Sjoman Forlustar Sig, En (A Young Seaman Enjoys Himself)" (theme)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Trooper and the Maid
The Bugle Britches
The Bugle Boy
The Soldier and His Lady
The Soldier Travelling From the North
NOTES: Randolph's are the first bawdy versions of the venerable ballad to see the light of print. - EC
Many versions of this have mixed with the "Seventeen Come Sunday" [Laws O17], the result may be known as "As I Roved Out" (so, e.g., the version in Kennedy), and you should probably check the references under both songs. It is often difficult to decide where to file such a piece (indeed, I managed to file the Kennedy text under both songs!). - RBW
Verse 3 of Child 299.B and verse 9 of Child 299.D is close to Opie-Oxford2 180, "Wine and cakes for gentlemen" (earliest date in Opie-Oxford2 is 1898)
Child 299.D: "Bread and cheese for gentlemen, An corn and hay for horses, Pipes and tobacco for auld wives, And bonnie lads for lasses." [For this see also Baring-Gould-MotherGoose #173, p. 127, ("Cheese and bread for gentlemen") -- though they describe it as "a fragment of a harvest song." The Opies say Crofton had a Welsh equivalent but do not give any additional information. - RBW]
Opie-Oxford2 180: "Wine and cakes for gentlemen, Hay and corn for horses, A cup of ale for good old wives, And kisses for young lasses." - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: C299

Trooper and the Fair Maid, The


See Trooper and Maid [Child 299] (File: C299)

Trooper and the Tailor, The


DESCRIPTION: The trooper is away on duty, so his wife goes to bed with the tailor. When their business is done, they go to sleep. When the trooper shows up, the tailor hides in a cabinet. The chilly trooper wants to burn the cabinet, and finds the hidden tailor.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1889
KEYWORDS: infidelity husband wife soldier humorous hiding
FOUND IN: US(MA) Britain(England(South,Lond),Scotland(Aber)) Canada(Newf) Ireland
REFERENCES (10 citations):
FSCatskills 139, "The Trooper and the Tailor" (1 text, 1 tune)
GreigDuncan7 1463, "The Bold Trooper" (4 texts, 3 tunes)
Copper-SoBreeze, pp. 270-271, "The Trooper" (1 text, 1 tune)
Kennedy 200, "The Game-Cock" (1 text, 1 tune)
Morton-Ulster 45, "The Wee Croppy Tailor" (1 text, 1 tune)
Morton-Maguire 50, pp. 144-145,174-175, "The Wee Croppy Tailor" (1 text, 1 tune)
Peacock, pp. 243-248, "The Bold Trooper" (3 texts, 3 tunes)
Leach-Labrador 116, "Tiddy, the Tailor" (1 text, 1 tune)
PBB 86, "The Bold Trooper" (1 text)
DT, TRPRTAIL*
Roud #311
RECORDINGS:
Nora Cleary, "The Bold Trooper" (on Voice06)
Harry Cox, "The Groggy Old Tailor" (on HCox01)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, 2806 c.17(414), "Tailor and Trooper," unknown, n.d.
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Boatsman and the Chest" [Laws Q8] (plot) and references there
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Cropped Tailor
NOTES: This and similar songs are sometimes traced back to a story in Boccaccio (seventh day, second story: Gianella, Peronella, and her husband). But the story is really one of the basic themes of folktale, and doubtless predates Boccaccio as well as these songs. - RBW
The Morton-Ulster text ends when the trooper "caught hold of the tailor just by the two ears, And he clean cut them off with his own little shears...." That explains that text's title: "The Wee Croppy Tailor." Notes to IRClare01 give as one of the explanations of the politically charged term "Croppy," "the practice of punishing convicted felons by cutting off the tops of their ears." - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: FSC139

Trooper and the Turk, The


See John Thomson and the Turk [Child 266] (File: C266)

Trooper Cut Down in His Prime, The


DESCRIPTION: The singer sees a trooper "wrapped up in flannel yet colder than clay." He dies as "the bugles were playin'," and details of the burial are given. His gravestone warns, "Flash-girls of the city have quite ruined me."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1979
KEYWORDS: death disease whore burial funeral soldier
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Darling-NAS, p. 6, "The Trooper Cut Down In His Prime" (1 text)
Roud #2
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Streets of Laredo" [Laws B1] (tune & meter, plot) and references there
cf. "The Unfortunate Rake" (tune & meter, plot)
cf. "The Bad Girl's Lament (St. James' Hospital; The Young Girl Cut Down in her Prime)" [Laws Q26] (tune & meter, plot)
cf. "The Sailor Cut Down in His Prime" (tune & meter, plot)
NOTES: One of the large group of ballads ("The Bard of Armagh," "Saint James Hospital," "The Streets of Laredo") ultimately derived from "The Unfortunate Rake." All use the same or similar tunes and meter, and all involve a person dying as a result of a wild life, but the nature of the tragedy varies according to local circumstances. - RBW
File: DarNS006

Trooper Watering His Nag, The


DESCRIPTION: Euphemistically, a man and a woman describe their sexual organs as a horse (pony) and a fountain. The horse drinks at the fountain, "An' I reckon you know what I mean."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1992 (Legman); the concept is found in 1707 (_Pills to Purge Melancholy_, v.iii p. 55, according to Farmer)
KEYWORDS: sex bawdy
FOUND IN: Canada Britain(England) US(MA,So)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Randolph-Legman I, pp. 44-52, "The Trooper Watering His Nag" (9 texts, 2 tunes)
Gilbert, p. 71, "You Know Very Well What I Mean" (1 partial text)
DT, TROOPNAG* TRPHORSE*
Roud #1613
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Shoemaker's Kiss" (chorus lyrics)
cf. "Ye Ken Pretty Well What I Mean, O" (lyrics, style)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
I Reckon You Know What I Mean
NOTES: I'm tempted to lump this with "Ye Ken Pretty Well What I Mean, O" -- the lyric and sly tone are obviously quite close. But Roud and Ben Schwartz both leave them separate, so I am very tentatively doing the same. But almost all authorities seem to confuse them somehat; you had better see both songs. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: RL044

Trooper, The


See The Trooper and the Tailor (File: FSC139)

Trouble for the Range Cook (The Chuck Wagon's Stuck)


DESCRIPTION: "Come wrangle your broncos and saddle them quick, For the chuck wagon's boggin' down there by the crick." The riders make every effort to free the wagon, for "There's nothing to eat when the chuck wagon's mired."
AUTHOR: Earl Alonzo Brinistool
EARLIEST DATE: 1914
KEYWORDS: cowboy food disaster cook
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Ohrlin-HBT 98, "The Chuck Wagon's Stuck" (1 text, 1 tune)
Saffel-CowboyP, p. 114, "Trouble For The Range Cook" (1 text)
File: Ohr098

Trouble in Mind


DESCRIPTION: "Troubled in mind, I'm blue, but I won't be blue always; The sun's gonna shine in my back do' some day." "I'm gonna lay my head on some lonesome railroad line...." "I love all you pretty women, I love you all the same...."
AUTHOR: Richard Jones
EARLIEST DATE: 1926 (copyright)
KEYWORDS: courting hardtimes floatingverses
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Lomax-FSNA 313, "Troubled in Mind" (1 text, 1 tune)
RECORDINGS:
Bertha "Chippie" Hill, "Trouble in Mind" (OKeh 8312, 1926/Conqueror 8937, 1937; Vocalion 04379, 1938) (Circle J-1003, n.d.) (Vocalion 1248, 1929)
Roscoe Holcomb, "Trouble in Mind" (on Holcomb-Ward1, HolcombCD1)
Karl Jones, "Trouble in Mind" (Mercury 2002, 1945)
R. M. Jones: "Trouble in Mind" (Bluebird B-6569, 1936; Bluebird B-6963, 1937)
Lone Star Cowboys, "Trouble in Mind" (Decca 5340, 1937)
Jane Lucas [pseud. for Victoria Spivey] "Trouble in Mind" (Vocalion 03346, 1936)
Lucky Millinder & his Orch.; Rosetta Tharpe, vocalist, "Trouble in Mind" (Decca 48053, rec. 1941)
Jesse Rodgers, "Troubled in Mind and Blue" (Bluebird B-6924, 1937)
Georgia White, "Trouble in Mind" (Decca 7192, 1936), "Trouble in Mind Swing" (Decca 7521, 1938)
Bob Wills & his Texas Playboys, "Trouble in Mind" (Vocalion 03343, 1936; Columbia 20109, n.d.; Conqueror 9041, 1938; Columbia 37306, 1947)
SAME TUNE:
Jack & Lesllie, "Trouble in Mind #3" (Decca 5561, 1938)
Shelton Brothers, "New Trouble in Mind" (Decca 5339, 1937)
Georgia White, "New Trouble in Mind" (Decca 7332, 1937)
File: LoF313

Trouble of the World, The


DESCRIPTION: "I want to be my Father's children (x3), Roll, Jordan, roll." "Ah, say, ain't you done with the trouble of the world (x3), Roll, Jordan, roll." "I ask my father how long I held them (x3), held them to the end." "My sins are so heavy I can't get along...."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1867 (Allen/Ware/Garrison)
KEYWORDS: religious nonballad sin
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Allen/Ware/Garrison, p. 8, "The Trouble of the World" (1 text, 1 tune plus a (partial?) variant)
Roud #11855
NOTES: Allen, Ware, and Garrison admit that it is "impossible to represent in notes" the strange timing of this piece. I suspect it is sort of a patter song inspired by "Roll, Jordan, Roll." - RBW
Last updated in version 2.4
File: AWG008

Troubled in Mind


See Trouble in Mind (File: LoF313)

Troubled In My Mind


DESCRIPTION: "I'm troubled (x3) in my mind; If (trouble doesn't kill me, I'll live a long long time.") Remainder is mostly floating verses: "My cheeks were as red as the red blooming rose." "I'll build me a cabin on the mountain so high." "I'm sad and I'm lonely."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (Brown)
KEYWORDS: nonballad loneliness floatingverses
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Lomax-FSNA 102, "I'm Troubled" (1 text, 1 tune)
Greenway-AFP, pp. 98-99, "I'm Troubled In Mind"
BrownIII 290, "Troubled in Mind" (2 texts); also 250, "The Wagoner's Lad" (3 texts plus 3 fragments; the texts "A"-"C" are "The Wagoner's Lad," and "D" has an associated verse, but "E" and "F" are fragments of a love song, perhaps "Farewell, Charming Nancy" or "Omie Wise," both of which have similar lyrics; "D" also shares this single verse, and "E" adds a "Troubled in Mind" chorus); also 443, "I Had a Banjo Made of Gold," a fragment of this song or something related)
Roud #12091
RECORDINGS:
Blue Sky Boys, "I'm Troubled, I'm Troubled" (Bluebird B-6538, 1936)
Rufus Crisp, "Trouble on my Mind" (on Crisp01)
Doc Watson & Arnold Watson, "I'm Troubled, I'm Troubled" (on Watson01)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "I'm Sad and I'm Lonely" (floating verses)
cf. "Going Across the Sea" (floating verses)
cf. "I Wish That Girl Was Mine" (theme, floating lyrics)
NOTES: Other than the tune, and perhaps the first verse, the Lomax text seems to be composed entirely of floating verses from songs such as "The Wagoner's Lad (On Top of Old Smokey)" and "The Cuckoo." But it has so many floating lyrics that it can hardly be associated with any particular song. (Plus Paul Stamler tells me it's quite similar to Rufus Crisp's version.) And the Brown texts, of impeccable ancestry, is also composed mostly of floating material. - RBW
File: LoF102

Troubled Soldier, The


See The Rebel Soldier (File: R246)

Troubles of Marriage, The


See Marriage Causes Trouble (File: GrD1071)

Troubles, The


DESCRIPTION: Orange and Green fight. "Corney" ended the terror; Humbert ended peace. "Orange for Croppies went grousing." "Paddies completely divided" let John Bull adopt Union: "I'll take from them Commons and Peers" leaving "shackles and chains to the slave"
AUTHOR: James Hope (?-1847) (source: Moylan)
EARLIEST DATE: 1887 (Madden's _Literary Remains of the United Irishmen of 1798_, according to Moylan)
KEYWORDS: rebellion Ireland nonballad political
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
May-June 1798 - Irish rebellion against British rule
June 1798-March 1801 - Cornwallis is Viceroy of Ireland after the uprising (source: "Charles Cornwallis" at the site of the Grand [Masonic] Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon)
August-September 1798 - A French force under General Jean-Joseph-Amable Humbert lands in Ireland and is defeated.
January 1801 - Act of Union of Ireland and Great Britain
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Moylan 148, "The Troubles" (1 text)
NOTES: "This piece ... was written by Jemmy Hope, one of the Northern United Irish leaders. Hope survived the rising and died in 1847."
The ballad makes a hero of Cornwallis as viceroy and commander-in-chief sent to Ireland to keep the peace after the 1798 uprising. Then it blames the Orangemen for the revival of terror after Humbert's defeat. After discussing Union it retells Aesop's fable in which a fox [England] steals the prize [Ireland] for which a lion and bear [Orange and Green] fight. It ends with a sarcastic tribute to "our gracious good monarch ... And also our free Constitution, And shackles and chains to the slave." - BS
Lord Lieutenant Camden, who was in charge in Ireland when the 1798 rebellion started, had no idea what to do. The British came up with a typically bad compromise: They put the dreadful General Lake in charge of the army, but appointed Cornwallis to be Lord Lieutenant.
Despite his failure in America (for which see "Lord Cornwallis's Surrender"), Cornwallis had done good service in the fifteen years prior to his appointment; he had spent six years in India, and had demonstrated (and would demonstrate again in Ireland) that he had none of the self-importance of the typical British politician (Pakenham, p. 263-264).
Cornwallis was clearly more humane than most of the alternatives. Fry/Fry, p. 206, write that "He overrode Lake: troops were certainly not to be let loose on the countryside and there would be no punishment without trial."
He also issued written pardons (called "Cornys") to rank and file rebels who surrendered quickly (Kee, p. 123)
When Humbert invaded, Cornwallis organized the pursuit that captured him (Fry/Fry, p. 207; Kee, p. 140).
Cornwallis and his secretary Lord Castlereigh also helped arrange the Act of Union, but this was based on Orders From On High. His personal feelings were very different: "I despise and hate myself for every hour engaging in such work" (Golway, p. 90; Kee, p. 159). But he and (especially) Castlereigh bought enough Irish peers to eventually pass Union (Fry/Fry, p. 211).
The religious conflicts in Ulster to which this song refers actually began even before 1798; see such songs about the Defenders, the Peep o' Day Boys, and the Orangemen as "The Noble Ribbon Boys," "Bold McDermott Roe," "The Boys of Wexford," and "Lisnagade."
Most of the sources I checked do not mention James Hope, but he is all over the pages of Smyth. He is said (p. 30) to have had only 15 weeks of formal schooling. In 1796, he travelled from Belfast to Dublin to spread the United Irish messaage (p. 152), and also visited Armagh, Monaghan, Cavan, and Leitrim (p.158) to bring the Defenders into the United framework. After the arrests of 1796-1797 he became one of the few remaining United Irish leaders coordinating the activities of the various local chapters (p. 160); perhaps his travels made him harder to catch. It appears that Smyth regards him as a radical inclined toward socialism (p. 165).
OxfordCompanion lists Hope's birth date as 1764, and says hewrote his memoris in 1843; they were published in 1846. It does not know his death date; it appears that Moylan's date is a conjecture from the fact that Hope was still alive when the memoirs were published, but he made little further impression on history. - RBW
BibliographyLast updated in version 2.5
File: Moyl148

True and Trembling Brakeman, The


See The Dying Mine Brakeman (The True and Trembling Brakeman) [Laws G11] (File: LG11)

True Love


See Oxford City [Laws P30] (File: LP30)

True Love from the Eastern Shore


DESCRIPTION: Singer tells sweetheart who spurned him/her that s/he "would not serve you as you served me." Singer plans to mourn and weep, and tells sweetheart to grieve over his/her tombstone. (Singer vows to "court the girl, the old lady ain't in")
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1918 (Cecil Sharp collection)
KEYWORDS: courting rejection death mourning burial lover
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
SharpAp 187, "True Love from the Eastern Shore" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Roud #3610
NOTES: Sharp's "A" version doesn't define the sex of the singer or sweetheart. The "B" version is a fragment, which doesn't really overlap the "A" version; Sharp may have been using this as a catchall. - PJS
File: ShAp2187

True Lover of Mine, A


See The Elfin Knight [Child 2] (File: C002)

True Lover's Farewell (II)


See My Dearest Dear (File: SKE40)

True Lover's Farewell, The


See Who Will Shoe Your Pretty Little Foot (plus related references, e.g. The Lass of Roch Royal [Child 76]) (File: C076A)

True Lovers' Departure, The


See The Noble Duke [Laws N15] (File: LN15)

True Lovers' Discoursion, The


See The Two Lovers' Discussion (U) (File: HHH164)

