{"id":2016,"date":"2020-04-11T16:51:17","date_gmt":"2020-04-11T16:51:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/?page_id=2016"},"modified":"2025-04-02T09:43:02","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T09:43:02","slug":"grannys-old-arm-chair","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/index.php\/grannys-old-arm-chair\/","title":{"rendered":"Granny’s old arm chair"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
AKA<\/strong><\/td>Grandmother’s chair
The old armchair<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Lyrics<\/strong><\/td>John Read<\/td>Music<\/strong><\/td>John Read<\/td>Roud<\/strong><\/td>RN1195<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Music Hall performers<\/strong><\/td>John Read<\/td><\/tr>
Folk performances<\/strong><\/td>Fred Jordan 1959
Ned Wheeler 1961
Walter Pardon 1960s<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
My grandmother she, at the age of eighty-three\nOne day in May was taken ill and died;\nAnd after she was dead, the will of course was read,\nBy a lawyer as we all stood by his side;\nTo my brother it was found, she had left a hundred pounds,\nThe same unto my sister I declare,\nBut when it came to me, the lawyer said, \"I see,\nShe has left to you her Old arm chair.\"\n\nAnd how they titter'd! how they chaff'd!\nHow my brother and sister laugh'd,\nWhen they heard the lawyer declare,\nGranny had only left to me her Old arm chair.<\/em>\n\nI tho't it hardly fair, still I said I did not care,\nAnd in the ev'ning took the chair away;\nThe neighbors they me chaff'd my brother at me laugh'd\nAnd said \"It will be useful John some day;\nWhen you settle down in life, find some girl to be your wife,\nYou'll find it very handy I declare,\nOn a cold and frosty night, when the fire is burning bright,\nYou can then sit in your old arm chair.\"\n\nWhat my brother said was true, for in a year or two,\nStrange to say I settl'd down in married life;\nI first a girl did court, and then the ring I bought,\nTook her to church and when she was my wife;\nThe old girl and me, were as happy as could be,\nFor when my work was over I declare,\nI ne'er abroad would roam, but each night would stay home,\nAnd be seated in my old arm chair.\n\nOne night the chair fell down, when I pick'd it up I found,\nThe seat had fallen out up[-]on the floor;\nAnd there to my surprise I saw before my eyes,\nA lot of notes, two thousand pounds or more;\nWhen my brother heard of this, the fellow I confess,\nWent nearly mad with rage, and tore his hair,\nBut I only laugh'd at him, then said unto him\n\"Jem, Don't you wish you had the old arm chair?\"<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Widely collected from the source singing on both sides of the Atlantic, usually in the 2nd half of the 20th century, this song appears in dozens of English, American and  Scottish song collections going back to the 1880s. (There are over 130 entries in the VWML database,collected from 69 different singers!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The song was first published in 1879\/1880, with two different composers\/lyricists credited: Frank B Carr and John Read. However, in histories of the British Music Hall, the song is routinely credited to John Read (1839 to 1920), and a British library catalogue entry credits Read as writer\/composer when Charles Sheard  published the song in 1879. Read was widely admired for his good looks and sharp dressing: he routinely wore a huge diamond stud on his white shirt front. He was chairman of Collin’s Music Hall for a time, and claimed to have sung the song between 10 and 20,000 times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The song seems to have remained popular on both sides of the Atlantic, and was widely sung during the folk revival of the 1960s and after. It’s possible that these performers were remembering the recording made by the American vaudeville performer Frank Crumit in 1929. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This song is sometimes confused with the extremely popular song based on Eliza Cook<\/a>‘s sentimental poem The Old Arm Chair <\/em>(RN13966). Kilgarriff, for example, lists The Old Arm Chair <\/em>as part of John Read’s repertoire. The only contemporary description of him singing it that I can find is in  The Era<\/em> (April 6 1879), suggesting that “A story in verse about <\/em>‘an old armchair’ was tunefully told by Mr John Read<\/em>“. To me it seems very likely that this describes the song here rather than Eliza Cook’s song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Sources :<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n