{"id":2399,"date":"2020-05-04T15:31:05","date_gmt":"2020-05-04T15:31:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/?page_id=2399"},"modified":"2026-05-27T09:53:43","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T09:53:43","slug":"shabby-genteel","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/index.php\/shabby-genteel\/","title":{"rendered":"Shabby Genteel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
AKA<\/strong><\/td><\/td><\/tr>
First published<\/td>1866<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Lyrics<\/strong><\/td>Henry S Leigh<\/td>Music<\/strong><\/td>Harry Clifton <\/td>Roud<\/strong><\/td>22504<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Music Hall performers<\/strong><\/td>Harry Clifton 1860s
Victor Liston 1870s<\/td><\/tr>
Folk performances<\/strong><\/td>Source Singers<\/strong>
Maggie Haun, 1937, Tennessee, USA
Mrs JU Newman, 1939, N Carolina, USA
Martin Leo, ca1950, Newfoundland
Freeman Young, 1953, Nova Scotia, Scotland<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
We have heard it asserted a dozen time o'er\nThat a man may be happy in rags,\nThat a prince is no more, in his carriage and four,\nThan a pauper who tramps on the flags.\nAs I chance to be neither, I cannot describe\nHow a prince or a pauper may feel.\nI belong to that highly respectable tribe,\nWhich is known as the Shabby Genteel.\n\nToo proud to beg, too honest to steal,\nI know what it is to be wanting a meal.\nMy tatters and rags, I try to conceal,\nI'm one of the Shabby Genteel.<\/em>\n   \nI'm a party, in fact, who has known better days,\nBut their glory is faded and gone;\nI have started in life in a lot of odd ways,\nBut have not found the way to get on.\nThere are only three roads, I'm afraid, that are left:\nI shall have to beg, borrow, or steal.\nYet I don't quite encourage the notion of theft,\nTho' I'm awfully Shabby Genteel.\n\nI am dress'd in my best, tho' I cannot pretend\nThat my costume is quite comme il faut<\/em>,\nYou'll observe that my watch has been left with a friend,\nAnd my gloves are unfitted for show.\nThere are traces of wear on my elbows and knees,\nAnd my boots have run down at the heels \nBut it's cruel to criticise matters like these\nWhen a man has grown Shabby Genteel.\n\nStill I strive to be cheerful in all my distress, \nAnd I bear my bad luck like a man,\nIf I can't have my way as to feeding or dress,\nI must still do the best that I can.\nAnd remember, good people, that Fortune some day,\nBy a turn of her treacherous wheel,\nMay reduce one of you in the very same way\nTo the level of Shabby Genteel.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Kilgarrif suggests that Harry Clifton<\/a> didn’t have much success with this song, but in the hands of another artiste it was a great hit. According to Harold Scott, Victor Liston (1838-1913):<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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…made a great impression with the song “Shabby Genteel\u2026 [the song] is reported to have charmed the Prince of Wales\u2026 He is said to have taken the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland to Evans’ [a song and supper room\/early Music Hall] in its declining days especially to hear it.<\/p>\nHarold Scott, Early Doors<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
The success, both with royalty and commoners, on this side of the Atlantic was reflected in North America and Ireland. There it was sung with great success amongst others, Gus Williams. It is widely found in broadsides and songbooks on both sides of the Atlantic, but significantly has been collected several times from source singers in Canada and America, until the early 1950s. I can find no evidence of more modern recordings or performances since then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So in this case, perhaps we can state it’s a song from Halls that entered North American traditional music, but is largely forgotten today?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This song is sometimes confused with Though poor, I’m a gentleman still<\/a><\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Victor Liston (1838-1913)<\/strong> was one of the early stars of the London and Provincial Halls, whose performances were so impressive he was descibed as The Robson of the Halls,<\/em> after Fredereick Robson who “could switch from broad farce to high tragedy with astonishing faculty<\/em> – Robson was the performer who first popularised Villikins and his Dinah<\/a><\/em>. Victor Liston’s debut was in London in 1855 and within a few years he was a regular performer at London’s Cider Cellars, Dr Johnson’s Tavern, the Coal Hole and Evans’. He toured America in 1871, but in later years he managed several smaller provincial Halls. Not to be confused with the dialect comedian Harry Liston<\/a> (<\/strong>1843-1929)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n