Comments and suggestions

Any thoughts about this site? Suggestions for songs to investigate?

Last Updated on November 22, 2020 by John Baxter | Published: November 22, 2020

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42 thoughts on “Comments and suggestions”

  3. Hatty Clifton: according to the cutting, he wrote “Rocky Road to Dublin”- not on your site, so I can’t say whether it’s the ‘folk song’ of the same title as performed by the House Band, Noel Murphy (and, doubtless, many others).

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    2. Gavin “The Galway Poet” wrote the lyrics to the now familiar melody. Gavin sold the song to Harry Clifton

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  6. Looking for a song from my childhood. Don’t remember all the words
    Young Sandy Mac was a Scotsman sae braw
    He fell in love with Miss Mary Mac?

    And soon they will wed

    Wedding bells will soon be ringing for Mary ofArgyle
    And on that happy wedding day they’ll surely wear a smile
    They’ll take a cosy bungalow and they’ll live in English style
    When Sandy MacIntosh gets wed to Mary of Argyle

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  7. Dear John

    I have just found 4 of Harry Linn’s songs listed on the back of a copy of James Kerr’s “Collection of Reels, Strathspeys, Highland Schottisches, Country Daces, Jigs, Hornpipes, Flirtations, etc. arranged for the Pianoforte” in the National Library of Scotland. This music is found in Mr Moffat’s Owner Bound Music Volume, which has the date May 1883 inscribed inside the frontispiece. The songs listed are: “I love the Bonnie Lassie’s, The Grass Will Grow Again”, “The Highlandman’s Toast” and “Come Back to Old Ireland”. This means that Kerr had published these songs by at the latest 1883. In addition, so far the earliest date I have found for any of Kerr’s publications is 1879.

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    1. Thanks Rosa! I am pretty sure there are more Harry Linn songs out there waiting to be discovered. It may take me a week or two to get round to it as I have a long “to-do” list, but I’ll see what I can find out about the songs you mention
      cheers, John

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  8. I am sitting here with a filthy cold and I keep remembering part of a poem my mother, who was a devotee of the music halls in her younger days, used to quote.

    It had lines like “I hate being in bed with a cold.”;
    It goes on to describe the symptoms then talks about people around you:
    “you know you are not ill and they know it too”
    She was a mine field of songs, poems and monologues.
    I just wish I had paid more attention.

    Can anybody help please?

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  9. The lyricist name is incorrectly spelled on “Get up Jack, John sit down”

    Lyrics by Edward Harrigan, music by Dave Braham.

    Edward Harrigan is my g-grandfather and Dave Braham is my g-g-grandfather.

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  10. Hi John,
    I’ve just stumbled on your site and how great it is! Thank you.
    W.H. Phillips married my G-G-Aunt, the comic singer “Lizzie Valrose”, who sang a number of his songs. He did indeed die young, in 1887, and they had a daughter, Blanche, who would have been only a few months old when her father died. You have sharpened my interest in learning more of them.
    My great-grandfather was also a comic singer, “Dan Conroy” (1890-1920ish). He sang songs such as “Those Moral Sentimental Songs” (of which I have a photocopy), “I Want to be a Sausage”, “How Can a Man be Happy with his Wife (When She’s Always Eating Biscuits in the Bed)”, “The Jaunting Car”, “Cassidy’s Barber’s Shop”, and “Johnny MacKilroy Bought a Penny Savaloy”. Have you ever come across any of those?
    Best wishes.

