This site features a collection of Songs sung in the Music Halls, the stories of those songs and the people who sang them, exploring how these songs relate to traditional music of the English speaking world. I hope it will encourage people to sing the songs, so where possible I include videos and links to sheet music . Sometimes I simply bring together information found by others, but increasingly I am doing my own research.
The site also includes my occasional blog about the social history of Music Hall. I hope to comment on various ways in which it relates to the social history of folksong.
There are around 600 songs so far, hopefully a lot of the best known songs are covered, though I am aware that a few classics are missing. I know there is a definite bias towards songs from Northern England and London, and in future I hope to correct this by looking at more songs from North East England, Ireland and Scotland. . Each one of those areas will be a big task, but while we are in lock-down, who knows how far I can get? If there are songs you would like to see, let me know: john@folksongandmusichall.com.
There are probably hundreds of thousands of songs that were sung in the Music Hall. Some were great, some pretty awful, some I would not consider singing (unamended) because they are racist, sexist or horribly jingoistic. But just as with other musical forms, there are many songs worth singing and stories worth telling. Music Hall was the first modern mass entertainment available to working class people, which in itself makes it interesting. More on this in my first blog post
The song pages are all set out in a similar way – it hopefully doesn’t need explanation… Though I should say choruses are always in italics and if they are unchanged throughout the song are only included after the first verse. I include on each page an abbreviated list of sources with direct links, full details of any books should be under the Sources/links tab .
I started with 3 categories, with a fourth to mop up stragglers:
- Songs that existed prior to the Music Halls, now seen as traditional, which were sung on the Music Hall stage (see Folk in the Halls for examples.)
- Songs written for Music Hall that subsequently entered the folk tradition (the vast majority of songs covered: Folksongs from the Halls)
- Well known Music Hall songs, often coster songs, still sung regularly. (Classics)
- Songs from the Music Hall which are not widely sung any more, other songs of interest (Other songs)
I admit that these are overlapping and very subjective categories, and I now also wonder whether I shouldn’t have a category “songs suspected of having a Music Hall origin that I can’t find convincing evidence for”.
Recently I have tried to make it easier to browse for songs by listing songs under a number of themes – let me know what you think…
My investigations started by looking at songs by selected Music Hall songwriters, to try to understand whether I’m right in assuming that some writer’s songs were far more likely to pass into Traditional music. I have started by looking at the works of GW Hunt, Harry Linn, Weston and Lee, Joseph Geoghagan, Harry Clifton and Worton David. These surveys are at different stages of completion… At some point I think it would be appropriate to work in the other direction: at the traditional “source” singers, which songs they sang, and whether they identified them as coming from the Halls.
I use Roud numbers, a system hardcore folk-geeks will know well: the number itself is just the tip of an iceberg related to an indexing system explained in frightening detail in the rather wonderful Vaughan Williams Memorial Library.
The site is constantly evolving, and pages regularly get updated. Sometimes this is just minor corrections, sometimes I find pages I wrote some time ago that need additional information. Each page has a “last updated” date at the bottom.
A bit about me: I’m John Baxter, an amateur folksinger, a scientist by training, still working in academia. I’m trying not to write an academic site, but hopefully you will forgive me if I occasionally drift into bad habits.…
I run virtual and face-to-face Music Hall singarounds (perhaps they should be called “Free and Easies”). I run one at Glossop Labour Club which runs four times a year and I hope to run something similar at the excellent Sheffield Sessions Festival next year.
Most of this site has been written using voice recognition software, this can occasionally lead to bizarre mistakes if I don’t check too carefully…
Last Updated on April 28, 2023 by John Baxter | Published: November 29, 2019