True Lovers' Discussion (I), The


DESCRIPTION: The boy asks the girl why she has changed her mind about him. She explains. He offers counter-arguments, elaborately reasoned. They quarrel. He prepares to leave her. She grows sad and begs him to stay.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1901 (O'Conor); before 1900 (broadside, Bodleian Harding B 19(102))
KEYWORDS: love courting rejection accusation
FOUND IN: Ireland Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
SHenry H164, pp. 362-364, "The True Lovers' Discussion" (1 text, 1 tune)
Creighton-SNewBrunswick 39B, "The True Lovers' Discoursion" (1 text, 1 tune)
Manny/Wilson 96, "The True Lovers' Discussion" (1 text, 1 tune)
O'Conor, pp. 77-79, "The True Lover's Discussion" (1 text)
ST HHH164 (Partial)
Roud #2948
RECORDINGS:
Robert Cinnamond, "The True-Lover's Discussion" (on IRRCinnamond02)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 19(102), "The True Lover's Discussion," J.F. Nugent & Co. (Dublin), 1850-1899; also 2806 b.9(228)[some words illegible], 2806 c.15(65), 2806 c.15(43)[many illegible words], "[The] True Lover's Discussion"
NOTES: The notes to Sam Henry credit it to a "schoolteacher M'Kittrick," at a date before 1860, and it certainly seems likely enough that it is composed. But I cannot prove the authorship.
The notes to Henry/Huntington/Herrmann list several other versions of this song, so I suppose it must have had some oral currency. But I can't believe it really had much popularity (despite Sam Henry's claims that he had many requests). It is dense, talkative, repetitive, foolish, and *long* (18 8-line stanzas in the Henry text, 20 8-line stanzas in Creighton and in Manny/Wilson). It is also much too fond of elaborate words to be a good folk song.
I wonder if Henry wasn't confusing this with "Two Lovers Discoursing" [Laws O22] (a confusion Creighton also suffered; see Ben Schwartz's note); they share a title, and a theme, but the forms are utterly different. - RBW
Creighton-SNewBrunswick: "There must be some relation between 39A and B. The former seems to have originated with the folk and the latter to have been a literary composition taken over by the folk. They are placed together because of subject matter and also because singers give variants of the same title." If so they have grown so far apart that there is no hint in the words that they are related. For 39A see "Two Lovers Discoursing" [Laws O22].
On IRRCinnamond02, Cinnamond sings the first two and last verse [of "32"] that are very close to SHenry H164. He points out that the last verse claims "In Magheratimpan [near Ballynahinch], if you inquire, you will find the author of these simple lines"; that corresponds to the note in SHenry about authorship. - BS
File: HHH164

True Lovers' Discussion (II), The


See Two Lovers Discoursing [Laws O22] (File: LO22)

True Paddy's Song, The


See The Kerry Recruit [Laws J8] (File: LJ08)

True Sweetheart, The


See Pretty Fair Maid (The Maiden in the Garden; The Broken Token) [Laws N42] (File: LN42)

True Tale of Robin Hood, A [Child 154]


DESCRIPTION: The Earl of Huntington, incomparable archer, consumes his wealth and is outlawed due to indebtedness to an abbot. Renamed Robin Hood, he is cruel to clergy and kind to the poor. Several adventures and his death by bloodletting are recounted.
AUTHOR: Martin Parker
EARLIEST DATE: 1632 (Stationer's Register entry, which in this case we can be sure applies to this ballad)
KEYWORDS: Robinhood poverty outlaw clergy death
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1198 - ninth year of Richard I, which the cover of the broadsheet reports as Robin's death date
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Child 154, "A True Tale of Robin Hood" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Stephen Knight and Thomas Ohlgren, editors, _Robin Hood and Other Oudlaw Tales_, TEAMS (Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages), Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 2000, pp. 602-625, "A True Tale of Robin Hood" (1 text,based primarily on the Bodleian broadside of c. 1632)
Roud #3996
NOTES: For background on the Robin Hood legend, see the notes on "A Gest of Robyn Hode" [Child 117].
The Martin Parker who wrote this also, somewhat later, wrote "When the King Enjoys His Own Again." The latter was a better piece, but that's only because this is both banal in content and dreadful in form. Parker also wrote about King Arthur and Saint George, no doubt with equal (lack of) insight. It is ironic that his tale provides a great mass of circumstantial detail -- but circumstantial detail based on late sources or pure imagination.
The publisher's blurb on this promises "Truth purged from falsehood." I suppose that's true: Parker took every old, valuable, true element of the Robin Hood legend, and purged it, leaving all the falsehood to be read by gullible buyers. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: C154

True Tammas


See Tam Lin [Child 39] (File: C039)

True Thomas


See Thomas Rymer [Child 37] (File: C037)

True to the Gray


See The Southern Girl's Reply (True to the Gray) (File: Wa156)

True-Born Irish Man (With My Swag All on My Shoulder; The True-Born Native Man)


DESCRIPTION: The singer arrives in (Australia/Philadelphia) from Ireland and sets out to ramble. The girls rejoice at his presence. (A tavern-keeper's daughter) is scolded by her mother for wanting to follow him. She is determined to do so anyway
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1839 (broadside, Bodleian Harding B 11(3353))
KEYWORDS: rambling emigration mother courting
FOUND IN: Australia US(MA,MW) Ireland Canada(Mar) Britain(England(Lond,South),Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (12 citations):
Meredith/Anderson, pp. 62, 122, "Dennis O'Reilly"; p. 138, "Tramp the Bushes of Australia" (3 texts, 3 tunes)
FSCatskills 126, "The Roving Irishman" (1 text, 1 tune)
Dean, pp.124-125, "The Roving Irishman" (1 text)
Fahey-Eureka, pp. 76-77, "Denis O'Reilly" (1 text, 1 tune)
GreigDuncan7 1397, "Scrogie's Bell" (1 fragment)
Kennedy 353, "The Roving Journeyman" (1 text, 1 tune)
Manifold-PASB, pp. 36-37, "With My Swag All on My Shoulder (Denis O'Riley)" (1 text, 1 tune)
Paterson/Fahey/Seal, pp. 125-127, "With My Swag All On My Shoulder" (1 text)
Smith/Hatt, pp. 86-88, "The Rambling Irishman" (1 text)
Creighton-SNewBrunswick 15, "The Roving Journeyman" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, DENNOREI* ROVJOURN*
ADDITIONAL: Roger Elbourne, Music and Tradition in Early Industrial Lancashire 1780-1840 (Totowa, 1980), p. 74, "The Roving Journeyman" (fragment)
Roud #360
RECORDINGS:
Paddy Doran, "The Roving Journeyman" (on FSB3)
Tom Willett, "The Roaming Journeyman" (on Voice20)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 11(3353), "Roving Journeyman," J. Catnach (London), 1813-1838; also Harding B 11(1229), Harding B 11(1479), Johnson Ballads 2807, Harding B 11(3354), Harding B 11(3355), 2806 b.11(33), Firth c.18(249), Harding B 11(3352), Harding B 11(804), 2806 d.31(40), Harding B 11(1228), 2806 b.11(203), Firth c.26(218), Harding B 25(1671), "[The] Roving Journeyman"
LOCSinging, sb40459b, "The Roving Journeyman," J. Andrews (New York), 1853-1859
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Roving Gambler (The Gambling Man)" [Laws H4] (plot)
cf. "The Union Boy" (floating lyrics)
cf. "Neuve Chappelle" (tune, form)
SAME TUNE:
Neuve Chappelle (File: HHH526)
NOTES: The popular version of this piece, "With My Swag All on My Shoulder," is by A.B. "Banjo" Paterson, but the song appears to be older. Perhaps more characteristic than any particular plot is the second half of the first verse, which often becomes a chorus:
With my (swag/bundle) on my shoulder,
My (stick/billy) in my hand,
I'll travel round (the country/Australia/etc.)
(Like/I'm) a (true-born Irishman/true-born native man/roving journeyman). - RBW
The Elbourne fragment is from a weaver version of "The Roving Jouneyman."
The GreigDuncan7 fragment is from a navvy version of "The Roving Journeyman." It is tempting to make this a separate version on the assumption that navvies modified the more common song for their own use, but the songs are too close to support the split. The fragment begins "I hadna been in Huntly toun a week but barely three"; the Great North of Scotland Railway (GNSR) came to Huntly around 1853 (source: "Great North of Scotland Railway" at the Steam Index [British Steam Locomotive History] site). This passage illustrates the other -- besides the "navvy" reference -- difference between the navvy version and the more common "Roving Irishman" texts: in these the singer roves in Scotland or England (see "The Navvie Man," Sam Richards and Tish Stubbs, The English Folksinger (Glasgow, 1979), p. 111, and the EFDSS LP sited below) or Scotland (GreigDuncan7), rather than Pennsylvania or Australia.
Kennedy, on page 801 note to Kennedy 353, "The Roving Journeyman," has the last verse of "The Roving Navigator" ending "Now she's happy and contented with her roving navvy man."
"I Am a Roving Navvy Man" on EFDSS LP 1008 All Jolly Fellows is also this song. Fred McCormick provided the words from the LP. Steve Gardham had the Richards and Stubbs reference. Both answered my query to the Ballad-L list when I was speculating whether the GreigDuncan7 fragment belongs here with "The Roving Journeyman."
You can get some information on "The Navvy Age" in the notes to "The Roving Newfoundlanders (II)" [as the navvies moved to Canada], and, about their reputations as rakes in "The Courting Coat," "The Navvy Boy" and "Navvy on the Line."
Broadside LOCSinging sb40459b: J. Andrews dating per Studying Nineteenth-Century Popular Song by Paul Charosh in American Music, Winter 1997, Vol 15.4, Table 1, available at FindArticles site. - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: MA062

Trumpet Sounds at Burreldales, The


See Trooper and Maid [Child 299] (File: C299)

Trusty


DESCRIPTION: Trusty, a mastiff, bites a boy. The boy's mother hires an assassin to take revenge. The dog is shot to death[?]. Mother regrets her action: "at even when I'm wakin' and weary Oh wha will bark an keep me cheery"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1914 (GreigDuncan3)
LONG DESCRIPTION: "There was a tyke, a tyke o' fame An Trusty was the doggie's name." Trusty bites a boy whose mother takes the boy to a doctor. Expecting her son to die she wants "the venimous beast" killed. She takes her complaint to a judge who claims that, with the law as it stands, "nae judge nor jury upon earth Can gar the doggie gie his aith." Mother hires a lad who "laid the doggie fairly deed" "wi' a round spouter." The deed done, she repents and mourns the murder. "Tho' baith [mother and son] were deid, there's nae great scaith The dog was better than them baith." [The story ends here but we were promised at the beginning that Trusty's "coat o' guid black hair ... His coat o' mail, it did him save"]
KEYWORDS: revenge death humorous dog mother doctor judge
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan3 496, "Trusty" (1 text)
Roud #5981
File: GrD3496

Trusty Lariat, The (The Cowboy Fireman)


DESCRIPTION: An ex-cowboy, now a railway fireman, sees a child on the track. He throws his lariat around a pole, ties the end to the smokestack. The train is jerked off the track, crushing him. "He killed two hundred passengers/But, thank God, he saved that child"
AUTHOR: Attributed to Harry "Mac" McClintock
EARLIEST DATE: 1930 (recording, Harry "Mac" McClintock)
LONG DESCRIPTION: A former cowboy is working as a railway fireman because the pay is better. He sees a child on the track ahead. With great presence of mind he throws his trusty lariat around a pole, then fastens the other end to the smokestack. The train is jerked off the track and crashes, crushing the fireman. He is deeply mourned: "He killed two hundred passengers/But, thank God, he saved that child"
KEYWORDS: train rescue death railroading work crash disaster wreck humorous talltale children cowboy
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (2 citations):
DT, COWFIRE
ADDITIONAL: _Sing Out_ magazine, Volume 29, #4 (1983), p, 33, "The Trusty Lariat" (1 text, 1 tune)
RECORDINGS:
Radio Mac [pseud. for Harry McClintock], "The Trusty Lariat" (Victor V-40234, 1930)
NOTES: Unless I miss my guess, McClintock was parodying the 1874 song "Saved From Death" by George William Hersee and J. W. Bischoff. - PJS
Last updated in version 2.4
File: DTcowfir

Truth From Above, The


See The Truth Sent From Above (File: Leath196)

Truth Sent From Above, The


DESCRIPTION: "This is the truth sent from above, The truth of God, the God of love." The singer tells how God created man, then woman, and set them in Paradise. But they ate from the tree (of knowledge), and now all suffer their punishment
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1909 (Leather)
KEYWORDS: religious Bible punishment food carol
FOUND IN: Britain(England(West))
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Leather, p. 196, "The Truth Sent From Above" (1 text, 1 tune)
OBC 68, "The Truth From Above" (1 text, 1 tune with two arrangements)
DT, TRUABOVE*
ADDITIONAL: Ian Bradley, _The Penguin Book of Carols_ (1999), #86, "This Is the Truth Sent From Above" (1 text)
Roud #2109
NOTES: The story of the Fall is, of course, found in Genesis chapter 3. The version of creation in which man preceded woman (as opposed to both being created at the same time) is in Genesis 2:4-23. - RBW
File: Leath196

Truth Twice Told, The


DESCRIPTION: "Come all young men and maidens... I will tell you what you are doing, now at this present time." The young folk are treating their parents with disrespect; they are condemned for failing to work
AUTHOR: James W. Day ("Jilson Setters")
EARLIEST DATE: 1939 (Thomas)
KEYWORDS: courting warning nonballad
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Thomas-Makin', pp. 187-188, "The Truth Twice Told" (1 text)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Putting On the Style" (theme)
NOTES: Setters claimed that this excrescence "has set many a giddy one to studyin' and they mended their ways." Wishful thinking, I suspect. The result looks like a bad knock-off on "Putting on the Style." - RBW
File: ThBa187

Truxton's Victory


DESCRIPTION: "Come all you Yankee sailors With swords and pikes advance"; the "Brave Yankee Boys" are urged to battle against France. Truxton with the Constellation defeat l'Insurgente and haul her into St.Kitts. The singer toasts Truxton
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1975 (Lawrence), reportedly written March 1799
KEYWORDS: ship battle
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Feb 9, 1799 - Battle between the Constellation and L'Insurgente
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
ADDITIONAL: Vera Brodsky Lawrence, Music for Patriots, Politicians, and Presidents - Harmonies and Discords of the First Hundred Years, "Truxton's Victory" (a copy of the original broadside)
NOTES: Obviously not a traditional song, but The Boarding Party recording may have made it well-known enough to deserve documentation. Thanks to Dolores Nichols for digging up the source.
The setting is during the Quasi-War with France. France, still lurching back and forth politically in the aftermath of the revolution, with Napoleon gradually gaining power, had little respect for neutral rights, especially when the neutrals were trading with Britain. This naturally incensed the Americans. In November 1796, France suspended diplomatic relations. Soon after, they rejected the credentials of new ambassador Charles C. Pinckney. In May 1797, president John Adams appoints a commission (Pinckney, John Marshall, and Elbridge Gerry) to try to smooth things out. At the end of the month, the U. S. government reports 300 ships taken by the French.
On October 18, the American commissioners suffer the humiliation of the "XYZ affair" -- three nameless Frenchmen who demand a "loan" (read: tribute) from the Americans plus a large bribe to French foreign minister Tallyrand (Jameson, pp. 728-729; Morison, pp. 349-350). This was not as unreasonable a demand as some would declare it -- the Americans were paying bribes to the Barbary States at this time; the French could see no reason they shouldn't get a share of the loot.
But the United States was also, for the first time, building a genuine (if small) navy. Pinckney allegedly told the French, "Millions for defence, but not one cent for tribute."
On May 28, 1798, Congress authorized the Navy to go after French vessels engaged in commerce-raiding. On July 7, Congress formally abrogated the treaty of alliance that went back to the Revolution. As Bryant puts it on, p. 124, "The two republics were now thoroughly enmeshed in an undeclated war in the best monarchist manner."
The American navy was small, but the quality was very high. Designed Joshua Humphries, knowing that only a handful of ships would be available, created a new class of super-frigates -- rather comparable to the battle cruisers of a century later: Fast enough to outrun any line-of-battle ship, heavy enough to destroy any ordinary frigate. (It tells you a good bit about naval thinking that the American frigates were considered excellent, but the battle crusier was quickly discarded. The reason for the failure of the latter was more bad tactics than anything else.)
In the end, six ships were built -- United States, Constitution, Constellation, President, Congress, and Chesapeake -- of which only the first three were ready for war. The Constellation (called the "Yankee Race Horse") was the first to see action. She met the French L'Insurgente, reportedly the fastest sailing frigate in the world (Pratt, p. 61), but in terms of broadside just an ordinary frigate with a weight of broadside only about three-fourths that of the Constellation, in the Carribean.
The French ship was badly under-manned, and her captain Barreault was not aware he was at war with the United States. She was flying an American flag, but an exchange of signals showed she was not an American ship. The Constellation closed in for the kill, much as described in this song; between the American ship's higher quality and her fuller crew, there wasn't much doubt about the outcome (though no one in Europe yet realized how strong the new American frigates were; this would not become clear until 1812 and the Constitution/Guerriere battle). Pratt, p. 61, reports that Truxton had only three casualties, compared to seventy on the French ship.
The result was a sensation. There had been sea battles in the Revolutionary War, but the American ships were almost all privateers or purchased in Europe. This was the first battle ever fought by an American "regular navy" ship.
It was also the highlight of the Constellation's career. She would fight one more battle in the Quasi-War: On February 1, 1800, she would meet the Vengeance, a much heavier ship than the L'Insurgente though slower than the Constellation. Constellation could be considered the tactical victor, killing about 50 and wounding over 100 men on the French ship, which barely stayed afloat and had lost two of three masts (Pratt, p. 62). But the Constellation lost 25 killed and 14 wounded (a strange ratio, that), and lost her mainmast; Vengeance escaped, making the battle a strategic draw. Captain Thomas Truxton would be awarded a gold medal anyway. (Bryant, p. 130).
Peace with France was concluded two days later. It would be a while before the ships at sea knew it, of course, but the Constellation's part was finished.She would serve for a while in the contest with the Barbary pirates, without any major engagements, and spent almost the entire War of 1812 blockaded in her home port of Norfolk (see Borneman, p. 175; Mahon, p. 122). Thus Truxton was the only commander to lead her in a real battle.
In 1854, the Constellation was broken up. Much of the surviving wood was used to make a new Constellation, and this is often listed as the same ship. This was a fairly common trick for the U. S. Navy in the nineteenth century: Congress didn't like new defence spending, but would pay to maintain old ships, so the Navy would request money for repairs, then build a new ship with the money plus some timber from the old. But the new Constellation was 12 feet longer than the old, and her hold was half again as deep (19.3 feet for the new, 13.5 feet for the old); it was clearly a new ship. (Sez I. This apparently caused quite a literature to spring up; Paine, p. 120, lists five writings on this subject).
This wasn't her only major rebuild. Chapelle, pp. 91-92, writes, "The Constellation had a long and distinguished career and is still afloat, though it must be admitted that there is little or nothing of the original ship left. She has been completely rebuilt a number of times, from the keel up, as in 1805-1812 when the was widened 14 inches and again in 1854 when she was lengthened and cut down one deck, each time her lines being altered to some extent."
Thomas Truxton himself (1755-1822) was probably the most important American naval figure between John Paul Jones and Stephen Decatur; according to Pratt p. 58, he was "the real prize drawn by the nascent navy... its fifth-ranking captain...." He had served on various privateers in the Revolutionary War (he was a lieutenant in the Congress in 1776, commanded the Independence in 1777, then took charge of the St. James from 1781). He became a regular navy captain from 1794, and acted as commodore during the Quasi-War. According to Pratt, Òeven before putting to sea, [he] drew up a long series of letters to his officers and petty officers laying down the duties of each in the most minute manner, which letter would be the foundation of definitive navy regulations."
He was also a firm disciplinarian. Pratt describes, e.g., how when a water cask sprung a leak, he put his entire crew on reduced water rations until discipline met his standards (p. 58) -- though he thought it better to set an example than use the lash (accoring to Guttridge, p. 87, he once said, "Discipline is to be effected by a particular deportment much easier than great severity"). His strict methods also caused at least two of his officers to resign (Pratt, p. 59).
He himself ended up resigning early in the nineteenth century in a dispute over authority: Instructed to lead the assault against the Barbary Pirates, he was not promoted to (rear) admiral (the navy did not officially establish ranks above Captain until the Civil War), and so would be simply senior captain commanding the squadron, and still responsible for his own ship. This apparently caused him to quit in a fit of pique (Pratt, p. 65).
There is at least one fairly recent biography, Eugene S. Ferguson, Truxton of the Constellation, The Life of Commodore Thomas Truxton, U. S. Navy, 1755-1822. - RBW
BibliographyLast updated in version 2.5
File: BrdTruxt