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    1. Thank you so much for your comments – I don’t know those songs but will keep an eye out. In his book of lists “Sing us one of the old songs” Michael Kilgariff has Dan Conroy singing 4 songs: Biscuits in Bed, Cassidy’s Barber Shop, In the Middle of the Night and Who Is It? He suggests Conroy may have died in 1940.
      Lizzie Valrose is a name that crops up a little more often – she is credited on the sheet music as a singer of FV St Clair’s Shadows on The Blind https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shadows_on_the_blind_%28NYPL_Hades-1933415-1998683%29.jpg.
      I’d love to see scans of any songs you have, my email is – john@folksongandmusichall.com

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  11. My friend Vic Gammon has just told me about your work and I’m looking forward to exploring it. I’ve lately been looking into the story of the song O Molly Brown/ Molly Bawn – from Samuel Lover’s Il Paddywhack in Italia ( but not the song AKA Polly Vaughan). I wonder whether you’ve done any work on Samuel Lover. I’ll be happy to share my research when I’ve knocked it into shape. I note that Lover (and Jonathan Blewitt and Michael Balfe) inhabited the world of light opera, but I don’t know yet what crossover of repertoire and individuals ther was with music hall.

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    1. Hi Ian
      Thanks so much for your comments – Samuel Lover is definitely a looming presence in my songwriter “to do list” – I’d love to see your work when you are happy to share. There was definitely an overlap between light opera and the Halls. I haven’t looked at him in any great depth but I think George Grossmith was an important figure in both https://folksongandmusichall.com/index.php/he-was-a-careful-man/
      John

      you can email me direct at john@folksongandmusichall.com

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  12. I didn’t find Samuel Lover in the songwriter list but a site search led me to two of his songs. If that sounds like a grumble, that’s not what I intend. I’m very glad to be benefitting from the work you’ve shared

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  13. Message previous to my last one vanished. My friend Vic Gammon has just told me about your work. I’m doing some exploring around the song Molly Brown / Molly Bawn – from Samuel Lover’s Il Paddywhack in Italia (not the song AKA Polly Vaughan. I’m keen to know more about Samuel Lover, Jonathan Blewitt and Michael Balfe. I don’t know how much overlap there was between the light opera they were involved with and music hall. Illl be happy to share my research when I’ve knocked it into shape.

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    1. Ian, FYI a (the?) version of Molly Bawn was sometimes sung by the lovely Mary O’Connor (of Irish descent, but now living in Watford). Mary used to be a regular at the Herga Folk club, and latterly attended concerts which I organised in Abbots Langley. Mary had a large repertoire of Irish songs, which she generously ‘gave’ to individuals whom she thought would do them justice. (inc Martin Carthy, Pete Coe)

      Mary is now quite frail.

      I think that her version of Molly Bawn is often sung by Mick Pearce. I can introduce you to him online if you wish.

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  14. Re Asleep in the Deep and the Copper family there’s this on Mudcat:

    https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=167532

    It includes the comment that Jim had been to to music halls when he was in London ( and the conjecture that he might also have been to music halls in Brighton).

    There’s a long list of other music hall songs in the Coppers’ repertoire.

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  15. Back in the early eighties I sang the London version of Jack of All Trades, which I can’t now remember. Or where I got it from. There is a thread on Mudcat, but that has been down for a while. To me, sounds like a Music Hall song. The first line is ‘I’m a roving blade of many a trade.’ Perhaps a parody of the Dublin version? Any thoughts welcome.

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    1. Hi Mike
      there is an early 20th century music Hall song by Edgar Bateman of that name but it doesn’t sound like your song. As you say it sounds a lot like the song usually called Dublin Jack of all trades. There are a number of variants listed on the Vaughan Williams Memorial library website which you can find by searching for Roud number RN3017. Sorry I can’t be more help

      John

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  16. My great gramps (born in the 1870’s) would sing:
    “Walkin’ around the town, knockin’ p’licemen down,
    Drinkin’ every kind of wet, havin’ a jolly good time, you bet!
    Treatin’ all the girls, we didn’t care a sou.
    Faro, raro, rickety rackety roo…

    We started drinking’ champagne but the money wouldn’t last
    To keep it up..” (That’s all I remember )

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    1. Thanks for this Peter! It certainly does seem to be a song that’s been passed down orally from the generations…

      John

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  17. Hello John.

