{"id":7751,"date":"2020-12-18T14:00:33","date_gmt":"2020-12-18T14:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/?page_id=7751"},"modified":"2025-09-23T09:25:55","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T09:25:55","slug":"in-the-strand","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/index.php\/in-the-strand\/","title":{"rendered":"In the Strand"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
AKA<\/strong><\/td>I wish I was with Nancy<\/td><\/tr>
First Published<\/td>1861<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writer\/composer<\/td>Frank Hall \/ Emmett (not credited)<\/td>Roud<\/strong><\/td>RN13250<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
Music Hall Performers<\/strong><\/td>EW Mackney<\/td><\/tr>
Folk performances<\/strong><\/td>Source Singers<\/strong>
Short, John 1914 England : Somerset<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
From The Strand Songster <\/em>(undated)<\/strong>\n\n For the last three week\u2019s I've been dodging, \n A girl I know who has a lodging, \n In Strand, in the Strand;\n The first thing that put my heart in a flutter \n Was a Balmoral boot as she crossed the gutter. \n  In Strand, in the Strand:\n \n I wish I was Nancy oh! Heigho,\n In a second floor for evermore \n To live and die with Nancy. <\/em>\n  \n A pork pie hat with a little feather, \n A new knickerbocker for the dirty weather, \n In Strand, in the Strand;\n Some pretty petticoats too she\u2019d got them,\n Trimm\u2019d with embroidery round the bottom. \n In Strand, in the Strand;\n  \n One night as I was out for a run, \n I saw my Nancy buying a bun . \n In Strand, in the Strand;\n I told my love and down did fall,\n Slap on my knees by Exeter Hall,\n In the Strand, in the Strand. \n  \n I popp\u2019d the question neat and nobby, \n When she said, \u201cGet Up here comes a Bobby!\"\n In Strand, in the Strand;\n But said she to me, \u201cDon\u2019t look so blue. \n For I\u2019ll marry you in a week or two, \n In Strand, in the Strand;\n  \n I never shall forget the day\n When to Church we led the way \n In Strand, in the Strand;\n The folks did laugh and some did sing, \n I thought I\u2019d done a tidy thing \n In Strand, in the Strand;\n  \n I married her off without any fuss\n Bought a cradle and got a nurse \n In Strand, in the Strand;\n I never repent me going out west, \n For all the wives you get the best \n In Strand, in the Strand. <\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
A parody sung to the tune of a now more famous American song: Dixie<\/em>. It was collected by Cecil Sharp from the singing of John Short in 1914, who sang it as a capstan shanty – a sailor’s work song used when turning the capstan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>
\n
I wish I was in Dixie’s Land<\/em> was a American blackface minstrel song written by Daniel D Emmett, first published in 1859, though it may have been in circulation slightly before this. In the UK Dixie<\/em> was performed by a number of blackface minstrel troupes and it became very popular very quickly. It was subject to a number of parodies, this one was written by Frank Hall, whose brief biography appears below. The song was  sung most famously in the Halls by EW Mackney.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
The overall story of the song would have been drawing humour from the fact that the singer finds his true love on The Strand, a street allegedly the haunt of prostitutes in Victorian times. JS Bratton, in an article published in 1981, points out another, more sophisticated joke in the song:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n
[the third stanza] ends ‘I told my love and down did fall I Slap on my knees by the Exeter Hall’, at which point the performer no doubt threw himself into a parody of the posture of the enchained slave which was the symbol adopted by the anti-slavery reformers who met inside the Exeter Hall. The image was debased, at this date, through its adoption as a trademark by every beggar who stood pad as an ex-slave. The complexity of the knowing allusion is typical of music-hall song, but a long way from Emmett’s plantation jollities and from the emotional fervour with which the American audience invested ‘Dixie’<\/p>\nJS Bratton: English Ethiopians<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>
\n
Frank Hall (1836- 98) <\/strong>was the stage name of  Herbert Stewart, long-time secretary of the Music Hall Benevolent Fund. As a youngster he gave up a promising position articled to an architect to pursue a life on the stage. He gained success as a song-writer and comedian and was said to have established  an entirely new school of buffo singing. <\/em>After a period managing several Halls, with mixed success, he returned to writing and the stage to appear in a series of comic operas at the Alhambra, and to write several successful pantomimes in the late 1880s. He retired to Leeds in the 1890s where he died in relative poverty. (“Death of Mr Frank Hall” The Era<\/a><\/em>, 29 October 1898)<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n