Tsimshian Song of Welcome to a Chief, A


DESCRIPTION: "Ee-ya-ho-ho ee-ya-heh-eh (x2), Ee-eh-yah-ha-ha-ha hee-yah-heh (x2), Ee-yah-ah-ah-ee-ya-heh! Soo-wa-deh-es Gi-da-ra-nit-zeh! (x2)...." "Now we hail or great chieftain! We hail, we hail our noble chief, We welcome him... From the people of Gidaranitzeh!"
AUTHOR: unknown (English translation by Alan Mills)
EARLIEST DATE: 1951
KEYWORDS: Indians(Am.) nonballad foreignlanguage
FOUND IN: Canada(West)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Fowke/Mills/Blume, pp. 6-7, "A Tsimshian Song of Welcome to a Chief" (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES: Collected in the 1920s by Marious Barbeau, this song is reported to have been used when a chief came in to join a potlatch ceremony. - RBW
File: FMB006

Tucky Ho Crew, The


See Come All You Virginia Girls (Arkansas Boys; Texian Boys; Cousin Emmy's Blues; etc.) (File: R342)

Tugal McTagger


DESCRIPTION: "Would you'll know me, my name is Tugal McTagger, She'll brought hersel' down frae the braes o' Lochaber." The Gaelic-speaking girl tries to adapt to Lowland life and business. Unable to handle the life, she ends up bankrupt (and returns to her old home?)
AUTHOR: Dougal Graham ?
EARLIEST DATE: 1901 (Ford); alleged author Graham died 1779
KEYWORDS: commerce work poverty trial humorous
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Ford-Vagabond, pp. 252-254, "Tugal M'Tagger" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #13092
File: FVS252

Tumba-Bloody-Rumba


DESCRIPTION: The mustering boss tries the new man at everything. Despite claims of many adventures and skills, he proves incompetent at every job (except drinking and smoking). The crew is glad to see him paid off and heading back to wherever he came from
AUTHOR: Words: John Wolfe? (tune set by Warren Fahey)
EARLIEST DATE: 1984
KEYWORDS: talltale work
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Fahey-Eureka, pp. 176-177, "Tumba-Bloody-Rumba" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, TMBARMBA*
File: FaE176

Tumbling through the Hay


See The Merry Haymakers (File: HHH697)

Tune The Old Cow Died On, The


DESCRIPTION: "The old cow might have been living yet, A-chewin' her cud with glee, If Farmer John hadn't sung of this song...." Farmer John sings, the cows gather in surprise. The old cow tries to join in, and it kills her
AUTHOR: Joseph E. Winner?
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (Randolph)
KEYWORDS: death animal farming music humorous
FOUND IN: US(Ap,MW,So)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Randolph 411, "The Tune the Old Cow Died On" (1 text plus 2 fragments, 1 tune -- although the "C" fragment does not appear related to the first two)
Randolph/Cohen, pp. 352-354, "The Tune the Old Cow Died On" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 411A)
Roud #4352
RECORDINGS:
Warde Ford, "The Tune the old cow died on" (AFS 4212 A2, 1939; in AMMEM/Cowell)
NOTES: Carl Sandburg wrote in 1936, "A man having nothing to feed his cow sang to her of the fresh green grass to come; this is the tune the old cow died on." One suspects that this phrase was part of popular idiom, and someone created a song to explain it.
Cohen reports an 1880 copyright of a song with this title, credited to George Russell Jackson and Eastburn (Joseph E. Winner), but adds that the song "must date from the 1850s or 1860s." He does not, however, give evidence for this claim. - RBW
File: R411

Tuplin Song, The


See The Millman and Tuplin Song (File: IvDC046)

Turfman from Ardee, The


DESCRIPTION: Singer meets a turfman on the road. The turfman says his ass is tired; he'd like to sell his load. The singer says cart and ass look old and abused; the turfman says he has abused the ass, but it has never been without shoes, nor his axle without grease
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1945 (learned by Margaret Barry)
KEYWORDS: age disability sex accusation travel bawdy humorous animal worker political
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
OLochlainn-More 23, "The Turfman from Ardee" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #5187
RECORDINGS:
Margaret Barry & Michael Gorman, "The Turfman from Ardee" (on Barry-Gorman1)
David Harper, "The Turfman from Ardee" (on TradIre02)
NOTES: "Sex"? "Bawdy"? Well, certainly double-entendre on Margaret Barry's part. She notes that she learned it from an 80-year-old man named Tynan in 1945; he, in turn, had learned it from the McNulty Family of Donegal, who put it on a 78. As we have no date earlier than 1945, though, I'm putting that down as earliest -- but I'd love to find that 78. - PJS
File: RcTurArd

Turkey Buzzard


DESCRIPTION: "Shoot that turkey buzzard Come flopping down the hollow (x2)." "Shoot old Davy Dugger dead; He eat my meat and stole my bread." "Shoot old Davy Dugger, Take his wife and hug her." "Oh, that girl with the blue dress on, She stole my heart..."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1915 (Brown)
KEYWORDS: bird death hunting nonballad
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
BrownIII 105, "Turkey Buzzard" (1 text plus 2 fragments which may or may not be related)
Roud #7653
RECORDINGS:
Chancey Bros., "Shoot That Turkey Buzzard" (on FolkVisions2)
J. E. Mainer's Mountaineers, "Shoot the Turkey Buzzard" (King 819, 1949)
File: Br3105

Turkey Factor in Foreign Parts, The


See The Factor's Garland [Laws Q37] (File: LQ37)

Turkey in the Straw


DESCRIPTION: "As I was going down the road With a tired team and a heavy load... Turkey in the straw, Haw haw haw, Turkey in the hay, Hey hey hey... Whistle up a tune called turkey in the straw." Lyrics usually involve the strange things encountered by a teamster
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1896 (recordings, Billy Golden)
KEYWORDS: travel animal bird nonballad dancetune
FOUND IN: US(SE,So)
REFERENCES (11 citations):
Randolph 274, "Turkey in the Straw" (2 texts plus a fragment, 1 tune)
Randolph/Cohen, pp. 234-237, "Turkey in the Straw" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 274A)
BrownIII 94, "Turkey in the Straw" (1 fragment); also 511, "The Preacher Song" (1 text, a complex mix of verses from "Turkey in the Stray" and "Some Folks Say that a Preacher Won't Steal" with the "Uncle Eph" chorus)
Sandburg, pp. 94-97, "Turkey in the Straw" (2 texts plus a fragment, 1 tune; the "B" and "C" texts appear to be rewritten or mixed)
MHenry-Appalachians, p. 112, "One More Drink" (1 fragment, a single stanza about the hen laying eggs all over the farm and calling for a drink; it might come from anywhere but seems more typical of this than anything else)
Lomax-FSNA 49, "Turkey in the Straw" (1 text, 1 tune, plus a "Zip Coon" text)
Linscott, pp. 83-85, "Haymaker's Jig" (1 tune with dance instructions)
Silber-FSWB, p. 37, "Turkey in the Straw" (1 text)
Pankake-PHCFSB, p. 23, "I Went to Cincinnati"; p. 54, "Oh, I Had a Little Chicken" (2 texts, tune referenced)
Fuld-WFM, pp. 591-592, "Turkey in the Straw (Zip Coon)"
DT, TURKSTRW (TURKST2)
Roud #4247
RECORDINGS:
Blue Ridge Duo, "Turkey in the Straw" (Edison 51502, 1925)
Dock Boggs, "Turkey in the Straw" [instrumental version] (on Boggs3, BoggsCD1)
Boone County Entertainers [Red Fox Chasers], "Turkey in the Straw" (Champion 15522/Supertone 9163, 1928)
Fiddlin' John Carson, "Turkey in the Straw" (OKeh 40230, 1924); "Turkey in the Hay" (OKeh 45167, 1927)
Arthur Collins, "Turkey in the Straw" (Zonophone 637, c. 1907) (CYL: Edison 4011, n.d.)
Billy Golden, "Turkey in de Straw" (Berliner 0541V, rec. 1899) (Berliner 0726X, rec. 1896) (Berliner 0726Z, rec. 1896) (Standard 1101, n.d.) (CYL: Lambert 5079, n.d.) (CYL: Albany Indestructible 941, n.d.) (Columbia 1101, 1902; A-1291, 1913) (Victor [Monarch] 65, 1902; Victor 4515, 1905 Imperial Berliner [Can] 587, n. d.) (Zonophone 174, 1905) (Victor 17256, 1913; rec. 1908) (Columbia A-5031, 1908; rec. 1906) (OKeh 4249, 1921; rec. 1920)
[Billy] Golden & [?] Hughes "Turkey in the Straw" (CYL: Edison [BA] 1769, n.d.)
Hobbs Brothers, "Turkey in the Straw" (Jewel 5458, 1928)
Kessinger Brothers, "Turkey in the Straw" (Brunswick 235, 1928)
Silas Leachman, "Turkey in de Straw" (Victor A-804, c. 1901)
Neil Morris & Charlie Everidge, "Turkey in the Straw" [dance calls] (on LomaxCD1701)
George Reneau, "Turkey in the Straw" (Vocalion 5031/Vocalion 14812, 1924)
Doc Roberts, "Turkey in the Straw" (Conqueror 7741, 1931; Perfect 12929/Melotone 12746, 1933)
Eck Robertson, "Turkey in the Straw" (Victor 19149, 1923)
Stove Pipe No. 1 [pseud. for Sam Jones], "Turkey in the Straw" (Columbia 201-D, 1924; Harmony 5100-H, n.d.)
Gid Tanner & his Skillet Lickers, "Turkey in the Straw" (Columbia 15084-D, 1926)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Old Tobacco Box (There Was an Old Soldier)" (tune, floating lyrics)
cf. "Old Zip Coon" (tune, floating lyrics)
cf. "The Catfish (Banjo Sam)" (floating lyrics)
cf. "Bunkhouse Orchestra" (tune)
cf. "Charleston Gals (Clear the Kitchen)" (floating lyrics)
cf. "Mary Mack (I)" (floating lyrics)
cf. "There Was an Old Lady" (tune)
cf. "The Delhi Jail" (tune)
cf. "Whoa! Ha! Buck and Jerry Boy" (portions of tune)
SAME TUNE:
Old Zip Coon (File: RJ19258)
Old Farmer Brown (Pankake-PHCFSB, p. 145)
There Was a Little Rooster (Pankake-PHCFSB, p. 196)
Do Your Ears Hang Low (Pankake-PHCFSB, pp. 210-211)
Fiddlin' John Carson, "Turkey in the Hay" (OKeh 45167, 1927)
Carson Robison, "1942 Turkey in the Straw" (Bluebird B-11460, 1942)
NOTES: Generally regarded as a rewriting of "Old Zip Coon." Sometimes regarded as the forerunner of "The Old Tobacco Box (There Was an Old Soldier)" (with which it often shares a tune), but the latter also has its own independent tune and form. - RBW
File: R274

Turkish Factor, The


See The Factor's Garland [Laws Q37] (File: LQ37)

Turkish Lady (II)


See Young Beichan [Child 53] (File: C053)

Turkish Lady, The [Laws O26]


DESCRIPTION: A British ship is captured by the Turks and its crew enslaved. The singer suffers until his owner offers to free him if he will accept Islam and marry her. He refuses to abandon Christianity. She eventually decides to turn Christian and marry him
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1782 (broadside, "Four Excellent New Songs")
KEYWORDS: love courting religious sailor foreigner
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar) Britain(England(South),Scotland)
REFERENCES (9 citations):
Laws O26, "The Turkish Lady"
Logan, pp. 11-18, "The Turkish Lady" (1 text)
Huntington-Whalemen, pp. 141-143, "The Turkish Lady" (1 text, 1 tune)
Karpeles-Newfoundland 35, "The Turkish Lady" (1 text, 1 tune)
Creighton/Senior, pp. 123-124, "Turkish Rover" (1 text, 1 tune)
Creighton-NovaScotia 13, "Turkish Rover" (1 text, 1 tune)
Mackenzie 17, "The Turkish Lady" (2 texts)
BBI, ZN797, "Down in a cypress grove as I was lying" (?)
DT (53), TURKLADY*
ST LO26 (Full)
Roud #8124
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 17(322b)[tear: words missing], "The Turkish Lady," T. Birt (London), 1828-1829; also Harding B 11(3907), Firth c.13(303), Harding B 11(1973), Harding B 25(1958), "The Turkish Lady"
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Young Beichan" [Child 53]
cf. "The Araby Maid" (subject)
cf. "Mustang Gray (The Maid of Monterey)" (plot)
cf. "The Belfast Sailor" (theme)
NOTES: This song is sometimes treated as a variant of "Young Beichan" [Child 53]. The setting, obviously, is similar -- but the difference in the ending marks them as separate ballads. "Young Beichan" stresses the lover's return; "The Turkish Lady," the change in the woman's faith (which, incidentally, was a dangerous thing to do: Islam tolerates Christianity, but many Islamic cultures do not tolerate turning from Islam to Christianity. Though the direct comment on an Islamic woman marrying a pagan, in the Quran, Surah 60:11, merely requires the recovery of her dowry). - RBW
File: LO26

Turkish Men-o'-War


See The Royal Oak (File: VWL091)

Turkish Rover


See The Turkish Lady [Laws O26] (File: LO26)

Turmut [Turmont] Hoer's Song, The


See The Turnip-Hoer (File: K261)

Turmut-hoeing


See The Turnip-Hoer (File: K261)

Turn that Cinnamon


DESCRIPTION: "Oh turn that cinnamon round and round, Turn that cinnamon round and round, Oh turn that cinnamon round!" "She's my sugar-lump, I'll never give her up, She's my sugar-lump, I'll never give her up, Oh turn that cinnamon round!"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1903
KEYWORDS: love food playparty
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Randolph 583, "Turn that Cinnamon" (1 short text)
Botkin-AmFolklr, p. 810, "Sugar Lump" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #7667
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Turn, Cinnamon, Turn
NOTES: Randolph's and Botkin's songs don't have any lyrics that match precisely -- but what are the odds of two songs mentioning both sugar lumps and turning cinnamon? I quote Randolph's text as more complete; Botkin's runs "All up and down, my honey, All up and down we go. The lady's a-rockin' her sugar lump (x3), O, turn, Cinnamon, turn."
Botkin claims a British origin for this piece, but cites no sources. - RBW
File: R583

Turn, Cinnamon, Turn


See Turn that Cinnamon (File: R583)

Turn, Julie-Ann, Turn


DESCRIPTION: Playparty: "Circle around, my Julie-Ann/Circle around I say...I ain't got long to stay." "I'll go on the mountaintop... If I can't get the girl I want/Let that old girl go." Chorus: "Turn, Julie-Ann, turn/Turn Old Jubilee."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1958 (recording, Jean Ritchie)
LONG DESCRIPTION: Playparty: "Circle around, my Julie-Ann/Circle around I say...I ain't got long to stay." "My truelove spied me down the road/She hung her head and cried/Said, yanner come a booger-man/O where can I hide." "I'll go on the mountaintop, give my horn a blow/If I can't get the girl I want/Let that old girl go." Chorus: "Turn, Julie-Ann, turn/Turn Old Jubilee."
KEYWORDS: courting love dancing playparty nonballad floatingverses
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
Roud #5747
RECORDINGS:
Jean Ritchie, "Turn, Julie-Ann, Turn" (on Ritchie03)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Liza Jane" (floating verses)
cf. "Cindy" (floating verses)
NOTES: I rather suspect this is the same as one or another of the floating verse singing games out there; I thought seriously about lumping it with "Julie Ann Johnson." But we're splitters, and in any case it's not obvious just *which* of those songs to lump it with. - RBW
File: RcTJAT

Turn, Sinner, Turn O!


