{"id":1069,"date":"2020-02-22T13:01:22","date_gmt":"2020-02-22T13:01:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/?page_id=1069"},"modified":"2025-04-11T08:48:50","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T08:48:50","slug":"the-song-of-the-thrush","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/index.php\/the-song-of-the-thrush\/","title":{"rendered":"Song of the thrush, The"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
AKA<\/strong><\/td>The miners of Australia
The thrush<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Lyrics<\/strong><\/td>Walter Hastings<\/td>Music<\/strong><\/td> George Le Bruin<\/td>Roud<\/strong><\/td>RN1763<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Music Hall performers<\/strong><\/td>Jenny Hill
Peggy Pryde <\/td><\/tr>
Folk performances<\/strong><\/td>Source Singers<\/strong>
Vera Miller, no date, New South Wales Australia
Bill Lowne, 1957 Norfolk England
George Attrill, 1959, Sussex England
Frank Bond, 1965, Hampshire England
Andrew Stewart 1967 Ontario Canada
David Stacey, 1970s, England
Stanley Marsden 1971 Yorkshire England
Arthur Baker 1972 Hampshire England
David Ramsden 1972 Yorkshire England
Bob Hart 1973 Suffolk England
Ben Ling, 1975 \u2013 80, Suffolk England
Danny Brazil 1978 Gloucestershire England
Gordon Hall 1989 Sussex England
Freda Black 2012 Hampshire England
<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Years ago out in the wilds of Australia\nOut in the gold fields there once stood a camp\nThe miners were made up of all sorts of classes\nWith many a scape-grace and many a scamp\nInto their midst came a young man from England\nAnd with him he brought a small thrush in a cage\nTo hear the bird sing they would crowd round in dozens\nThe little sweet songster became quite a rage.\n\nThere fell a deep hush, as the song of the thrush\nWas heard by the motley throng\nAnd many a rough fellow's eyes were moist\nAs the notes rang out clear and strong\nEyes lighted up with a bright yearning look\nAs the bird trilled it's beautiful lay\nIt brought to their minds dear old England and home\nThousands of miles away.<\/em>\n\nRough were those miners, all fierce-looking fellows\nYet they were human, and worshipped that bird\nWhen quarrels arose they would leave off and listen\nIf only the voice of their fav'rite they heard\nAll round for miles he at last got quite famous\nOn Sunday the miners would come from afar\nAnd many declared they preferred the bird's singing\nTo cards and the dice at the rough liquor bar.\n\nOften they thought of the cornfields and meadows\nMany a shady and quiet little lane\nAnd heart ached and yearned as they thought of some village\nAnd some they had dearly loved, but all in vain\nWhen the bird sang all those hard fellows listened\nPerhaps they got tired of the bird? No such thing\nAs one rough expressed it, 'He came like an angel\nAnd makes you feel 'Good like' to hear that bird sing'.\n <\/pre>\n\n\n\n
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Collected from traditional source singers several times in UK, Canada, Australia, from the 1950s on. Sung in the Halls by Jenny Hill (the Vital Spark) and then her daughter, Peggy Pryde:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The Stage – Thursday 30 September 1897<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
 Jenny Hill (1850-1896)<\/strong> was perhaps the most successful female Music Hall artiste in the period before Marie Lloyd. She worked as a child in a factory manufacturing artificial flowers, whilst in the evenings she sang at The Dr Johnson Tavern<\/em>. Her first stage performance was as the leg of a goose in 1858. At the age of 12 she was apprenticed to an inn in Bradford where she worked as a domestic drudge whilst learning to be a “seriocomic singer”.  In an apparent attempt to escape the drudgery, she married an acrobat who taught her how to tumble and do other tricks, but he disappeared when their first baby was born. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It must have been incredibly difficult to be a young single mother in those times, but somehow she travelled back to London and found cheap accommodation for her and her child .  After a period of near starvation she eventually persuaded the manager of The Pavilion<\/em>  to let her sing. Legend has it that the tiny, starving young woman sang with such brilliance and force that the audience couldn’t help but love her, and after a multitude of encores , the great George Leybourne carried the exhausted Hill back on the stage to receive her final tumultuous applause. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
She was at the height of her fame in the 1870s and had huge success with songs like this one, Maggie Murphy’s Home<\/em>, The coffee shop girl<\/em>, and I’m a woman of few words<\/em>.  She bought property, and was famous for throwing huge parties: entertaining the great and the good of the Music Hall world . In the 1880s she tried her hand at running a number of businesses which unfortunately failed. She had some success in reviving her stage career in the early 1890s after touring America and South Africa.  Like many in the profession at the time, she died relatively young, though it’s important to remember that life expectancy for a woman born the middle of the 19th century was still under 50. Her daughter Peggy Pryde was a successful performer in her own right for many years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
More about George Le Bruin\/Brunn here<\/a>. Hastings I know little about, though a pianist of his name died in January 1924.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here its used as a vehicle for siffleur  Ronnie Ronalde’s bird impressions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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