My Barney (Bonnie) lies over the Ocean

AKA My Barney lies over the ocean
My Bonnie lies over the ocean
Bring back my Barney to me
Bring back my Bonnie to me
Last night as I lay on my pillow
First Published ca 1860 (Barney)
Lyrics Harry Clifton Music Harry Clifton? Roud RN1422

Music Hall Performers Fanny Edwards
Folk performances Source Singers:
Charles Dempsey, 1923, County Londonderry Northern Ireland (Barney)
Rosetta Spainhard, 1940, California USA (Pillow)
Cecilia Costello, 1951, Birmingham, England (Johnny)
Cecilia Costello, 1951, Birmingham England (Barney)
East Grinstead Old People’s Club, 1960, Sussex England (Bonnie)
Fred Atwood, 1964/67, Vermont USA (Bonnie)
Mary White, 1968, Newfoundland Canada (Bonnie)
George Bennett, 1975-80, Suffolk England (Bonnie)

Modern performances
The Watersons sing Barney on the lp ‘For Pence and Spicy Ale’ 

 

Harry Clifton's version:

He is gone and I'm now sad and lonely
He has left me to cross the wide sea
But I know that he thinks of me only
And will soon be returning to me.
His eyes they were filled with devotion
As my husband he said he'd soon be
Then blow gently ye winds of the ocean
And send back my Barney to me.

If at night as I rest on my pillow
The wind heaves a moan and a sigh
I think of each angry billow
And watch ev'ry cloud o'er the sky.
My bosom it fills with emotion
As I pray for one over the sea
Then blow gently ye winds of the ocean
And send back my Barney to me.

He has left me his fortune to better
I know that he went for my sake
Soon I'll be receiving a letter
(If not then my poor heart will break.)
To say that he'll soon be returning
To his dear native Ireland and me
Then blow gently ye winds of the ocean
And send back my Barney to me.

I have to be cautious here, as the story may not be over yet. However it seems that this song, written by Harry Clifton to be sung by his long-term partner and later wife Fanny Alexander, is the original form of the well-known song: My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.. and also therefore the source of all the parodies that followed. Given what we know, this one has to be classified as a Clifton song that has entered the traditional repertoire.

The story unfolds on this Mudcat thread , thanks to contributions from Steve Gardham and Malcolm Douglas in particular. Malcolm provides a summary of what we tentatively know:

[In around] 1860: ‘Send Back My Barney to Me’ [was] written and published by Harry Clifton.

The song is quickly taken up by other performers in Britain and America. In the USA in particular it is ‘favoured by Irish comedians’ and is printed on broadsides and in songsters, frequently uncredited to Clifton and instead assumed to be, or claimed as, Irish.

By 1881 an adaptation or parody, with the tune a bit changed, begins to appear in print as ‘My Bonnie’. It seems to have started out as a student song, most likely in America; a song-sheet issued in 1882 by Harms of New York as ‘Bring Back My Bonnie to Me’ credits it to H J Fulmer (Charles E Pratt) and J T Woods, but the text is reputedly rather different and no conclusions can be drawn without seeing both words and music. Evidently ‘Barney’ and ‘Bonnie’ continue alongside each other for a time, with other songs being written that appear to have been inspired by them; or at any rate by the former.

By the early C20, ‘My Bonnie’ has eclipsed its parent, which is largely forgotten. The song’s enormous popularity leads to further parodies and to the tune being adopted for other songs in the same metre like ‘My father was hung for sheep-stealing’. This leads even some scholars to assume that the tune is Scottish.

Malcolm Douglas, Mudcat, Feb 2009

There are still those who argue that My Bonnie is something to do with Bonnie Prince Charlie and is therefore Scottish, but the evidence isn’t there to back this up, as far as I’m aware!

I have not been able to see the original sheet music, but as you will see from his Ad in The Era on the Harry Clifton page, Clifton definitely claims authorship.

Sources:

  • Entries in the Roud Indexes at the Vaughn Williams Memorial Library: https://archives.vwml.org/search/all:single[folksong-broadside-books]/0_50/all/score_desc/extended-roudNo_tr%3A1422
  • Kilgarrif Sing Us
  • Lyrics and info from Mudcat thread.

Vic Gammon sings Barney to his own (Vic’s) tune