DESCRIPTION: "Turn, sinner, turn today, turn, Sinner, turn O!" (x2). "Wait not for tomorrow's sun." "Tomorrow's sun will sure to shine." "The sun may shine, but on your grave." "Hark, I hear them sinner say" "If you get to heaven I'll get there too."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1867 (Allen/Ware/Garrison)
KEYWORDS: religious nonballad death
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Allen/Ware/Garrison, pp. 36-37, "Turn, Sinner, Turn O!" (2 texts, 1 tune with variants)
Roud #11991
NOTES: Possibly suggested by Jesus's parable of the Rich Fool in Luke 12:16-21, in which God says to a man who has devoted all his energy to short-term wealth, "Fool! This very night your soul is demanded of you...." - RBW
Last updated in version 2.4
File: AWG036

Turner's Camp on the Chippewa [Laws C23]


DESCRIPTION: A tale of the lumberman's life and troubles in the woods of Michigan. Most of the events are described in very general terms
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1938 (recording, Bill McBride)
KEYWORDS: logger lumbering
FOUND IN: US(MW) Canada(Ont)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Laws C23, "Turner's Camp on the Chippewa"
Beck 12, "Turner's Camp on the Chippewa" (1 text)
Fowke-Lumbering #10, "Turner's Camp" (2 texts, 1 tune)
DT 840, TURNRCMP
Roud #1926
RECORDINGS:
Bill McBride, "Turner's Camp on the Chippewa" (AFS, 1938; on LC56)
Leo Spencer, "Turner's Camp" (on Lumber01)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Lumber Camp Song" (theme) and references there
File: LC23

Turnin' o' the Hay, The


See Tossing of the Hay (File: HHH635)

Turnip Greens


DESCRIPTION: Singer dreams he meets Gabriel. Asked what he'll eat; he says, "Turnip greens." Asked why Ozark people are rough, yet clean; "Turnip greens." Gabriel says God's kingdom on earth is coming. Chorus: "...Cornbread and buttermilk/And good old turnip greens!"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1928 (recording, H. K. Hutchison)
KEYWORDS: food humorous
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
[Randolph 287, "Turnip Greens" -- deleted in the second printing]
Randolph/Cohen, pp. 243-245, "Turnip Greens" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 287)
Hudson 75, pp. 202-203, "Turnip Greens" (1 text)
Pankake-PHCFSB, p. 9, "Turnip Greens" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #4491
RECORDINGS:
Shorty Goodwin, "Turnip Greens" (Columbia 15411-D, 1929)
H. K. Hutchison, "Good Old Turnip Greens" (Gennett 6464/Champion 15525, 1928)
W. A. Lindsay & Alvin Connor, "Good Old Turnip Greens" (Okeh 45346, 1929; rec. 1928)
Neil Morris, "Turnip Greens" (on LomaxCD1707)
Pie Plant Pete [pseud. for Claude Moye], "Turnip Greens" (Champion 45063, 1935)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Greens" (theme)
NOTES: The description of this song is based on the Neil Morris recording. The Pankake text is much shorter, and is about Atmore residents rather than residents of the Ozarks. Similarly, Hudson's text is about the residents of Mississippi.
I have not heard all the 78 recordings listed above, so they too may be local or parodized versions. - RBW
File: RcTG

Turnip Patch, The


DESCRIPTION: "I went down to the turnip patch... To see if my old hen had hatched." "There set a possum on the rail, Reached up and grabbed him by the tail." "Got him on the ground and he tried to fight... Reached up my right foot and kicked out the light."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1941 (Randolph)
KEYWORDS: animal chickens fight
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Randolph 454, "The Turnip Patch" (1 text)
Roud #7602
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Who Broke the Lock (on the Henhouse Door)?" (lyrics)
cf. "Sixteen Chickens and a Tambourine" (lyrics)
File: R454

Turnip-Hoer, The


DESCRIPTION: Singer hires on a farm; the farmer says he's first class. He hires elsewhere, and says if he had a son he'd be better off going to jail. He says that while some delight in harvesting and mowing, "of all the jobs that be on a farm/Give I the turnip-hoing."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1893 (Broadwood)
LONG DESCRIPTION: Singer hires on a farm; the farmer says he's first class. He hires on another farm, and says if he had a son he'd be better off going to jail. He says that while some delight in harvesting and mowing, "of all the jobs that be on a farm/Give I the turnip-hoing." Chorus: "For the flies...got on the turnips/It's all me eye and no use to try/To keep 'em off them turnips"
KEYWORDS: farming work worker boss
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Kennedy 261, "The Turnip-Hoer" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #1376
RECORDINGS:
Fred Perrier et al, "The Turmut [Turmont] Hoer's Song" (on Lomax41, LomaxCD41)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Flies Are On the Tummits" (them of a turnip farmer's life)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Turmut-hoeing
NOTES: Kennedy states, "[T]he song has attached itself to Wiltshire and was adopted as the regimental march of the Wiltshire Regiment... now amalgamated [in 1959] with the Berkshire Regiment [to form] the Duke of Edinburgh's Royal Regiment."
According to Hallows, p. 206, however, the quick march of the Duke of Edinburgh's Regiment is The Farmer's Boy and the slow is Auld Robin Gray. And while some regiments dropped their historical tunes on amalgamation, so the Wiltshire regiment could have used this piece in the past, it was normal to keep both tunes.
Roud lumps this with "The Flies Are On the Tummits," with which it shares some lyrics, but Ben Schwartz and I both consider the general plots distinct enough to split them. "The Turnip-Hoer" is about the singer's employment history; "The Flies Are On the Tummits" about the hard life of a farmer.
Widespread growing of turnips, incidentally, was a relatively recent practice (turnips, after all, are bitter and rather unpleasant to eat); they are grown because they replenish the soil, and can be farmed on a field that would otherwise have to lie fallow (Beales, p. 36). Large-scale turnip planting began around the beginning of the nineteenth century (Marshall, pp. 8-9) because turnips could be saved and fed to livestock in winter, thus making more fresh meat available at that time.
According to Palmer, p. 49, who quotes what appears to be a stanza of this song, several of the tasks performed on a farm around harvest time were relatively specialized and required significant skill. Palmer does not explicitly list turnip-hoeing among these, but the context implies it. This perhaps explains this song; The singer is celebrating his skill. - RBW
BibliographyLast updated in version 2.5
File: K261

Turpin Hero


See Dick Turpin and the Lawyer [Laws L10] (File: LL10)

Turpin's Valour


See Dick Turpin and the Lawyer [Laws L10] (File: LL10)

Turtle Dove


See Fare You Well, My Own True Love (The Storms Are on the Ocean, The False True Lover, The True Lover's Farewell, Red Rosy Bush, Turtle Dove) (File: Wa097)

TVA, The


DESCRIPTION: "My name is William Edwards, I live down Cove Creek Way, I'm working on the project They call the TVA." The government is upgrading the valley. The singer writes to Sal to say, "The government has saved us; just name our wedding day."
AUTHOR: Buddy Preston
EARLIEST DATE: 1939 (Thomas)
KEYWORDS: work marriage hardtimes technology
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Thomas-Makin', pp. 232-234, (no title) (1 text, 1 tune)
Arnett, p. 172, "The TVA" (1 text, 1 tune)
Botkin-SoFolklr, p. 732, "T.V.A. Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #4910
NOTES: The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), founded in 1933, is one of the most enduring of all the New Deal programs. Founded to create jobs and at the same provide electrical power to a primitive part of the country, it is still in existence today, generating power and managing the river. - RBW
Botkin quotes his source, Jean Thomas's Ballad Makin' in the Mountains of Kentucky, as saying the song was written by a Preston, and "first sung at the American Folk Festival with a kinsman of the composer giving the explanation of its origin." She also says it had indeed become traditional in Kentucky, at least. - NR
Reading Thomas's account, I'm not convinced of this; it's properly a folk revival song, if a very early one. But the number of citations perhaps justifies its presence here. - RBW
File: Arn172

Twa and Twa


DESCRIPTION: Dance tune lyrics; "Twa and twa made the bed/Twa and twa lay together/When the bed begun to heat/The one got up abune the other." That's all.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1962 (collected from Jeannie Thompson)
KEYWORDS: sex dancing
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
MacSeegTrav 124, "Twa and Twa" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, TWANTWA*
Roud #5407
NOTES: Runner-up to "Papa Loved Mama" for title of World's Shortest Ballad. - PJS
File: McCST124

Twa Brothers, The [Child 49]


DESCRIPTION: Two brothers agree to wrestle on their way to school. In the process, one is wounded by the other's knife. The unwounded brother (often) tries to save the wounded one, but it is too late; all that is left is to arrange for his burial and make excuses
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1825 (Motherwell)
KEYWORDS: contest death fight stepmother brother murder magic
FOUND IN: Britain(England,Scotland), US(Ap,MA,MW,NE,NW,SE,So) Canada(Mar,Newf)
REFERENCES (33 citations):
Child 49, "The Twa Brothers" (8 texts)
Bronson 49, "The Twa Brothers" (41 versions plus 4 in addenda)
BarryEckstormSmyth pp. 99-106, "The Two Brothers" (1 text plus many excerpts including a complete Kentucky version, 1 tune) {Bronson's #21}
Belden, pp. 33-34, "The Two Brothers" (1 text)
Randolph 10, "The Two Brothers" (3 texts plus a fragment, 4 tunes) {Bronson's #13, #40, #3, #2}
Randolph/Cohen, pp. 24-25, "The Two Brothers" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 10A) {Bronson's #13}
Eddy 9, "The Twa Brothers" (2 texts, 2 tunes) {Bronson's #28, #30}
Flanders/Olney, pp. 96-99, "Edward Ballad [listed as "Child 13" but obviously this piece though Bronson considers it a "too literary" mix of the two ballads with a peculiar tune]; pp. 230-232, "Martyr John" (2 texts, 2 tunes) {Bronson's #41, #38}
Flanders-Ancient1, pp. 316-331, "The Twa Brothers" (4 texts, 5 tunes; the last two tunes are variants taken from the same informant) {A=Bronson's #41, B=38}
Linscott, pp. 278-280, "The Rolling of the Stones or The Twa Brothers" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #14}
Davis-Ballads 11, "The Twa Brothers" (11 texts, 6 tunes) {#23, #31, #5, #33, #10, #24}
Davis-More 15, pp. 92-101, "The Twa Brothers" (5 texts, 5 tunes)
BrownII 13, "The Two Brothers" (1 text)
Chappell-FSRA 6, "The Two Brothers" (1 text)
Hudson 7, pp. 73-74, "The Two Brothers" (2 texts)
Scarborough-SongCatcher, pp. 166-167, "The Twa Brothers" (1 text, locally titled "The Two Brothers")
Brewster 9, "The Two Brothers" (2 texts)
JHCoxIIA, #6, p. 21, "The Two Brothers" (1 fragment, 1 tune) {Bronson's #8}
Creighton/Senior, p. 25-26, "The Twa Brothers" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #39}
Peacock, pp. 827-830, "The Two Brothers" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Leach, pp. 163-167, "The Twa Brothers" (2 texts)
McNeil-SFB2, pp. 136-138, "Two Brothers" (1 text, 1 tune)
OBB 63, "The Twa Brothers" (1 text)
Friedman, p. 169, "The Twa Brothers" (2 texts)
Niles 20, "The Twa Brothers" (1 text, 1 tune -- a fragmentary text that opens like "The Twa Brothers," but has an ending that might be anything)
Gummere, pp. 174-175+343, "The Twa Brothers" (1 text)
SharpAp 12 "The Two Brothers" (12 texts, often short, plus a fragment ("E") that may be this; 13 tunes) {Bronson's #17, #10, #31, #24, #18, #19, #11, #9, #1, #15, #27, #25, #32}
Sharp/Karpeles-80E 11, "The Two Brothers" (1 text, 1 tune -- an expanded composite version) {Bronson's #11}
LPound-ABS, 18, pp. 45-46, "Two Little Boys" (1 text)
JHCox 7, "The Twa Brothers" (2 texts)
DT 49, TWOBROS TWOBROS2* TWOBROS3* TWOBROS4* ROLLSTON*
ADDITIONAL: Bob Stewart, _Where Is Saint George? Pagan Imagery in English Folksong_, revised edition, Blandford, 1988, pp. 23-24, "The Two Brothers" (1 text, 1 tune)
Walter de la Mare, _Come Hither_, revised edition, 1928; #52-53, "The Wta Brothers" (1 text)
Roud #38
RECORDINGS:
Nellie McGregor, "The Two Brothers" (on FSBBAL1)
Hobart Smith, "The Little Schoolboy" (on LomaxCD1702)
Belle Stewart, "The Two Brothers" (on Voice03) {Bronson's #13.2 in addenda}
Lucy Stewart, "The Twa Brothers [The Two Brothers]" (on FSB4, FSBBAL1) (on LStewart1) {Bronson's #11.1 in addenda}
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Sir Hugh, or, The Jew's Daughter" [Child 155] (lyrics)
cf. "The Unquiet Grave" [Child 78] (lyrics)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Rolling of the Stones
The Murdered Boy
Two Little Boys Going to School
The Cruel Brother
NOTES: In Friedman's A version, the brother is killed, not wrestling for fun, but in a fit of passion. - PJS
Indeed, this motif (which is not unusual; many of Davis's texts have it, for instance) gives rise to the possibility that what we have here is two songs mixed. Call them "The Twa Brothers" and "The Rolling of the Stones." In the former, the one brother kills the other as a result of accident or perhaps a (step?)mother's malice.
"The Rolling of the Stones," though it involves a death and is usually listed as a version of this song, has a very different feel. It is definitely a song of passion and jealousy, and ends with Susie, the girl of the piece, dancing to try to bring the dead man back to life.
The two have certainly mixed verses, making them hard to tell apart, but I'm not at all convinced that they are the same song. A curiosity is that the "Rolling of the Stones" texts seem to be mostly American, even though American texts rarely involve magic. But it should be noted that the endings of the texts in Child are very diverse; it may be that he simply hadn't found one of the "magic" endings.
Stewart evidently thinks the whole thing goes back to early myth; on p. 24 he declares, "The story is clearly found in Celtic and pre-Celtic myth and lore, in classical mythology, and in ancient Egyptian and Eastern religious allegory.
"The plot is very simple, one brother kills another in competition for a woman. The murdered man is then brought back to life by his true love."
In other words, Stewart sees this song as a a version of the Egyptian tale of Osiris, Seth, and Isis (Osiris having been murdered by his brother Seth and revived by Isis). Given the content of "The Rolling of the Stones," it does appear that something like the Osiris story was known in Britain. But it must be repeated that most versions of this song *don't* have a resurrection theme. They're a much more basic tale, of a stepmother's desire to gain an inheritance for her son over her older stepson.
Stewart, similarly, suggests that the questions at the end are an attempt to gather oracles from a dying man. Certainly the idea that the dying can see the future is well-attested. But why, then, are the dying brother's answers all excuses for the younger brother or, in one case, a curse? And, at that, a curse which apparently never comes true?
Again, Stewart thinks the "Rolling of the Stones" variants hint at human sacrifice. At most, it appears to me, they hint at the mass, and the conversion of win into the blood of Jesus.
In any case, everything that gets Stewart's mythological juices flowing comes from variants of "The Rolling of the Stones," not the mainlineversions of "The Twa Brothers."
Linscott has one of her usual folklorish explanations: "The event from which the ballad gets its theme happened near Edinburgh in 1589, when one of the Somervilles was killed by the accidental discharge of his bother's pistol." This connection ignores the fact that brothers are more than a little apt to quarrel over inheritances....
E. K. Chambers (English Literature at the Close of the Middle Ages, p. 72) quotes a passage from a thirteenth(?) century fragment of a song which has not been connected with this piece, but which I find rather interesting:
Atte wrestling my lemman I ches,
And atte ston-kasting I him for-les.
i.e.
At wrestling my love I chose,
And at stone-casting I him lost. - RBW
Also collected and sung by Ellen Mitchell, "Twa Brithers" (on Kevin and Ellen Mitchell, "Have a Drop Mair," Musical Tradition Records MTCD315-6 CD (2001)) - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: C049

