The Ould Sod


THE OULD SOD

AS I WAS WALKIN DOWN WEXFORD STREET (Music arranged by Lillian Rosedale Goodman)

SH-TA-RA-DAH-DEY (IRISH LULLABY) Music arranged by Edward Collins

SHE SAID THE SAME TO ME  Music arranged by Alfred G. Wathall

WHO'S THE PRETTY GIRL MILKIN' THE COW?  Music arranged by Alfred G. Wathall

GIVE ME THREE GRAINS OF CORN, MOTHER

KEVIN BARRY  Music arranged by Mollie Nemkovsky

THE SON OF A GAMBOLIER  

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AS I WAS WALKIN' DOWN WEXFORD STREET
This should be sung easily and casually to begin with, but in the end it is a Celtic "crying out  loud." The mood or tone seems to be of that important Irish drama, "The W'hite Headed Boy,"  where there is trouble for everybody with nobody to blame, or all at fault. This lilt, too, is from  Mother McKinley, formerly of McKinley, Iowa, and later of Chicago.

As I was walkin* down Wexford Street
Me father's house I chanc't to meet;
Me aged father stood in the dure,
An' me sister stood on the flure,
While me tender mother her hair she ture. 
 

SH-TA-RA-DAH-DEY (IRISH LULLABY)
This little croon is an impromptu, made up in some hour when a man or woman holding a baby,  or rocking a cradle, needed hushing words for a hushing tune. Of course, the statistical information  that a dollar a day is all they pay for work on the boulevard does not interest a sleepy child, but as  crooned by Robert E. Lee, of the Chicago Tribune, the word "boul-e-vard" has comforting and soothing quality. Lee heard the song from an Irishman in charge of the railroad station at Wallingford,
Iowa. While selling passenger tickets, or making out way-bills, or figuring freight demurrage, or  hustling trunks off and on baggage cars, or piling crates of eggs, "the agent" would ease his heart with this lullaby.


SH-TA-RA-DAH-DEY

Sh-ta-ra-dah-dey, sh-ta-dey,
Times is mighty hard.
A dollar a day is all they pay
For work on the boulevard.
Sh-ta-ra-dah-dey, sh-ta-dey,
Times is mighty hard.
A dollar a day is all they pay
For work on the boulevard.
Sh-ta-ra-dah-dey, sh-ta-dey,
Times is mighty hard.
A dollar a day is all they pay
For work on the boulevard.
37

SHE SAID THE SAME TO ME
A briefly etched love story is here, with only a first chapter, leaving the middle and ending  chapters untold. There may be other verses telling of marriage and children, or of fate that ran  otherwise. It is a true Irish lilt, and was sung by folks from the Ould Sod who settled in Iowa.  This version is from Mother McKinley of the family from whom the town of McKinley, Iowa,
was named.

SHE SAID THE SAME TO ME

 
'Twas in the month of August, or the middle of July,
One evening I went walking, a fair maiden I did spy;
She was mournin' for her true love, who was in Arnerikee,
Agh, divil a word I said to her, and she said the same to me!

WHO'S THE PRETTY GIRL MILKIN' THE COW?
The fragment here is probably a make-over, a distillation, from an Irish song of lesser grace  and melody. Bob Lee sang this for me, but wasn't sure he had the words right; he would see the  traffic policeman, Tom Burke, and be sure; and Burke said, "Why should ye be wantin' that little song? It's old. Everybody knows it."


O 'twas on a bright mornin' in summer
When I first heard her voice singin' low
As he said to a colleen beside him:
"Who's the pretty girl milkin' the cow?'

GIVE ME THREE GRAINS OF CORN, MOTHER
Sometimes it happens that a maudlin, drivelling song published elaborately as sheet music  undergoes a transformation. It mellows and sweetens as it is passed on and sung in new ways.  Harsh contours are worn down, jagged edges smoothed. This is the case with "Three Grains of  Corn.*' I have an 11848 original of the sheet music; it is long; it prolongs desolation beyond endurance or healthy art. The latter quality is not found in the variants known among midwest pioneers.  Of several versions, the most appealing to me is one from the Frariz Rickaby collection, communicated  by Mrs. C. A. Yoder of Bloomington, Indiana. I have gone to this song in certain moods and found  it sickly with melancholy, not worth singing. Again, in other moods, I have gone to it and found it  a gaunt little human drama with a melody carrying some of the tone color of dark, vivid Irish hearts.

