Sam Hall

AKA

Jack Hall

Lyrics

WG Ross/Trad

Music

Trad

Roud Index

RN369

 Oh my name is Sam Hall, Sam Hall
 Oh my name is Sam Hall
 And I hate you one and all
 You’re a gang of muckers all
 Damn your eyes.
  
 Oh, I killed a man they said, so they said
 Yes, I killed a man they said
 For I cracked him on the head
 And left him there for dead
 Damn his eyes.
  
 So they put me in the quad, in the quad
 Yes, they put me in the quad
 With a chain and iron rod
 And they left me there, by God
 Damn their eyes.
  
 And the parson he did come, he did come
 And the parson he did come
 And he looked so ******* glum
 With his talk of Kingdom Come
 Damn his eyes.
  
 And the sheriff he came too, he came too
 And the sheriff he came too
 With his boys all dressed in blue
 They’re a gang o’ muckers too
 Damn their eyes.
  
 So it’s up the rope ye go, up ye go
 So it’s up the rope ye go
 With your friends all down below
 Saying “Sam, I told you so”
 Damn their eyes.
  
 Saw my Nellie in the crowd, in the crowd,...
 She was looking stooped and bowed, 
 So I hollered, right out loud,
 "Hey, Nellie, ain't you proud?
 God damn your eyes."
  
 So this’ll be my knell, be my knell
 So this’ll be my knell
 Hope God damns you all to hell
 An I hope you sizzle well
 Damn your eyes.
  
 And now I goes upstairs, goes upstairs
 And now I goes upstairs
 Here’s an end to all my cares
 So tip up all your prayers
 Damn your eyes.
  
              

Jack/Sam Hall has been recorded commercially by a wide range of artists, from Johnny Cash to Steeleye Span – for an up-to-date summary of versions by relatively modern British traditional performers, Mainly Norfolk has the story.

The song Sam Hall appears to have been popular throughout the 19th century, and appears widely in broadsides and songbooks on both sides of the Atlantic. Versions have been collected from dozens of source singers. I have provided a list of those given by the Vaughan Williams Memorial library, focusing on those prior to World War II, though there are many from after it too!

The story of the Music Hall song is relatively straightforward: in the 1840s the Music Hall singer W G Ross revised the traditional ballad Jack Hall, changing the name to Sam Hall in the process. Jack Hall appeared as a broadside in the 1830s but is likely to be older, possibly 17th century.

WG Ross made his fortune singing this song, becoming a huge attraction in early Music Halls all over England. On 10 March 1848 Percival Leigh noted the following account of an evenings entertainment in an early Music Hall:

  ‘After that, to supper at the Cider Cellars in Maiden Lane, wherein was much Company, great and small, and did call for Kidneys and Stout, then a small glass of Aqua-vitae and water, and thereto a Cigar.  While we supped, the Singers did entertain us with Glees and comical Ditties; but oh, to hear with how little wit the young sparks about town were tickled!  But the thing that did most take me was to see and hear one Ross sing the song of Sam Hall the chimney-sweep, going to be hanged: for he had begrimed his muzzle to look unshaven, and in rusty black clothes, with a battered old Hat on his crown and a short Pipe in his mouth, did sit upon the platform, leaning over the back of a chair: so making believe that he was on his way to Tyburn.  And then he did sing to a dismal Psalm-tune, how that his name was Sam Hall and that he had been a great Thief, and was now about to pay for all with his life; and thereupon he swore an Oath, which did make me somewhat shiver, though divers laughed at it.  Then, in so many verses, how his Master had badly taught him and now he must hang for it: how he should ride up Holborn Hill in a Cart, and the Sheriffs would come and preach to him, and after them would come the Hangman; and at the end of each verse he did repeat his Oath.  Last of all, how that he should go up to the Gallows; and desired the Prayers of his Audience, and ended by cursing them all round.  Methinks it had been a Sermon to a Rogue to hear him, and I wish it may have done good to some of the Company.  Yet was his cursing very horrible, albeit to not a few it seemed a high Joke; but I do doubt that they understood the song.’

The full story of the ballad of Jack Hall, and its relationship to other songs like the ballad of Capt Kidd, is likely to be quite complex, and according to a post by Malcolm Douglas on Mudcat:

the most comprehensive examination of this song and tune family is Bertrand Bronson’s Samuel Hall’s Family Tree (California Folklore Quarterly, I (1) 1942, and The Ballad as Song, University of California Press, 1969 18-36). 

I will follow this up…

Sources:

• Kilgarriff Sing us one
• 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%3A369
• Harold Scott: The Early Doors
• Baker: British Music Hall,
• Mudcat Thread

The Man in Black sings it (not my favourite version but worth checking out)