Twa Bumbees, The


DESCRIPTION: "There were twa bumbees met on a twig, Fim-fam, fiddle-faddle, fum, fizz!" The two insects set out to find a home, frightening Jenny Wren in the process. After the babies are born, they quarrel; the male warns other bees about a "wayward, wanton wife."
AUTHOR: Charles Spence
EARLIEST DATE: 1904 (Ford); Spence died in 1869
KEYWORDS: bug courting home humorous
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Ford-Vagabond, pp. 231-233, "The Twa Bumbees" (1 text)
Roud #13086
NOTES: This appears to have been founded on "The Twa Corbies" (or, rather, one of its silly offspring), but without a tune, it's hard to prove.
Needless to say, this isn't how bees reproduce. - RBW
File: FVS231

Twa Corbies, The


See The Three Ravens [Child 26] (File: C026)

Twa Emperors, The


See Sandy and Nap (File: GrD1149)

Twa Knights, The [Child 268]


DESCRIPTION: A squire bets a knight that, if the knight leaves home for a time, he can seduce the knight's wife. He traps the wife into offering to come to his bed, but she sends her neice instead. When the truth is revealed, the niece weds the squire
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1828 (Buchan)
LONG DESCRIPTION: A squire bets a knight that, if the knight leaves home for a time, he can seduce the knight's wife. He traps the wife into offering to come to his bed, but she sends her neice instead. He cuts off the ring and finger to prove his victory. The knight's wife demonstrates that she still has her finger. The niece is offered the right to either kill the squire or marry him for his abuse. After much hesitation, the niece weds the squire
KEYWORDS: gambling trick abuse injury infidelity family marriage wager
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Child 268, "The Twa Knights" (1 text)
Roud #303
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Boy and the Mantle" [Child 29] (theme)
cf. "The Fiddler's Bitch" (plot)
cf. "Redesdale and Wise William" [Child 246] (plot)
NOTES: The notion of wagering over a woman's fidelity is common in folklore; in the Child canon, cf. e.g. "The Boy and the Mantle" [Child 29]. - RBW
File: C268

Twa Lads Frae Neiborin' Toons


DESCRIPTION: Two lads come to the singer's house to woo lasses. The boys brag about mother, horses and daily chores and, when those topics are exhausted, leave with excuses about work that had to be done. The singer expects no such excuses if they ever return.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1904 (GreigDuncan4)
KEYWORDS: courting bragging farming humorous
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan4 893, "Twa Lads Frae Neiborin' Toons" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Roud #6231
ALTERNATE TITLES:
It Fell Aboot a Lammas Time
File: GrD4893

Twa Magicians, The [Child 44]


DESCRIPTION: A (blacksmith) sees a girl who pleases him, and sets out to sleep with her. She tries to foil him with magic transformations, but he proves as sorcerous as she, and gains her maidenhead
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1828 (Buchan)
KEYWORDS: magic seduction rape shape-changing
FOUND IN: Britain(England,(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (10 citations):
Child 44, "The Twa Magicians" (1 text)
Bronson 44, "The Twa Magicians" (1 version plus 11 versions of "Hares on the Mountain")
GreigDuncan2 334, "The Twa Magicians" (1 fragment)
BarryEckstormSmyth pp. 442-445, "The Two Magicians" (notes plus a copy of Buchan's text and a stanza of "Hares on the Mountain")
Leach, pp. 152-154, "The Twa Magicians" (1 text)
PBB 25, "The Twa Magicians" (1 text)
Sharp-100E 20, "The Two Magicians" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #1}
DBuchan 47, "The Twa Magicians" (1 text)
DT 44, MAGICN2*
ADDITIONAL: Bob Stewart, _Where Is Saint George? Pagan Imagery in English Folksong_, revised edition, Blandford, 1988, p. 40, "The Two Magicians" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #1350
RECORDINGS:
A. L. Lloyd, "Two Magicians" (on Lloyd3, BirdBush1, BirdBush2) [tune by Lloyd]
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Hares on the Mountain" (theme)
cf. "Les Metamorphoses (Metamorphoses)" (theme)
NOTES: Sharp bowdlerizes "gain my maidenhead" to "change my maiden name" (!) -PJS
Bronson believes that the ballad "Hares on the Mountain" is a very-much-worn-down version of this piece. This is, at best, currently beyond proof; personally, I don't believe it.
The idea of gaining a lover who is changing shape has ancient roots. We find it in Ovid's "Metamorphoses," where Peleus (the father of Achilles) finds Thetis in a cave and attempts to couple with her. To defeat him, she turns into a bird, a tree, and a tigress. The latter scares him off, but eventually he catches her while asleep (XI.225ff.). And Zeus, of course, used myriad guises to gain access to women. For other examples, see Emily Lyle, Fairies and Folk: Approaches to the Scottish Ballad Tradition, Wissenschaflicher Verlag Trier, 2007, p. 138.
Bob Stewart, p. 41, proposes an alternate explanation, that the song derives from early Christian legends of saints combatting shape-changing priests. In medieval Catholic England, it is true that these stories would likely have been better-known than Ovid. But the parallels are less close. In any case, it seems to me there are plenty of shape-changing tales in folklore which might provide the root of this song!
Lyle, p. 81, suggests that this is a "levelling" ballad, with the low-status blacksmith pursuing a member of (presumably) the gentry or even the nobility. Unfortunately, with so few substantial British texts to work from, I think this has to remain speculation. She also suggests (p. 82) that the song is a "conception story"-- that is, a tale of how some significant figure came to be born. I agree that it has many of the hallmarks of such a tale, but of course the drawback is that there is no hint in the extant versions that the lady becomes pregnant, let alone bears a noteworthy child. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: C044

Twa Recruiting Sergeants


See Old Recruiting Soldier (Twa Recruiting Sergeants) (File: GrD1077)

Twa Sisters, The [Child 10]


DESCRIPTION: A knight woos two (three) sisters, choosing the younger. The older drowns the younger. Her body is recovered and made into an instrument by a passing miller/musician. As the knight prepares to wed the older sister, the instrument sings out the truth.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1656 (broadside)
KEYWORDS: courting murder music minstrel sister drowning
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland,England(All)) US(Ap,MA,MW,NE,SE,So) Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (47 citations):
Child 10, "The Twa Sisters" (25 texts, 3 tunes) {Bronson's #79, #12, #14}
Bronson 10, "The Twa Sisters" (97 versions plus 6 in addenda)
GreigDuncan2 213, "Binorie" (19 texts, 17 tunes) {B=Bronsons's #4, E=#21, G=#16?, H=#6, I=#13, J=#5?, K=#8?, L=#11, M=#9, N=#10, P=#17, Q=#18, O=#19}
Stokoe/Reay, pp. 8-9, "Binnorie; or, The Cruel Sister" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #7}
BarryEckstormSmyth pp. 40-46, "The Two Sisters" (5 texts plus 2 fragments, one from the same informant as one of the texts, 1 tune) {Bronson's #68}
Belden, pp. 16-24, "The Twa Sisters" (6 texts, 3 tunes) {Bronson's #38, #46, #30}
Randolph 4, "The Miller's Daughters" (8 texts, 5 tunes) {A=Bronson's #66, C=#32, E=#70, F=#94, G=#51}
Randolph/Cohen, pp. 18-21, "The Miller's Daughters" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 4C) {Bronson's #32}
Ritchie-Southern, p. 57, "Bow Your Bend to Me" (1 text, 1 tune)
Eddy 4, "The Twa Sisters" (1 short text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #78}
Gardner/Chickering 2, "The Two Sisters" (2 texts, 2 tunes, but the "B" text is "Peter and I Went Down the Lane") {A=Bronson's #22}
Gray, pp. 75-77, "The Twa Sisters" (1 text, plus an excerpt from Child's "B" text to pad out the story)
Flanders/Olney, pp. 209-210, "The Two Sisters" (1 text, 1 tune)
Flanders-Ancient1, pp. 150-170, "The Twa Sisters" (5 English texts plus a fragment; also two variants of a Polish text plus tune and translation; 4 tunes for the English versions) {A=Bronson's #96, B=#54}
Davis-Ballads 5, "The Twa Sisters" (9 texts plus 2 fragments, 6 tunes entitled "The Old Lord of the North Country, or The Three Sisters," "The Old Woman of the North Countrie," "The Two Sisters, or Sister Kate, or The Miller annd the Mayor's Daughter," "The Two Sisters"; 2 more versions mentioned in Appendix A) {Bronson's #25, #71, #40, #55, #27, #39}
Davis-More 6, pp. 35-50, "The Twa Sisters" (10 texts, 7 tunes)
BrownII 4, "The Two Sisters" (3 texts plus 2 fragments)
Chappell-FSRA 3, "The Two Sisters" (1 short text)
Hudson 3, p. 68, "The Two Sisters" (1 text)
Scarborough-SongCatcher, pp. 164-165, "The Twa Sisters" (1 text, locally titled "The Two Sisters")
Brewster 6, "The Two Sisters" (4 texts plus a fragment, 1 tune) {Bronson's #44}
Greenleaf/Mansfield 3, "The Twa Sisters" (1 text)
Peacock, pp. 179-180, "The Bonny Busk of London" (1 text, 1 tune)
Leach, pp. 74-78, "The Twa Sisters" (3 texts)
McNeil-SFB2, pp. 150-156, "The Two Sisters"; "The Two Sisters (Wind and Rain) (2 texts, 2 tunes)
OBB 23, "Binnorie" (1 text)
Warner 98, "The Two Sisters That Loved One Man" (1 text, 1 tune)
Niles 7, "The Twa Sisters" (3 texts, 3 tunes)
Gummere, pp. 171-173+343, "The Twa Sisters" (1 text)
SharpAp 5 "The Two Sisters" (14 texts, 14 tunes) {Bronson's #91, #55, #27, #39, #74, #73, #50, #34, #45, #63, #59, #47, #65, #41}
Sharp/Karpeles-80E 6, "The Two Sisters" (1 text, 1 tune -- a composite text) {Bronson's #45}
Lomax-FSNA 90, "The Two Sisters" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #67}
Hodgart, p. 32, "The Twa Sisters" (1 text)
DBuchan 3, "The Twa Sisters" (1 text, 1 tune in appendix) {Bronson's #79}
JHCox 3, "The Twa Sisters" (3 texts, 1 tune) {Bronson's #43}
JHCoxIIA, #2A-B, pp. 10-13, "There Was an Old Farmer," "All Bow Down" (2 texts, 1 tune) {Bronson's #69}
Ord, pp. 430-432, "The Bonnie Mill-Dams o' Binnorie"; pp. 459-460, "Hey the Rose and the Lindsay, O" (2 texts, 1 tune)
MacSeegTrav 3, "The Twa Sisters" (1 text plus two variant verses, 1 tune)
TBB 9, "The Twa Sisters" (1 text)
HarvClass-EP1, pp. 54-56, "The Twa Sisters" (1 text)
Abrahams/Foss, pp. 20-24, "The Two Sisters"; "The Two Sisters (The Wind and Rain)" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
LPound-ABS, 4, pp. 11-12, "The Two Sisters"; pp. 12-13, "The Old Man in the North Countree" (2 texts)
Darling-NAS, pp. 56-59, "The Two Sisters"; "Rollin' a-Rollin'"; "Wind and Rain" (3 texts)
Silber-FSWB, p. 224, "The Two Sisters" (1 text)
DT 10, BINNORI* TWOSIS* TWOSIS5* WINDRAIN* SWANSWIM* TWOSIS8 TWOSIS9 TWOSI10 TWOSS11
ADDITIONAL: ADDITIONAL: Emily Lyle, _Fairies and Folk: Approaches to the Scottish Ballad Tradition_, Wissenschaflicher Verlag Trier, 2007, p. 220, [no title] (1 tune, previously unpublished, for Child's "Q" text)
Walter de la Mare, _Come Hither_, revised edition, 1928; #427, "The Twa Sisters" (1 text)
Roud #8
RECORDINGS:
Horton Barker, "The Two Sisters" (AAFS 33); "Bow and Balance" (on Barker01) {Bronson's #67}
Anita Best and Pamela Morgan, "The Two Sisters" (on NFABestPMorgan01)
Loman D. Cansler, "The Two Sisters" (on Cansler1)
Lula Curry, "The Squire's Daughter" (on JThomas01)
Bradley Kincaid, "The Two Sisters" (Supertone 9212, 1928)
Jean Ritchie, "The Two Sisters" (AFS; on LC57); "There Lived an Old Lord" (on JRitchie02)
Kilby Snow, "Wind and Rain" (on KSnow1)
Lucy Stewart, "The Swan Swims So Bonnie O" (on LStewart1)
John Strachan, "The Twa Sisters" (on FSB4)
John Strachan, Dorothy Fourbister, Ethel Findlater [composite] "The Twa Sisters" (on FSBBAL1) {cf. Bronson's #16.2 in addenda}
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "An Sgeir-Mhara (The Sea-Tangle, The Jealous Woman)" (plot)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Bows of London
The Cruel Sister
Rolling a-Rolling
The Wind and Rain
The Swan Swims Bonnie
The Old Lord by the Northern Sea
Bowie, Bowerie
The Little Drownded Girl
Lay the Bent to the Bonny Broom
Old Man from the North Countree
The Youngest Daughter
Minorie
The Mull Dams o' Binorrie
NOTES: The refrains sung with this ballad vary tremendously, but virtually all versions have a refrain of some sort. - PJS
And generally a lyrically attractive one ("the swan swims bonnie," etc.), as has been pointed out by several scholars. I wonder if there isn't something about this ballad that encourages variation; Jean Ritchie reports that, even though they presumably learned the song from the same source, her family had twelve distinct versions. - RBW
The Kilby Snow recording is an unusual one; it contains every element of, "The Twa Sisters" except the sisters; the murderer in this case is the girl's lover. Snow reconstructed the song from early childhood memories of his grandfather (a Cherokee) singing it, though, so it may have diverged at that point. - PJS
Compare the first verse lines of Child 10.H to Opie-Oxford2 479, "There were three sisters in a hall" (earliest date in Opie-Oxford2 is c.1630)
Child 10.H: "There were three sisters lived in a hall, ... And there came a lord to court them all...."
Opie-Oxford2 479 is a riddle beginning "There were three sisters in a hall, There came a knight amongst them all ...." - BS
This item is also found as Baring-Gould-MotherGoose #702, p. 275, but this appears to be simply a greeting rhyme unrelated to the various rather murderous ballads (notably Child 10 and 11) using these lines. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: C010

Twangman, The


DESCRIPTION: Twang hawker and rag-picker Mickey Baggs courts a girl who "kep' a Traycle Billy depot." Baggs wins her heart taking her to play "Billy-in-the-bowl." So "with his twang kni-ef [twangman] tuk the li-ef Of the poor ould gather'em-up!"
AUTHOR: probably Michael J. Moran (Zozimus)
EARLIEST DATE: 1929 (OLochlainn)
KEYWORDS: courting murder humorous
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (3 citations):
OLochlainn, pp. 231-232, "The Twangman" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, TWANGMAN
ADDITIONAL: Frank Harte _Songs of Dublin_, second edition, Ossian, 1993, pp. 44-45, "The Twangman" (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES: In response to queries in earlier editions of the Index, Tom O'Leary informs me that "twang" is toffee. He adds that a "'Traycle depot' [was] a sweet shop, which in this case, was near to, or on one side of the Carlisle Bridge, Dublin."
Harte, on the other hand, says that it was Treacle Billy that was the toffee and twang another sort of sweetmeat. It makes little difference; the twangman certainly sold toffee.
The song says that the twangman only sells his wares "when the mileetia wasn't wantin'"; this is no particular constraint on his schedule, as miltitia in this period was a very part-time organization except when there was a rebellion in process. - RBW, (BS)
I might add that Eric Partridge A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (combined fifth edition with dictionary and supplement), Macmillan, 1961, in his supplement says that "twang" means opium in twentieth century Australian slang. But this usage seems to be more recent than O Lochlainn's text of the song.
Note also that Harte questions whether this is actually by Zozimus. But his evidence is negative: The song is not mentioned in the Zozimus memoirs. For background on Zozimus, see the notes to "The Finding of Moses." - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: OLoc231B

Twanky Dillo


See Twankydillo (The Blacksmith's Song) (File: K286)

Twankydillo (The Blacksmith's Song)