1. Give me three grains of corn, mother
Only three grains of corn.
'Twill keep what little life I have
Till the coming of the morn.

2. For I'm dying of hunger and cold, mother
Dying of hunger and cold,
And the agony of such a death
My lips have never told.

3 Oh, what has old Ireland done, mother, 
Oh, what has old Ireland done,
That the world looks on and sees them starve,
Perishing one by one?  

4 There is many a brave heart, mother,
That is dying of hunger and cold,
While only across the channel, mother,
Thousands are rolling their gold.

5 Oh, how can I look to you, mother,
Oh, how can I look to you
For bread to feed your starving child
When you are starving too?

6 For I read the famine on your cheek
And in your eyes so wild,
And I felt it in your bony hand
When you laid it on your child.

7. It has gnawed like a wolf at my heart, mother,
 A wolf that was fierce for blood,
All the livelong day and the night beside,
Gnawing for lack of food.

8 I dreamed of bread in my sleep, mother,
The sight was heaven to see.
I awoke with an eager and famishing lip
And you had no bread for me.

KEVIN BARRY
Tongues of love and hate, breaths of passion and suffering, all mingled with a strange bitter-sweet, are in this song out of the violent events in Ireland. Probably all wars and revolutions  produce figures like Kevin Barry, though seldom do they have such adequate songs as memorials.  In Nashville, Tennessee, one rnay look at the statue of Sam Davis, who died refusing to turn informer and thus save his life. Davis has a statue in bronze; Kevin Barry has a song. These  verses and their wistful, longing melody are from Irish boys and girls in "Chicago who learned the  ballad on the Ould Sod.

KEVIN BARRY


1 Early on a Monday morning,
High upon the gallows tree,
Kevin Barry gave his young life
For the cause of liberty.

2 Only a lad of eighteen summers,
Still there's no one can deny,
As he walked to death that morning
Nobly held his head up high.

3 Another martyr for old Ireland,
Another murder for the crown,
Brutal laws to crush the Irish
Could not keep their spirits down.

 4 Lads like Barry are no cowards.
From their foes they do not fly;
For their bravery always has been
Ireland's cause to live or die.

5 "Kevin Barry, do not leave us,
On the scaffold you must die!"
Cried his broken-hearted mother
As she bade her son good-bye.

6 Kevin turned to her in silence
Saying, "Mother, do not weep,
For it's all for dear old Ireland
And it's all for freedom's sake."

7 Just before he faced the hangman
In his lonely prison cell,
The Black and Tans tortured Barry,
Just because he wouldn't tell

8 The names of his brave comrades,
And other things they wished to know.
"Turn informer and we'll free you."
But Kevin proudly answered "No!

9 "Shoot me like a soldier.
Do not hang me like a dog,
For I fought to free old Ireland
On that still September morn.

10 "All around the little bakery
Where we fought them hand to hand,
Shoot me like a brave soldier,
For I fought for Ireland."

THE SON OF A GAMBOLIER
Misery with a light-hearted lilt .... a far-flung companion of roving men.

.1 I'm a rambling wretch of poverty, from Tip'ry town I carne.
'Twas poverty compelled me first to go out in the rain;
In all sorts of weather, be it wet or be it dry,
I am bound to get my livelihood or lay me down and die.

Refrain: Then combine your humble ditties as from tavern to tavern we steer;
Like every honest fellow, I drinks my lager beer;
Like every jolly fellow, I takes my whiskey clear,
I'm a rambling wretch of poverty, and the son of a gambolier
I'm the sou of a, son of a, son of a, son of a, son of a gambolier.

2 I once was tall and handsome, and was so very neat;
They thought I was too good to live, most good enough to eat;
But now I'm old my coat is torn, and poverty holds me fast.
And every girl turns up her nose as I go wandering past.

Refrain:

3 I'm a rambling wretch of poverty, from Tip'ry town I came;
My coat I bought from an old Jew shop way down in Maiden Lane;
My hat I got from a sailor lad just eighteen years ago,
And my shoes I picked from an old dust heap, which every one shunned but me!

Refrain: