{"id":11816,"date":"2021-08-01T09:21:45","date_gmt":"2021-08-01T09:21:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/?page_id=11816"},"modified":"2024-03-16T08:56:12","modified_gmt":"2024-03-16T08:56:12","slug":"basket-of-onions-the","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/index.php\/basket-of-onions-the\/","title":{"rendered":"Basket of onions, The"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
First Published<\/td>1867<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Writer\/composer<\/td>George Leybourne \/ James Bayman<\/td>Roud<\/strong><\/td>RNV56120<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Music Hall Performers<\/strong><\/td>George Leybourne<\/td><\/tr>
Folk performances<\/strong><\/td>Collected from the singing of:<\/strong>
see below<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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From Henry de Marsan's Singers Journal No 58 (c1870)<\/strong>\n\nThe Basket of Onions.\nMusic at Boosey & Co, 4 Bond Street, New-York.\n\nIn me see an Actor \u2014 I play at the Play.\nBut this life it goes hard with me now-a-day.\nThrough one fairy creature. who sound onions sold-\nBy my worn out features my story is told:\nIn Covent Garden Market sometimes there she sat,\nHer hair unadorned by bonnet or hat\u2014\n \n0h ! with a basket of onions that hung on her arm\nCould I but wed Mary. I should get a charm!\nBut she loves another ; so, it\u2018s no use to try<\/em>\nTo win her who cries out; \u201cSound onions, who'll buy!<\/em>\n\nAt the Theatre-Victoria. I play leading parts.\nIn love-making scenes I could please all the hearts\nOf those in the Boxes, both Gall'ry. and Pit:\nBut up in the Gall\u2018ry sweet Mary would sit. \nI played to her, nightly. both \u201cHamlet\" and \u201cLear\" \u2014\nShe'd cry from the Gall'ry, in the Pit she'd drop a tear.\n\nWhen I\u2018d done my part, I myself quickly took\nRound to the front door. and for Mary I\u2018d look;\nThe way I told Mary in the dark nights so well,\nBy the scent of the onions I Mary could tell.\nShe said: \"You are rich, I\u2018m too poor for thee,\nThe wife of an Actor I never can be.\"\n \nI coaxed her and told her my wife she should be.\nIn spite of her calling and hard poverty;\nI told her a mansion I had at command,\nShe should live and digest all the fat in the land.\nShe said: \u201cDo not tempt me \u2014 for woman is weak\u2014\nGo, go, you rich Hactor and your one pound a week.\"\n \nOne night, I in \"Hamlet\" was playing the Ghost.\nI ne'er thought of \"Hamlet\" 'twas of her I thought most:\nI should have said: \"Farewell, remember me!\"\nBut I shouted out: \u201cOnions, sound onions, who\u2019ll buy?\"\nThe people they hissed me, I turned blue and red.\nWhen Mary a bottle sent down at my head -\nAnd with her basket of onions she brought on her arm,\nThey pelted poor me, but I took it calm.\nBut she look it calmer \u2014 it seems like a dream\nShe left me and married a Foot-horse marine.<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
George Leybourne <\/a>wrote the words and sang this song from the late 1860s, with music composed by James Bayman, you can see the sheet music cover at the website related to Christopher Beeching’s excellent biography of Leybourne<\/a>. The swell character portrayed by many early Music Hall performers seemed to have a habit of falling hopelessly for women that sold vegetables. Harry Clifton played one with a thing for watercress and peas (The watercress girl<\/a>, Watercresses<\/a>, and Shelling Green Peas<\/a>), while Leybourne fell for the onion seller….<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This song seems to have lived on in Australian traditional singing: The Fresno Ballad Index lists a song of this title in Volume 2 of Meredith, Covell and Brown’s Folk Songs Of Australia<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Nov. 6, 1867; The Daily Telegraph <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n