DESCRIPTION: Singer toasts the blacksmith, the pretty girl "who kindles a fire all in her own breast," and the Queen. Chorus: "Which makes his bright hammer to rise and to fall/There's the Old Cole and the Young Cole and the Old Cole of all/Twankydillo..."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1893 (Broadwood)
LONG DESCRIPTION: Singer raises a health to the blacksmith who works at his anvil while the boy blows the bellows; if a gentleman calls with a horse to be shod, the smith can be persuaded to work by giving him drink. Singer also toasts the pretty girl "who kindles a fire all in her own breast," and to "our sovereign the Queen" and all the Royal Family. Chorus: "Which makes his bright hammer to rise and to fall/There's the Old Cole and the Young Cole and the Old Cole of all/Twankydillo, twankydillo...And the roaring pair of blow-pipes, made from the green willow"
KEYWORDS: love work drink nonballad worker royalty
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South))
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Kennedy 286, "Twankydillo" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, TWNKDLLO*
Roud #2409
NOTES: Hammond, in 1906, reported a Dorset song, "The Life of a Shepherd," with the "Twankydillo" chorus. - PJS
File: K286

Twas a Love of Adventure


See Diego's Bold Shore (File: SWMS030)

Twas Aneuch to Gar the Maister Tak


DESCRIPTION: "'Twas aneuch to gar the maister tak Rheumatics in his toes"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1917 (GreigDuncan8)
KEYWORDS: disease
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan8 1883, "'Twas Aneuch to Gar the Maister Tak" (1 fragment)
Roud #13569
NOTES: The current description is all of the GreigDuncan8 fragment. - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: GrD81883

Twas Down in Cupid's Garden


See Cupid's Garden (I) (Covent Garden I; Lovely Nancy III) (File: SWMS090)

'Twas Early in the Spring


See Early, Early in the Spring [Laws M1] (File: LM01)

'Twas Getting Late Up in September


DESCRIPTION: In Labrador, "'Twas getting late up in September"; the singer meets a girl come to fill her buckets at the fountain. He proposes, she accepts, "a priest came up on the steamer," they marry and "live in a nice little cottage, Down by the side of the sea"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1951 (Peacock)
KEYWORDS: courting love marriage wedding
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Peacock, pp. 601-602, "'Twas Getting Late Up in September" (1 text, 1 tune)
Doyle3, p. 78, "'Twas Getting Late Up in September" (1 text, 1 tune)
Blondahl, p. 104, "'Twas Getting Late Up In September" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST Doyl3078 (Partial)
Roud #7288
File: Doyl3078

Twas in the Month of August In the Middle of July (She Said the Same to Me)


DESCRIPTION: "'Twas in the month of August, or the middle of July, One evening I went walking, a fair maiden I did spy; She was mournin' for her true love, who was in Amerikee, Agh, divil a word I said to her, and she said the same to me!"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1914 (GreigDuncan8)
KEYWORDS: humorous nonsense paradox separation emigration
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber)) US(MW)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
GreigDuncan8 1704, "'Twas in the Month of August" (1 text)
Sandburg, pp. 38-39, "She Said the Same to Me" (1 short text, 1 tune)
DT, SAIDSAME
Roud #13616
NOTES: Roud has five references for numbers #13523 (Sandburg) and #13616. Besides Sandburg and GreigDuncan8, he has "It Was on a Month of Sunday" ("It was on the month of Sunday in the city of July"), "On a Cold and Frosty Morning" ("A cold and frosty morning in the middle of July"), and "The 25th of Liverpool" ("On the 24th of Liverpool, in the city of July"), all from recordings. It seems reasonable to me that these are all the same song. Each verse of Sandburg and GreigDuncan8 is nonsense, on the order of "Three Little Girls, A-Skating Went" and "'Twas a dark and stormy night and the moon was shining bright ...." GreigDuncan8 shares Sandburg's first two lines in a first verse "'Twas in the month of August, In the middle of July, The snow was falling thick and fast The weather being dry." The singer hires a tramway car to cross the sea, falls in love with a French girl from a few miles out of Tipperary, and tells about his father "being a dairymaid, Aboard a Sunday boat." - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: San038

Twas in the Month of June


See Diana Kitty Annie Maria (File: GrD4737)

Twas in the Pleasant Month of May


DESCRIPTION: "'Twas in the pleasant month of May, When flowers began a-springing, The little lambs did skip and dance, And the birds began a-singing"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1908 (GreigDuncan4)
KEYWORDS:
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan4 805, "'Twas in the Pleasant Month of May" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
Roud #6206
NOTES: The current description is all of the GreigDuncan4 fragment.
I think the GreigDuncan4 fragments of "'Twas on the Twenty Second of March" and "'Twas in the Pleasant Month of May" are so brief and use such standard imagery that lumping them together is not justified. See also, for example, "Girls of the Shamrock Shore" and the note about O'Conor's text of "The Shamrock Shore." - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: GrD4805

Twas in the Town of Parsboro


DESCRIPTION: Drunk in Parsboro ,"the gallant slugger Dunkerson ... challenged Baxter [McLellan] there to fight in Bill Mahoney's barn." Baxter beats him "inside of fifteen seconds." Dunkerson staggers home and cannot get a drink, "badly licked by a sober... man"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1932 (Creighton-NovaScotia)
KEYWORDS: fight drink
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Creighton-NovaScotia 148, "'Twas in the Town of Parsboro" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST CrNS148 (Partial)
Roud #1843
NOTES: This song is item dH44 in Laws's Appendix II.
Creighton-NovaScotia: Parsboro is a town in Nova Scotia.
The song refers to "when the Scott Act was in force." The Scott Act, or Canada Temperance Act was passed in 1878 (source: The Prohibition entry for The Canadian Encyclopedia site).- BS
File: CrNS148

Twas in the year eighteen hundred and three


See Boyndlie Road (File: GrD3459)

'Twas Nine Years Ago


See The Kerry Recruit [Laws J8] (File: LJ08)

Twas on a Monday Mornin'


See Charlie Is My Darling (File: FSWB140A)

'Twas on de Bluff


See On the Bluff (Alligator Song) (File: ScaNF072)

'Twas on the Napanee


DESCRIPTION: A young man leaves his parents' home to become a raftsman; he is drowned while rafting saw logs. His parents and friends mourn
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1941 (Beck)
KEYWORDS: lumbering death mourning work logger
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Beck 54, "'Twas on the Napanee" (1 text)
Roud #4057
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Jam on Gerry's Rock" [Laws C1] (plot)
cf. "The Death of Harry Bradford" [Laws C12] (plot, tune)
NOTES: In the mid-nineteenth century, a young man named Anthony Barrett was killed on the Napanee river.
Beck states that this song seems to have been composed in Canada around 1860; it was collected from a Mrs. Barrett, of Mt. Pleasant, Michigan -- possibly a relative of the deceased? - PJS
It would be difficult to prove that Barrett was the subject of this song; he is never named. Beck's text (apparently the only one known) does not give a name. It merely says that the young man was from Bedford, that he was the youngest son of living parents, that he left home on May 24 of an unnamed year and died on June 2, and that the death took place on the Napanee.
The Napanee River, and the town of the same name, are on the north side of Lake Ontario, about a fifth of the way from Kingston to Toronto. There were lumber drives in that part of Ontario in the nineteenth century. Bedford, Ontario is a small town north of Kingston, a substantial distance away from Napanee; it appears that it is in good timber country. It is alsp possible that "Bedford" might be an error for, e.g., "Belleville," the next large town west of Napanee.
Although we cannot prove that Anthony Barrett is the man intended, it seems highly likely. Anthony Barrett was the great, great, great uncle of James Barrett, who wrote to me in August 2010 and informed me that "Anthony Barrett... died rafting logs on the Napanee River, June 2, 1880. Beck states that this song seems to have been composed in Canada around 1860; but it is actually 1880, and the reference indicates that it was collected from a Mrs. Barrett, of Mt. Pleasant, Michigan -- possibly a relative of the deceased. This Mrs. Barrett of Mount Pleasant would beÊAnthony Barrett's sister-in-law, MargaretÊBarrett, wife of Martin H. Barrett."
As "'Twas on the Napene," this song is item dC36 in Laws's Appendix II. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: Be054

'Twas on the Napene


See 'Twas on the Napanee (File: Be054)

Twas on the Twenty Second of March


DESCRIPTION: "'Twas on the twenty second of March In the middle of the Spring O, When merry lambs began to bleat, And birds began to sing O"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1906 (GreigDuncan4)
KEYWORDS: animal
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan4 804, "'Twas on the Twenty Second of March" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
Roud #6205
NOTES: The current description is all of the GreigDuncan4 fragment.
I think the GreigDuncan4 fragments of "'Twas on the Twenty Second of March" and "'Twas in the Pleasant Month of May" are so brief and use such standard imagery that lumping them together is not justified. See also, for example, "Girls of the Shamrock Shore" and O'Conor's text of "The Shamrock Shore." - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: GrD4804

Twelfth of July, The


DESCRIPTION: Singer tells how Montreal Irish lick the "yellowbacks." On July 12, Fawcett fires a revolver. Hackett fires back, but is mortally wounded. Listeners are reminded that King Billy "tore down Catholic churches..." but they can't do it in Montreal
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: c. 1957 (recording, Tom Brandon)
LONG DESCRIPTION: Singer tells how the Irish Catholics of Montreal licked the "yellowbacks." On July 12 an Orangemen's parade clashes with Unionists; one Fawcett fires a revolver, swearing to "kill every papist dog." Hackett fires back, but is mortally wounded. Listeners are exhorted to remember that King Billy and his supporters "tore down Catholic churches from Lewis to Donegal," but they can't get away with it in Montreal
KEYWORDS: hate battle fight violence death murder Ireland
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
July 12, 1877: Clash between Irish Catholics and Protestants in Montreal
FOUND IN: Canada(Ont)
RECORDINGS:
Tom Brandon, "The Twelfth of July" (on Ontario1)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Belfast Riot" (Canadian political situation)
NOTES: Despite the song, there was no Orangemen's parade on July 12 (the day when Irish Protestants celebrate William III's victory in the battle of the Boyne); according to newspaper accounts, plans for a parade had been dropped due to rising tensions. However, brawling broke out in a mixed crowd of Orangemen and Unionists in Victoria Square; in the fight, Francis Hackett was fatally shot. - PJS
The British had guaranteed Catholic rights in Quebec when they took over the territory in 1760, but the Catholics took many years to believe this. In the aftermath of William Lyon Mackenzie's 1837 rebellion, Governor General John Lambton, Earl of Durham, proposed constitutional changes (e.g. merging Upper and Lower Canada, i.e. Ontario and Quebec) which were viewed as attacking the Canadiens' identity. These and other changes fueled Catholic fears, and the tensions lasted for years. Indeed, the disagreements still persist, though the religious element seems to have largely dropped out.
It is ironic to note that many of Durham's reforms, such as local representation, were liberal and have become universal in the years since his time (see James L. Stokesbury, Navy & Empire, Morrow, 1983, p. 228). His problem was that he, like many reformers, talked to the "wrong" people, so the elites despised him, but he didn't know how to appeal to the general population.
In addition to the disturbance of 1877 apparently cited here, Graeme Wynn reports that "Limbs were bruised and heads broken when Protestant Orangemen celebrated the victory of William of Orange over Irish Catholic forces at the Battle of the Boyne on July 12, 1690, clashed with 'Green' Catholics in and around the Irish districts of several cities [in Canada] in the 1830s and 1840s." (From Craig Brown, editor, The Illustrated History of Canada, p. 267).- RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: Rc12July

Twelfth of May, The


DESCRIPTION: "'Tis always on the twelfth of May, We meet and dress so gaily; For tonight will merry be (x3), We'll sing and dance so gaily." "The sun is up and the morn is bright." "Yonder stands a lovely lady." A collection of floating material to celebrate May
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1976 (Palmer); said to be from Morley, c. 1900
KEYWORDS: nonballad floatingverses
FOUND IN: Britain(England(West))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
ADDITIONAL: Roy Palmer, _The Folklore of Warwickshire_, Rowman and Littlefield, 1976, p. 162, "(no title)" (1 text)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Wheel of Fortune (Dublin City, Spanish Lady)" (floating lyrics)
File: RPFW162

Twelve Apostles, The


See Green Grow the Rushes-O (The Twelve Apostles, Come and I Will Sing You) (File: ShH97)

Twelve Blessings of Mary, The


See The Seven Joys of Mary (File: FO211)

Twelve Days of Christmas, The


DESCRIPTION: The singer's true love gives gifts throughout Christmastide, with the quantity of gifts increasing each day
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: c. 1780 (Mirth without Mischief)
KEYWORDS: Christmas cumulative
FOUND IN: Britain(England,Scotland(Aber),Wales) US(Ap,NE,SE,So) Canada(West)
REFERENCES (18 citations):
Belden, pp. 512-513, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (1 text)
Flanders/Olney, pp. 213-216, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (1 text, 1 tune)
Flanders/Brown, pp. 86-87, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (1 text, 1 tune)
Linscott, pp. 52-54, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (1 text, 1 tune)
Sharp-100E 96, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (1 text, 1 tune)
BrownII 52, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (3 texts, though two are summarized)
Brewster 94, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (2 texts, apparently summarized)
Lomax-FSNA 124, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ritchie-SingFam, p. 172, "Twelve Days of Christmas" (1 text)
Opie-Oxford2 100, "The first day of Christmas" (3 texts)
Baring-Gould-MotherGoose #424, pp. 196-199, "(The First Day of Christmas)"
GreigDuncan3 637, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (1 text)
Montgomerie-ScottishNR 123, "Thirteen Yule Days" (1 text)
Silber-FSWB, p. 384, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (1 text)
DT, XMAS12DY*
ADDITIONAL: Robert Chambers, The Popular Rhymes of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1870 ("Digitized by Google")), pp. 42-43, "Yule Days"
Walter de la Mare, _Come Hither_, revised edition, 1928, notes to #258, ("On the First Day of Christmas") (1 text)
Ian Bradley, _The Penguin Book of Carols_ (1999), #59, "On the First Day of Christmas" (1 text)
Roud #68
RECORDINGS:
John Thomas, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" [sung in Welsh] (on Saskatch01)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Ten Days of Finals" (tune)
SAME TUNE:
The Ten Days of Finals (File: EM373)
NOTES: Chambers, p. 47, cites his source as "a large manuscript collection of hitherto unpublished Scottish songs, by Mr P. Buchan." - BS
A legend (passed to me by a friend, with no authorities cited) claims that this was a covert Catholic catechism, composed to sneak by the Protestant authorities.
The Baring-Goulds offer some minor supporting evidence, in that a partridge (for the first day) is "known as a bird that deserts its young" -- hence the idea of people who have deserted their faith.
Possible, I suppose -- but clearly most people who have sung the song know nothing of such things, and many of their heavily-folk-processed versions would not be suitable for such purposes (assuming the original was).
Ian Bradley in the Penguin Book of Carols, on the other hand, claims it's a drinking forfeit: You have to remember all the gifts offered by previous givers and add one of your own. The problem with this theory, of course, is that the gifts are stereotyped.
They may be even more sterotyped than we realize, in fact. The Baring-Goulds argue that the "five gold rings" of the fifth verse are in fact the rings on the neck of a pheasant (though those rings aren't golden on any pheasant I've seen), meaning that the first seven gifts are all birds. They also argue for a French origin for the piece.
The Opies conclude that the meaning of the song "has yet to be satisfactoril explained." In light of the variety of explanations offered, I think that would be my conclusion also.
A handful of versions of this -- that of the Montgomeries, and Gomme's "B," and Chambers -- are clearly recensionally different: The verses begin, "The king sent his lady on the (first, second, third...) Yule day." The final line is, "Who learns my carol, and carries it away." This may include *thirteen* Yule days. I thought seriously about calling this a separate song -- but the general form appears related, and so are many of the gifts. Besides, most people would probably seek the song here. But it should be clear that it's a deliberate rewrite.
There is a partial French analogy, "La Perdriole" or "The Twelve Months of the Year"; it can be found in Maud Karpeles, Folk Songs of Europe, Oak, 1956, 1964, p. 130. It counts the months of the year rather than the days of Christmas, and many of the gifts are different -- but it ends (at least in the Karpeles translation) with "Two turtle-doves, And a little partridge... in the woods."
We should be cautious with the French song, though. Not all texts follow this format, though it appears all are cumulative. Grace Lee Nute, The Voyageur, 1931 (I use the 1987 Minnesota Historical Society Press edition), pp. 115-117, examines several versions of the song she calls "Une Perdriole." All are cumulative, but the number of cycles varies, and it counts days in the month of may, not months of the year. I am inclined to suspect that this song began simply as a cumulative song and was perhaps even adapted toward the English form. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: FO213

