{"id":166,"date":"2019-12-07T20:41:41","date_gmt":"2019-12-07T20:41:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/?page_id=166"},"modified":"2024-08-06T09:32:28","modified_gmt":"2024-08-06T09:32:28","slug":"ten-thousand-miles-away","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/index.php\/ten-thousand-miles-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten thousand miles away"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
AKA<\/strong><\/td>Blow the wind high-o!
The treadmill song
Botany bay
I’m off on the morning train<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Lyrics<\/strong><\/td>JB Geoghegan<\/td>Music<\/strong><\/td>JB Geoghegan<\/td>Roud Index<\/strong><\/td>RN1778<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Music Hall performers<\/strong><\/td>The Great Vivian US, 1870s
Harry Liston 1870s
JW Rowley 1880s<\/td><\/tr>
Folk performances<\/strong><\/td>Collected from the singing of (a pre-war selection):<\/strong>
Welch, Lizzie England : Somerset; 1904
Hooper, Louie England : Somerset; 1904
Burroughs, Mrs. England : Somerset; 1906
Walker, Mrs.; Scotland; 1906
Rosher, Charles; England : London; 1907
Lyall, Mrs.; Scotland; 1908
Crichton, Mr. ; Scotland; 1908
Gillespie, Mrs. Margaret; Scotland; 1909
Busby, John; England : Warwickshire ; 1910
Lawson, Capt.; USA : New Hampshire ; 1927
Kennison, Josiah; USA : Vermont; 1930
Grubb, Minter; USA : Virginia ; 1932
<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
From Sheet Music held in Bodleian Library:\n\nTEN THOUSAND MILES AWAY\nWritten and composed and sung by JB Geoghegan\nPublished for the author by Hutchings and Romer\n\n Sing Ho! For a brave and valiant bark\n And a brisk and lively breeze\n A bully crew and a captain too,\n To carry me over the seas\n To carry me over the seas, my boys\n To my true love so gay\n She has taken a trip on a government ship\n Ten thousand miles away\n  \n So blow the winds, I, Oh!,<\/em>\n A-roving I will go<\/em>\n I\u2019ll stay no more on England\u2019s shore,<\/em>\n So let the music play<\/em>,\n I start on the morning train,<\/em>\n To cross the raging main,<\/em>\n I\u2019m on the move to my own true love,<\/em>\n Ten thousand miles away.<\/em>\n \n My true love, she is beautiful,\n My true love, she is young;\n Her eyes are blue as the violet\u2019s hue,\n And silvery sounds her tongue.\n And silvery sounds her tongue, my boys,\n But, while I sing this lay,\n She\u2019s doing the grand in a distant land,\n Ten thousand miles away\n  \n Oh! That was a dark and dismal day\n When last she left the strand\n She bade goodbye with a tearful eye,\n And waved her lily hand. \n And waved her lily hand, my boys,\n As the big ship left the bay,\n Adoo<\/em>, says she, remember me,\n Ten thousand miles away.\n  \n Oh! if I could be but a bos'n bold,\n Or only a bom-ba-dier,\n I\u2019d hire a boat and hurry afloat,\n And straight to my true love steer.\n And straight to my true love steer, my boys,\n Where the dancing dolphins play,\n And the whales and sharks are having their larks,\n Ten thousand miles away\n  \n Oh! The sun may shine through a London fog,\n And the Thames run bright and clear,\n The ocean\u2019s brine be turned to wine,\n And I may forget my beer.\n And I may forget my beer, my boys,\n And the landlords quarter day,\n But I\u2019ll never part from my own sweetheart,\n Ten thousand miles away    <\/pre>\n\n\n\n
As mentioned in my post about JB Geoghegan<\/a>, the great sea shanty expert Stan Hugill suggests this is a song that predates the Music Hall. He suggests that it was widely sung in the early 19th century under the title Botany Bay. <\/em>It is possible that Geoghegan embellished an earlier song to make it his own, though I can’t find evidence of any thing very similar being sung before 1868. The balance of probability is definitely on the side of Geoghegan having written it in the mid- or late- 1860s and it having spread very quickly around the English-speaking world in the early 1870s. Hugill may be referring to one or other of several different songs written in the 1790s called Botany Bay<\/em>, though I cannot find one that features a chorus similar to this version.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The Bodleian Library has two separate editions of the sheet music for Ten Thousand Miles Away<\/em>, both dated 1870 and credited as follows: <\/p>\n\n\n\n