{"id":2499,"date":"2020-08-12T11:34:05","date_gmt":"2020-08-12T11:34:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/?page_id=2499"},"modified":"2025-12-26T08:01:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T08:01:19","slug":"shes-a-lassie-from-lancashire","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/index.php\/shes-a-lassie-from-lancashire\/","title":{"rendered":"She’s a lassie from Lancashire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
AKA<\/strong><\/td>Lassie from Lancashire<\/td><\/tr>
First published<\/td>1907<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Lyrics<\/strong><\/td>Murphy, Dan Lipton & Neath<\/td>Music<\/strong><\/td> Murphy, Lipton & Neath<\/td>Roud<\/strong><\/td>RN24008<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Music Hall performers<\/strong><\/td>Florrie Forde
Ella Retford<\/td><\/tr>
Folk performances<\/strong><\/td>Source singers<\/strong>
Messenger, Alice 1975-80, England: Suffolk<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
From a dear little Lancashire town a boy had sailed away\nAcross the briny spray, to toil in USA\nWhen American girls gathered round and sought his company\nHe'd say, 'There's only one girl for me.'\n\nShe's a Lassie from Lancashire\nJust a Lassie from Lancashire\nShe's the Lassie that I love dear\nOh so dear!\nThough she dresses in clogs and shawl\nShe's the prettiest of them all\nNone could be fairer, or rarer than Sarah\nMy Lass from Lancashire.<\/em>\n\nNight and day, of his lassie he'd dream, recalling her sweet smell\nHe'd hear the factory bell, the sound he knew so well\nHome from work he would walk once again, and though in reverie\nHe'd say, 'There's only one girl for me.'\n\nDay by day he kept plodding away and to his task he stuck\nAnd by a stroke of luck, a paying vein he struck\nWhen he wrote to tell that he'd shortly cross the sea\nHe'd say, 'There's only one girl for me.'<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Florrie Forde<\/a> (1876-1940, Australian)and Ella Retford<\/a> (1886-1962, Irish) were both well-known for singing this lovelorn Lancastrian ballad :-). Touching on themes of homesickness and emigration as so many songs from the Halls do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
 CW Murphy ((1875-1913) wrote many songs for Florrie Forde, often working with lyricist Worton David. Here he was working with another of his regular collaborators, Dan Lipton (1873-1935) and also John Neat (1876-1949) who was more often credited as a musical arranger, rather than lyricist or composer .  Murphy produced a number of hits for Florrie Forde including: Oh! Oh! Antonio, Has anybody here seen Kelly?<\/em> and Flanagan<\/em>. Florrie was a fixture in the Halls on the the Isle of Man, where many a Lancastrian would be taking their holidays..<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The song has been recorded from one source singer in the late 1970s, but it seems to be most likely that it would be then as now regarded as a “classic music hall song”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n