Twelve Gates to the City


DESCRIPTION: Spiritual: "Oh, what a beautiful city/There's twelve gates to the city, halleluiah"; "Three gates in the east, three gates in the west/Three gates in the north, three gates in the south."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1929 (recording, Norfolk Jubilee Quartet)
KEYWORDS: nonballad religious
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
PSeeger-AFB, p. 81, "Twelve Gates to the City" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber-FSWB, p. 349, "Twelve Gates to the City" (1 text)
DT, TWLVGATE
RECORDINGS:
Marian Anderson, "Oh! What a Beautiful City" (Victor 10-1040, 1943)
Blind Gary [Davis], "Twelve Gates to the City" (ARC 7-04-55, 1937; rec. 1935)
Blind Boy Fuller w. Sonny Terry, "Twelve Gates to the City" (Vocalion 05465, 1940)
Galilee Singers, "What a Beautiful City" (Decca 7765, 1940)
Norfolk Jubilee Quartet, "Oh What a Beautiful City" (Paramount 12929, 1930; rec. 1929)
Pete Seeger & Sonny Terry, "Twelve Gates to the City" (on SeegerTerry)
Pete Seeger, "Beautiful City" (on PeteSeeger18)); "Twelve Gates to the City" (on PeteSeeger42); "Oh, What a Beautiful City [Twelve Gates to the City]" (on PeteSeeger47)
Sonny Terry [pseud., Saunders Terrell], "Beautiful City" (on Terry01)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Oh, What a Beautiful City
NOTES: I know there are earlier recordings of this piece (it was a showpiece for Rev. Gary Davis), and probably earlier printed citations too, but I haven't found them yet. - PJS
The image of the heavenly city may possibly be derived from Chapter 21 of the Apocalypse, which mentions "the holy city, the new Jerusalem" (21:2), but the twelve gates of the city, three on each side, are unquestionably taken from Ezekiel 48:30-34. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: PSAFB081

Twelve Good Joys, The


See The Seven Joys of Mary (File: FO211)

Twelve Joys, The


See The Seven Joys of Mary (File: FO211)

Twelvemonth More Has Rolled Around, A


DESCRIPTION: "A twelvemonth more has rolled around Since we attended on this ground, Ten thousand scenes have marked the year Since we last met to worship here."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1955 (Ritchie)
KEYWORDS: religious
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Ritchie-SingFam, p. 83, "[A Twelvemonth More Has Rolled Around]" (1 text, 1 tune)
File: JRSF083

Twenty Men from Dublin Town


DESCRIPTION: Twenty men from Dublin join Michael Dwyer to fight the redcoats and avenge the death of Wolfe Tone.
AUTHOR: Arthur Griffith (1871-1922) (source: Moylan)
EARLIEST DATE: 2000 (Moylan)
KEYWORDS: rebellion Ireland nonballad patriotic
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1798 - Irish rebellion against British rule
Nov 10, 1798 - Wolfe Tone (1763-1798) condemned to execution; he cuts his own throat to avoid hanging as a criminal (his request to face a firing squad had been denied)
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Moylan 147, "Twenty Men from Dublin Town" (1 text, 1 tune)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Michael Dwyer (I)" (subject of Michael Dwyer) and references there
cf. "The Shan Van Voght" (subject of Wolfe Tone)
NOTES: For the history of Michael Dwyer, who held out as a rebel for about five years before surrendering to the British, see the notes to Michael Dwyer (I)" or Michael Dwyer (II)." Wolfe Tone's part in the 1798 rebellion is covered in "The Shan Van Voght."
Arthur Griffith was the founder of Sinn Fein, the party that eventually led Ireland to (approximate) independence; after the foundation of the Irish Free State, he became the first head of state, dying in that office in no small part because of the pressures of trying to head a state suffering a civil war. - RBW
File: Moyl147

Twenty Pound Dog, The


DESCRIPTION: "My name it is (Michael McCarthy) and I live in this town of renown, I made a bet with one Terrence Mahaffey that my bulldog could wallop the town." But Murphy's dog kills the singer's dog. He cries for vengeance
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1922 (Dean)
KEYWORDS: dog fight revenge
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Dean, pp. 68-69, "The Twenty Pound Dog" (1 text)
Roud #3495
NOTES: I found an online reference to this song, stating that it was widely known in the nineteenth century as a result of a decision in Britain to ban sports such as bear-baiting. Those who liked the blood sports turned to fighting dogs, since they were smaller and more normally kept as pets.
According to the site, bulldogs were the typical breed used for this purpose -- but their lack of mobility made the fights uninteresting. So other breeds were mixed in to produce the pit bull. This does seem to fit well with the song, since the dog Murphy wins the fight with has terrier blood. - RBW
File: Dean068B

Twenty Years Ago (Forty Years Ago)


DESCRIPTION: "I wandered to the village, Tom, and sat beneath the tree... That sheltered you and me... But none were left to greet me, Tom... Who played with us upon the green Just (twenty/forty) years ago." The singer tells how the people have changed with the years
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1879 (McGuffey's Fifth Reader)
KEYWORDS: age home courting
FOUND IN: US(SE,So) Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
BrownIII 335, "Twenty (Forty, Sixty) Years Ago" (4 texts)
Randolph 869, "Forty Years Ago" (1 text plus an excerpt, 1 tune)
Randolph/Cohen, pp. 481-484, "Forty Years Ago" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 869A)
Ives-DullCare, pp. 196-197,256, "Twenty Years Ago" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST R869 (Partial)
Roud #765
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Good Old Days of Adam and Eve" (theme) and references there
cf. "Merchants of the Bay" (tune)
NOTES: Randolph lists many possible authors for this piece: Dill Armor Smith and Frances Huston are credited with the words, and William Willing with the tune. No solid evidence seems to be forthcoming, though Hazel Felleman's The Best Loved Poems of the American People also credits the song to Smith. Cohen notes that several people stepped forward to claim the song (on behalf of others) and explain the internal references.
The texts in Brown are clearly the same song, despite the difference in time period covered, and also the changes described in that time. Randoph's and Felleman's texts make little mention of technology; they're mostly about aging. The other texts are different. Several mention the first cooking stove, and how women wore (woolen/homespun) dresses and boys wore pants of tow.
Brown's "D" text concludes, "Oxen answered well for teams, but now they're rather slow. But people didn't live so fast some sixty years ago." I'd love to know the author's reaction, had he lived to see it, to a modern freeway.... - RBW
File: R869

Twenty-Fourth of May, The


DESCRIPTION: "O, the twenty-fourth of May Is the Queen's birthday. If you don't give us a holiday, We'll all run away."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1970 (Manny/Wilson)
KEYWORDS: royalty nonballad
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
May 24, 1819 - birth of the future Queen Victoria
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Manny/Wilson, p.35, (no title) (1 text)
NOTES: The songs in Manny/Wilson were collected in two spurts: The Lord Beaverbrook collection was made around 1947, and Manny started gathering material about ten years later. It would be interesting to know how many of her informants went to school during Victoria's reign -- I wonder if Manny didn't recall the piece herself. - RBW
File: MaWip35

Twenty-One


DESCRIPTION: "At twenty-one I first began to court a neighbour's child...." "At twenty-two no man could view what beauty she possessed...." "At twenty-three she slighted me...." The singer laments the girl's falsity, hopes she will change, (and sets out to ramble)
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1924 (Sam Henry collection)
KEYWORDS: love courting rejection betrayal rambling beauty
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (2 citations):
SHenry H33+H611, pp. 397-398, "Twenty-One" (1 text with many variant readings, 1 tune)
DT, AT21
Roud #4714
RECORDINGS:
Robert Cinnamond, "At Twenty One" (on IRRCinnamond03)
File: HHH033

Twenty-One Years [Laws E16]


DESCRIPTION: A convict is sentenced to twenty-one years in prison. He begs his sweetheart, for whom he endured a dirty jail, to ask the governor for clemency. As nothing seems to come of this, he warns young men not to trust women
AUTHOR: Bob Miller?
EARLIEST DATE: 1930 (recording, Lester McFarland & Robert Gardner)
KEYWORDS: prison rejection
FOUND IN: US(Ap,SE,So) Britain(England)
REFERENCES (8 citations):
Laws E16, "Twenty-One Years"
Randolph 168, "Twenty-One Years" (4 texts plus an excerpt, 1 tune, with the last three texts being diverse sequels to the first text and excerpt)
Randolph/Cohen, pp. 156-158, "Twenty-One Years" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 168A)
BrownIII 352, "Twenty-One Years" (1 text)
MHenry-Appalachians, pp. 69-70, "Twenty-One Years" (1 text)
MacSeegTrav 100, "Twenty-One Years" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
JHJohnson, pp. 41-43, "Twenty-One Years" (1 text)
DT 354, (YRS21*)
Roud #2248
RECORDINGS:
Edward L. Crain, "Twenty-One Years" (Crown 3238, 1932)
Lonesome Pine Fiddlers, "Twenty-One Years" (RCA Victor 20-5011, 1952)
Frank Luther, "Twenty-One Years" (Polk 9087, n.d.)
Lester McFarland & Robert Gardner, "Twenty-One Years" (Brunswick 483, 1930)
Bob Miller, "Twenty-One Years" (Supertone S-2764, c. 1931)
[Bob] Miller & [Barney] Burnett, "Twenty One Years" (Champion 15985, 1930) (OKeh 45442/OKeh 45541, 1930) (Montgomery Ward M-4964, 1936)
New Lost City Ramblers, "Twenty-One Years" (on NLCR13)
Riley Puckett, "Twenty-One Years" (Columbia 15719-D, 1932; rec. 1931)
Red River Dave, "Twenty-One Years" (Musicraft 287, 1944)
Renfro Valley Boys [Karl Davis & Harty Taylor], "Twenty One Years" (Paramount 3311/Broadway 8318, rec. 1932)
Dick Robertson, "Twenty-One Years" (Victor 23616, 1932; Montgomery Ward M-3311, n.d.; rec. 1931)
Carson Robison's Trio, "Twenty-One Years" (Banner 32305/Oriole 8100, 1931
Kate Smith, "Twenty-One Years" (Columbia 2605-D, 1932)
Uncle Bud & his Plow Boys, "Twenty-One Years" (Clarion 5418-C, 1931)
Marc Williams, "Twenty-One Years" (Decca 5010, 1934)
SAME TUNE:
Gene Autry & Jimmy Long, "Answer to 21 Years" (Banner 32761 [as Gene Autry]/Melotone 12690 [as Gene Autry]/Vocalion 5497/Conqueror 8092, 1933)
Don Hall Trio, "Answer to Twenty-One Years" (Victor 23782/Bluebird B-5004 [as the Rose Family], 1933)
Log Cabin Boys, "Answer to 21 Years" (Decca 5035, 1934)
Jimmy Long, "The Answer to 21 Years" (Champion 16632, 1933; Champion 45023, 1935)
Ernest Hare, "New Twenty-One Years" (Columbia 2602-D, 1932)
Zora Layman, "The Answer to 21 Years" (Banner 32722/Melotone M-12651, 1933)
Frank Luther Trio "New Twenty-One Years" (Vocalion 5491, c. 1932; Melotone 12602/Banner 32679 [both as Buddy Spencer's Trio]/Perfect 12884 [as Buddy Spencer]/Conqueror 8100, 1933; rec. 1932)
Bob Miller, "New Twenty-One Years" (Columbia 15739-D [as Bob Ferguson], 1932) (Electradisk 1907 [as Palmer Trio], 1933) (Victor 23693, 1932; Bluebird B-5013[as Bill Palmer Trio]/Montgomery Ward M-4233, 1933)
Lester McFarland, "Twenty-One Years, No. 2" (Brunswick 596, 1932)
Bob Miller, "New Twenty-One Years" (Columbia 15739-D, 1932) (Electradisk 1907, c. 1932) (Montgomery Ward M-4233, 1933)
Dan Parker, "New 21 Years" (Crown 3266, 1932) [I strongly suspect this is a pseudonym, but since I don'e know whether it's Frank Luther or Bob Miller I give it its own listing for now]
Dick Robertson, "New Twenty-One Years" (Victor 23647, 1932/Montgomery Ward M-4821, 1935)
NOTES: The copyright and collection information on this song reveal something or other. The notes in Randolph's second edition list it as copyright 1931 by Bob Miller. But Randolph's informant, Lillian Short, thought she learned it in 1931, and not from Miller. Henry's version is from 1932; Brown's dates from around 1936. Plus the three sequels, which Laws considers distinct, were collected 1935, 1934, and 1941.
Johnson's book, printed in 1935, shows no knowledge of an author; neither does Laws, nor Brown, though Norm Cohen accepts the attribution to Miller.
Draw your own conclusions. - RBW
Well, the McFarland-Gardner record was made in June 1930 and probably issued later that year, so Ms. Short could well have learned it from there. In the discographical notes to that record, though, the author credit is given to Miller. The Robison recording also dates from that year. - PJS
File: LE16

Twenty-Third, The


DESCRIPTION: "The Twenty-third was drawn in line and ready for the strife, Each man for his country would freely give his life...." A toast to the soldiers who fought bravely "On the thirty-first of May in the Shenandoah lowlands, lowlands low...."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1941 (Warner)
KEYWORDS: battle Civilwar
FOUND IN: US(MA)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Warner 36, "The Twenty-Third" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST Wa036 (Partial)
Roud #7454
NOTES: The fragment given by the Warners (collected from Yankee John Galusha) is historically troublesome; I suspect it is damaged. There were no Civil War battles fought on May 31 in the Shenandoah valley!
The logical guess would be that the reference is to Jackson's Shenandoah campaign of 1862. Fighting was almost constant in May and June of that year -- but on May 31 Jackson was extracting his troops from between converging Federal columns.
The song does not really identify the regiment, but here we can make a better guess. Even though John Galusha was from New York, it is not the 23rd New York (which, unlike the formation in the song, did not have a colonel named Neal).
I suspect it is the 23rd Pennsylvania, which was commanded from February 1862 by Colonel Thomas Hewson Neill. This regiment, however, was in the Peninsular Campaign, not the Shenandoah campaign (it was in Couch's first division of Keyes's Fourth Corps).
If that is the case, we have a "fit" for the battle: It was the battle of Fair Oaks/Seven Pines, May 31-June 1, 1862. At that time, according to Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, volume II, p. 218, it was in Abercrombie's second brigage of Couch's division. What's more, it played a major role in the battle -- Abercrombie's brigade suffered 624 casualties, which is probably in excess of 15% of its available strength, and the second-highest brigade total in the Union army.
Thus we must suspect the "Shenandoah" reference to be in error -- though even it can be explained.
Later in the war, the 23 Pennsylvania was in the Sixth Corps (part of the first brigade, third division from Fredericksburg to Gettysburg; at the Wilderness, it was part of 4/1/VI), and the Sixth Corps was sent to the Shenandoah in 1864. We know, however, that that is not the battle mentioned; by that time Neill was commanding a brigade in a different division of the corps.
Still, it might explain the confusion: Originally the song was an ode to the 23 Pennsylvania, with references to its various exploits, and a chorus referring to the Shenandoah campaign was transferred to the section about Fair Oaks/Seven Pines.
Who Boggs was I cannot guess; there was no general by that name, nor Pennsylvania colonel, but odds are that he was a company officer anyway.
It's interesting to observe that John Galusha knew another song ("The Irish Sixty-Ninth") about a Pennsylvania regiment that fought at Fair Oaks. Did he at some point know someone with a large collection of Pennsylvania songs? - RBW
File: Wa036

Twila Was a City Maiden


DESCRIPTION: The singer, a country boy, describes meeting and falling in love with a beautiful city girl. He begs her to marry him, and for a while they exchange love letters. But eventually she grows tired of him and marries another man
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1932 (Randolph)
KEYWORDS: love courting separation betrayal marriage
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Randolph 821, "Twila Was a City Maiden" (1 text)
Roud #7436
File: R821

Twilight A-Stealing


DESCRIPTION: "Twilight a-stealing over the sea, Shadows are falling, dark on the lea, Borne on the night wind, voices of yore Come from the far-off shore." The singer tells of the home beyond the twilight where memories and good things wait
AUTHOR: Words: A. S. Kieffer / Music: B. C. Unseld (according to _The Song Wave_)
EARLIEST DATE: 1882 (_The Song Wave_,
KEYWORDS: religious home
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Ritchie-SingFam, pp. 30-31, "[Twilight A-Stealing]" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ritchie-Southern, p. 49, "Twilight A-Stealing" (1 text, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: H. S. Perkins, H, J. Danforth, and E. V. DeGraff, _The Song Wave_, American Book Company, 1882, pp. 18-19, "Twilight Is Falling" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #5745
RECORDINGS:
Ritchie Family, "Twilight A-Stealing" (on Ritchie03)
The Stoneman Family, "Twilight Is Stealing over the Sea" (Victor, unissued, 1928)
File: JRSF030

Twin Ballots, The


DESCRIPTION: Two ballots are cast together on election day. One is by the local brewer, the other by a "Sunday school man." The Sunday school man spends all day denouncing saloons, but votes for rum. The song waxes sarcastic about this hypocrisy
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1925 (Randolph)
KEYWORDS: drink political clergy
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Randolph 310, "The Twin Ballots" (1 text, 1 tune)
Randolph/Cohen, pp. 259-206, "The Twin Ballots" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 310)
DT, TWNBLLT*
ADDITIONAL: Fred W. Allsopp, Folklore of Romantic Arkansas, Volume II (1931), p. 211, "The Twin Ballots" (1 text)
ST R310 (Partial)
Roud #7787
File: R310