    Just happened upon your Music Hall pages. Nice site!

    It’s a long shot, but I’ve been looking for more words to accompany an American fiddle tune ‘ Granny will your dog bite – Clearly a folk (children’s?) song. The only snippet I have, (From Bayard’s ‘Dance to the Fiddle, March to the Fife’) is ‘Granny will your dog bite? No child No!
    I composed a couple of verses of doggerel to fit the tune, (Changed to ‘Granny Does your Dog’ bite, ‘cos the alliteration helps!) but , despite asking a number of people (from the USA,) havn’t come up with anything beyond that published by Bayard.

    Do I know you? It would help to know if your surname appeared in the ‘about’ pages at least.

    Finally – Had you considered a category for recently written ‘music hall’ style songs, or would that overwhelm the site. If you have that in your plans can I offer ‘ Five New ‘eads and Six New ‘andles’ https://www.oldtimetim.com/fivenewheads.htm ‘

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    1. Hi Tim
      assuming it’s the same song, Granny Does Your Dog Bite is number 6389 in the Roud song index. The Vaughan William’s Memorial library has an online version of the indices, and several references to the song at https://www.vwml.org/search?q=rn6389&is=1
      There are links to recordings held at the library of Congress though the direct links may not work and you may have to use the search engine
      I suspect you won’t find too much that is new, though one version does have verses with Granny Does Your Goose bite..
      I’m not sure our paths have crossed before, I’m John Baxter…

      HTH
      John

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  18. Hi John,

    Don’t know if you, or others, can help me?… I am learning to sing “Don’t have any more, Missus Moore” and trying to find out a little bit more about the composer James Walsh. I have found quite a bit about Casling the Lyricist, but Walsh seems to be more of an enigma! – have you come across any other facts about him?

    Many thanks
    Jane

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    1. Hi Jane
      I have found a little bit more information about James Walsh and published it here https://folksongandmusichall.com/index.php/dont-have-any-more-mrs-moore/
      I’m afraid it’s quite a common name. I found some stuff which I’m pretty convinced is the same person singing and writing for Feldman’s music publishers in Blackpool, but there were also reports of an actor/manager called James Walsh after the Second World War, but there’s nothing to say it’s the same person.
      Does this help? Happy to carry on the conversation via email via john@folksongandmusichll.com
      John

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  19. I love your site John. Thank you so very much for spending your life to offer some sunshine to others. Amazing!
    I sing music hall songs in Adelaide South Australia. I am originally from East London. The old saying “You can take the girl out of London, but never take London out of the girl”.
    Warm regards Loraine

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  20. I wonder whether you know the words to a poem or song called ‘Couldn’t help it, had to’? Frustratingly a website which seems to have had the lyrics and says it was written by T.E. Dunville been taken down so I can only see the first few words (Monologues.co.uk). I can’t find any other reference to it. My grandmother, who was born in the 1890s, used to recite one of the verses to me when I was a child in the 1960s and I memorised it, so might have got it slightly wrong:
    ‘T’other day, Highgate way, lady on a bike/riding past, very fast, trying to race a tyke./Ladder there, didn’t care, took a shorter cut/like a chump, did a jump and landed on her nut./Up I rushed, how she blushed, didn’t she look mad, too./I saw her fall, I saw her – couldn’t help it, had to!’
    Does anyone remember this?

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      1. Hi John,

        That’s amazing, thank you! She must have recited just the bits she remembered. How nice to see the whole song after all these years.

        Best wishes,
        Kate

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  21. I have, in my collection of Music Hall songs several that would interest you. I did not see Harry Linn’s song “The Fattest Man in the Forty Twa” (collected years ago from John Strachan as “The Stoutest Man in the Forty Twa”) or George Leybourne’s “The Tailor and the Crow” (a classic example of a “folk” song adapted to the Music Hall stage – with Leybourne attired as a “scarecrow”). Perhaps they are, indeed, in your lists – but under other titles?

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