Twin Lakes


DESCRIPTION: "As I was sitting in my own cozy corner, Thinking all on a few dollars to make, My wife says ... They're making good wages up on the Twin Lakes." He finds the contractors "keep you right down with their foot on your neck ... keep clear ... of Twin Lakes"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1929 (Greenleaf/Mansfield)
KEYWORDS: lumbering hardtimes logger work money
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Greenleaf/Mansfield 161, "Twin Lakes" (1 text, 1 tune)
Peacock, pp. 761-762, "Twin Lakes" (1 text, 1 tune)
Doyle3, pp. 79-80, "Twin Lakes" (1 text, 1 tune)
Blondahl, p. 51, "Twin Lakes" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #17693
RECORDINGS:
Omar Blondahl, "Twin Lakes" (on NFOBlondahl02, NFOBlondahl03)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Jerry Ryan" (theme)
cf. "The Track to Knob Lake" (lyrics)
NOTES: The AND [Anglo-Newfoundland Development] company was involved in logging across Newfoundland.
Greenleaf/Mansfield says "most of the lumbering is let out to individuals who do it under contract, and 'subbing' means to take a sub-contract. Twin Lakes is in the interior of the island [Newfoundland]." - BS
File: Doyl3079

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star


DESCRIPTION: "Twinkle, twinkle little star." The singer wonders what the star is. It shows its light while the sun is down. It "lights the traveller in the dark" so he can see which way to go.
AUTHOR: Jane Taylor (1783-1824)
EARLIEST DATE: 1806 (Rhymes for the Nursery, according to Opie-Oxford2)
KEYWORDS: lyric nonballad
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Opie-Oxford2 489, "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" (1 text)
Baring-Gould-MotherGoose #168, pp. 125-126, "(Twinkle, twinkle, little star)"
MHenry-Appalachians, p. 243, (no title) (1 fragment)
Fuld-WFM, pp. 593-594, "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star -- (ABCDEFG; Baa, Baa, Black Sheep; Schnitzelbank)"
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Baa Baa Black Sheep" (tune)
NOTES: According to Fuld, the tune of this first appeared in 1761 as "Ah! Vous Dirai-Je, Maman." The tune had sundry English lyrics before being united with the Taylor words apparently in 1838.
The Opies report that Jane Taylor titled her poem "The Star."
The popularity of the piece shows in the various parodies, notably Carroll's "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat." - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: OO2489

Twins, The


See The One Thing or the Other (File: K209)

Twist About, Turn About, Jump Jim Crow


See Jump Jim Crow (File: Gilb018)

Twistification


See Weevily Wheat (File: R520)

Twisting on the Train


See Brakeman on the Train (File: LLab099)

Two Born Brothers


See The Twa Brothers [Child 49] (File: C049)

Two Budding Lumberjacks, The


DESCRIPTION: Two lumberjacks work for the Underhills "upon a floating bog Upon Dungarvon's Flats." Whistling Rufus criticizes them for leaving a log behind. Instead of going back for the log their father takes a fence rail from someone else "and call it square"
AUTHOR: Ben, Frank and Albert Peters, 1895 (Manny/Wilson)
EARLIEST DATE: 1962 (Manny/Wilson)
KEYWORDS: lumbering
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Manny/Wilson 43, "The Two Budding Lumberjacks" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST MaWi043 (Partial)
Roud #9185
NOTES: Manny/Wilson: The song is about an experience Ben [age 12] and Frank [age 14] Peters, and their father Leon taking sub-contracts from Millet Underhill "who ran lumber camps for the Snowball Lumber Company of Chatham." The ballad says they came from Prince Edward's Isle. - BS
Albert Peters, the informant, was the younger brother of the two boys involved in the exploit. Reading the plot, you would probably think this a humorous song. It isn't, somehow. - RBW
File: MaWi043

Two Constant Lovers, The


DESCRIPTION: Dialog between Sarah Barnwell and Samuel. Her friends would kill him. He would fight for her. Her brother, Captain Barnwell, comes. After Sarah's failed intervention they duel. Samuel wins. Brother agrees to the marriage as the price of his life.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1629 (broadside, according to Bruce Olson's site at California State University Fresno)
KEYWORDS: dialog courting fight brother
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
Roud #955
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Douce Ballads 2(232b), "The Two Constant Lovers" or "A Pattern of True Love, exprest in this dialogue between Samuel and Sarah" ("As I by chance was walking"), F. Coles (London), 1663-1674; also 4o Rawl. 566(170), "The Two Constant Lovers" or "A Pattern of True Love, exprest in this dialogue between Samuel and Sarah"
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Sarah Barnwell" (plot) and notes there
File: BrTCLPoL

Two Cormacks Who Died Innocent in Front of Nenagh Gaol, The


DESCRIPTION: The condemned stand on the trap and proclaim their innocence. "The day of their execution, as they stood on the drop, The thunder came so dreadful that it did the people shock." At their death "the thunder still continued, with both lightning and rain"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1858 (Zimmermann)
KEYWORDS: execution murder trial storm lament Ireland political
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
May 11, 1858 - William and Daniel Cormack, or McCormack, are hanged for murder. (source: Zimmermann)
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Zimmermann 64, "The Lamentation of the Two Cormacks Who Died Innocent in Front of Nenagh Gaol" (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES: For another broadside on the same subject see Bodleian, Harding B 19(10), "Lamentation of The Two M'Cormacks Who Were Innocently Hanged at Nenagh Gaol" ("Come all yon Roman Catholics, I hope you will attend"), unknown, n.d.; also 2806 b.9(272), 2806 c.15(231), "Lamentation of The Two M'Cormacks Who Were Innocently Hanged at Nenagh Gaol" [the texts for this ballad are the same]
This broadside adds some details: the brother's names are William and Daniel, the murdered man's name is Ellis, and the judge's name is Keogh. It says nothing about the storm at the hanging.
Zimmermann: "A land agent detested by the people was shot near Templemore, County Tipperary, on 22nd October, 1857. Two brothers ... were charged with the murder upon very suspect evidence.... According to the Tipperary Examiner, 'the [execution] day was beautifully fine....' In the following weeks the excitement increased, and on 30th August, from twelve to fifteen thousand men assembled in a protest meeting on the place of the execution."
Zimmermann also refers to "a broadside ballad entitled 'The Memory of the two McCormacks Who Was Hanged at Nenagh Gaol', printed and sold in County Tipperary in 1908." - BS
File: Zimm064

Two Crows, The


See The Three Ravens [Child 26] (File: C026)

Two Dollar Bill (Long Journey Home)


DESCRIPTION: Singer has lost "lost all my money but a two dollar bill"; he's homesick, lonesome and blue. He sees the smoke of a train, and says he's on his long journey home.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1936 (recording, Monroe Brothers)
KEYWORDS: poverty homesickness loneliness train travel lyric nonballad
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Cohen/Seeger/Wood, p. 177, "My Long Journey Home" (1 text, 1 tune)
RECORDINGS:
Jim Eanes, "Long Journey Home" (Blue Ridge 201, n.d.)
Monroe Brothers, "My Long Journey Home" (Bluebird B-6422, 1936)
New Lost City Ramblers, "My Long Journey Home" (on NLCR03, NLCRCD1)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Worried Man Blues" (tune)
NOTES: This should not be confused with the song composed by Rosa Lee and Doc Watson, "Your Long Journey." - PJS
File: CSW177

Two Drummers, The


See My Mother Was a Lady (File: LPnd217)

Two Dukes


See Six Dukes Went A-Fishing (File: FO078)

Two Dukes A-Roving


See Three Dukes (File: R551)

Two Faithful Lovers


DESCRIPTION: A story of a couple "yet, though feeble, old and gray / they're faithful lovers still." They've had "dull November hours as well as days of May" since they first courted. "Together hand-in-hand they pass, advancing down life's hill," faithful to the end
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1929 (recording, Rutherford & Foster)
KEYWORDS: age love marriage lover
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
Roud #11515
RECORDINGS:
Recordings: [Leonard] Rutherford & [John] Foster, "The Faithful Lovers" (Challenge 423 [as Crocker & Cannon, "Two Faithful Lovers", 1929) (Brunswick 581, c. 1931; rec. 1930; on KMM)
File: Rc2FaLov

Two Gypsy Girls, The


DESCRIPTION: Dandling song. Two pretty Gypsy girls, Hat and Kate, go hawking with bundles on their backs and babies at their breasts. The boys sing, "He's a gay old singer/Here comes the galloping major"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1962 or 1966 (collected from Caroline Hughes)
KEYWORDS: hunting humorous nonballad Gypsy
FOUND IN: Britain(England)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
MacSeegTrav 125, "The Two Gypsy Girls" (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES: This seems to be derived from a music-hall song, "The Galloping Major." - PJS
File: McCST125

Two Hundred Years A-Brewing


DESCRIPTION: A song for "thirsty tourists" about "our famous stout" made "down by the Liffeyside," "our grand brewery at the top of James's Street" and "Our barges neat nigh Watling Street ... full of double X," a favourite at the Brien Boru after a funeral.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1961 (recording, Margaret Barry and Michael Gorman)
KEYWORDS: commerce drink Ireland nonballad
FOUND IN:
Roud #12930
RECORDINGS:
Margaret Barry and Michael Gorman, "Two Hundred Years A-Brewing" (on Voice13)
NOTES: See "The Wreck of the Vartry" for more about Double X, the Guiness brewery and barges on the Liffey. - BS
File: Rc200YB

Two Irish Laborers


DESCRIPTION: "We are two Irish laborers, as you can plainly see, From Donegal we came when small unto America." Railroad work did not pay well, so they have turned to construction. They hope to return to Ireland, and promise a welcome to any who visit them there
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1922 (Dean)
KEYWORDS: work home Ireland
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Dean, p. 70, "Two Irish Laborers" (1 text)
Roud #9563
File: Dean070B

Two Irishmen, Two Irishmen


See Teasing Songs (File: EM256)

Two Jinkers


DESCRIPTION: The two jinkers of the title are Jimmie Walsh and Steven. Bad luck to have on board, they were only hired here because men are hard to find. Their ship runs aground and Jimmie and Steven are responsible. The perturbed singer plans to quit his job.
AUTHOR: Patrick Kevin Devine ?
EARLIEST DATE: 1940
KEYWORDS: ship wreck hardtimes work
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Doyle2, p. 11, "Two Jinkers" (1 text, 1 tune)
Doyle3, p. 82, "Two Jinkers" (1 text, 1 tune)
Blondahl, pp. 34-35, "Two Jinkers" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #7315
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Jimmy Walsh and Stephen
NOTES: People who are bad luck on ships are referred to as "Jonahs." [After Jonah, in the Bible, whose presence aboard a ship brought on a storm. - RBW] Smaller vessels were usually run on a family basis or by a very close group, which led to intolerance of strangers. For more about Jonahs, consult Horace Beck, Folklore and the Sea (Mystic, Conn.: Mystic Seaport Museum, 1985) 303-304. - SH
The author is named by GEST Songs of Newfoundland and Labrador site. - BS
File: Doy11

Two Lanterns, The


See The Child of the Railroad Engineer (The Two Lanterns) (File: R685)

Two Letters, The (Charlie Brooks; Nellie Dare)


DESCRIPTION: Charlie writes that he wishes to break off the engagement, saying it would never work, and asks for his ring back. (Nellie) returns ring, photos, etc. She asks him to tell his new girl that he once gave another his ring. She claims she burned his letters
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1926 (recording, Vernon Dalhart)
KEYWORDS: betrayal love request
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Randolph 735, "Charlie Brooks" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Randolph/Cohen, pp. 486-489, "Charley Brooke" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 735A)
Roud #3534
RECORDINGS:
Leo Boswell and Elzie Floyd, "Nellie Dare" (Columbia 15150-D, 1927)
Vernon Dalhart, "Nellie Dare and Charlie Brooks" (Brunswick 143) (Victor 20058, 1926)
Bradley Kincaid, "Charlie Brooks" (Superior 2788, 1932)
Holland Puckett, "Charles A. Brooks" (Gennett 6163/Herwin 75556 [as by Robert Howell], 1927)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Ella Dare
NOTES: Although this is not, to my knowledge, based on an actual incident, things like this were in fact common in the nineteenth century. In fact, it happened to none other than Robert Peary, the future "discoverer" of the North Pole. (For Peary and his almost certainly false polar claim, see "Hurrah for Baffin's Bay"). According tto Robert M. Bryce, Cook & Peary: The Polar Controversy, Resolved, Stackpole, 1997, p. 18, "On October 7, 1879, [Peary] asked [his fiancee] for his release [apparently on the basis that they were living in different cities and he had no intention to return]. In return he received a letter asking for an explanation, and when he had given it, another, reproachful in tone. It closed with the remark that he considered their correspondence at an end, and she requested that if Bert [Peary] had anything further to say, he should address it to her father. In December she returned all of his letters, and he hers, along with her ring." - RBW
File: R735

Two Little Blackbirds


DESCRIPTION: "Two little blackbird in the ring, One named Peter, one named Paul. Fly away, Peter, fly away, Paul, Come the sea (?), come the fall." "Under the carpet (?) we must go, Like a jaybird (?) in the air." "Then, Sally, will you marry?"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1947 (recorded from Elda Blackwood); Warner compares it to a 1765 nursery rhyme
KEYWORDS: bird marriage floatingverses nonballad
FOUND IN: West Indies
Roud #16401
RECORDINGS:
Elda Blackwood, "Two Little Blackbirds" (on USWarnerColl01)
NOTES: The Warners identify this with the mother goose rhynme, "There were two Blackirds Sta upon a Hill, The one nam'd Jack, The other nam'd Gill, Fly away Jack, Fly away Gill, Come again Jack, Come again Jill," now more commonly known as "Two little dicky birds." The similarity in lyrics is obvious, but the shift from Jack and Gill to Peter and Paul is peculiar, and most of Elda Blackwood's version is distinct anyway.
Unfortunately, the Warner recording of Blackwood is so noisy as to verge on incomprehensible (note the number of question marks in my transcription). I think we must treat the matter as unsettled. - RBW
File: Rc2LiBla

Two Little Children


See Orphan's Lament (Two Little Children, Left Jim and I Alone) (File: BrII150)

Two Little Fleas


DESCRIPTION: "Two little fleas sat on a rock. One to the other said: I've had no place to hang my hat Since my poor dog's been dead. I've searched this whole world over; No longer shall I roam. The first dog that shall show himself Shall be my home, sweet home."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1923 (Brown)
KEYWORDS: dog humorous food bug
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
BrownIII 192, "Two Little Fleas" (1 text)
Roud #15771
File: Br3192

Two Little Girls in Blue


DESCRIPTION: A young man finds his uncle gazing at a photograph in tears. When asked why, the uncle explains the photo is of the boy's mother's sister, who married the uncle. The uncle and his wife have parted, and now he regrets it
AUTHOR: Charles Graham
EARLIEST DATE: 1893 (original publication)
KEYWORDS: family separation
FOUND IN: US(MA,MW) Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (7 citations):
FSCatskills 106, "Two Little Girls in Blue" (1 text, 1 tune)
Dean, pp. 74-75, "Two Little Girls in Blue" (1 text)
Randolph 816, "Two Little Girls in Blue" (1 text)
Cambiaire, p. 12, "Two Little Girls in Blue" (1 text)
MHenry-Appalachians, pp. 163-164, "Two Little Girls in Blue" (1 text)
Leach-Labrador 61, "Two Little Girls in Blue" (1 text)
Spaeth-ReadWeep, pp. 181-181, "Two Little Girls in Blue" (1 fragmentary text, 1 tune)
ST FSC106 (Partial)
Roud #2793
RECORDINGS:
Leo Boswell, "Two Little Girls in Blue" (Columbia 15290-D, 1928)
W. C. Childers, "Two Little Girls in Blue" (Champion 16098, 1930)
Murray Keller, "Two Little Girls in Blue" (Brunswick 188, 1927)
Bradley Kincaid, "Two Little Girls in Blue" (Decca I.4456, n.d.)
Bela Lam and His Green County Singers, "Two Little Girls in Blue" (OKeh, unissued, 1927)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "'Tis Not Always the Bullet that Kills" (plot)
SAME TUNE:
Two Little Girls In Blue (Parody) (Meredith/Covell/Brown, pp. 125-126)
File: FSC106

Two Little Kittens


DESCRIPTION: "Two little kittens one stormy night Began to quarrel and then to fight. One had a mouse, the other had none...." The two start to fight; the woman sweeps them out into the snow. When finally allowed back in, they decide warmth is better than fighting
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1930 (Flanders/Brown)
KEYWORDS: animal storm fight
FOUND IN: US(NE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Flanders/Brown, pp. 184-185, "Two Little Kittens" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST FlBr184 (Partial)
Roud #5450
File: FlBr184

Two Little Niggers Black as Tar


DESCRIPTION: "Two little niggers black as tar, Tryin' to git to heaven on a 'lectric car, De street car broke, down dey fell; 'Stead a going to heaven they went to hell."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1919 (Brown)
KEYWORDS: death Hell
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
BrownIII 467, "Two Little Niggers Black as Tar" (2 very short texts)
Roud #11788
File: Br4367

Two Little Orphans


See Orphan's Lament (Two Little Children, Left Jim and I Alone) (File: BrII150)
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