The Two Brothers- Mandel (NY) 1964 Paton REC
[From: New World CD 80239-2 ('Brave Boys') Track 3. Paton's liner notes follow.
R. Matteson 2014]
The Two Brothers (Child 49) (Traditional)
Sung by Ben Mandel, Queens, New York. Recorded by Sandy Paton, June 1964.
Ordinarily, one searches for remnants of our ballad tradition in the more remote byways of the countryside, but in fact the classic ballads are apt to survive anywhere. Ben Mandel learned this version of "The Twa Brothers" (as Professor Child called it) as a child in the Hebrew National Orphan Home, Yonkers, New York. That a tragic tale of fratricide should become a children's street song after several centuries of a more dignified existence may seem strange, but it is not at all unusual: "Lord Randal" has been found as a Cockney street song in London, and what appears to be a retelling of "The Two Sisters" was collected as a children's song in Nebraska in 1931. Two of Child's texts of "The Twa Brothers" were from children. His G(a) version was "taken down from the singing of little girls in South Boston," and G(b) was communicated to him by W. W. Newell as "from a child in New York, 1880.""
Much of the ancient Scottish story survives in Mandel's New York version, although his stanza about the angels may be an intrusion from the "White Paternoster."
Mandel's delightfully incongruous final stanza clearly derives from another urban street rhyme, but its presence serves to make this version unique.
Johnny and Willie were a-comin' from school
On a Friday afternoon,
And Johnny said to Willie,
"Do you wanna have a fight
Or watch the boys throw stones?
Or watch the boys throw stones?"
Similarly:
"I don't wanna have no fight,
Don't wanna throw no stones,
I am too weak, I am too small,
So please let me alone."
But Johnny took out his pocket knife,
And the end of it was sharp;
He stuck it into Willie's heart,
And the blood came pouring out.
Johnny took off his Holland shirt,
And he ripped it gore from gore,
And he wrapped it round poor Willie's heart,
But it just bled the more.
"If you see Father going home,
And he asks for my returning,
Tell him I'm in the old schoolhouse,
And from my new books learning.
"If you meet Mother going home,
Tell her I am dying.
My own heart's blood is pouring out,
I'm in the schoolyard lying.
"Six little angels at my side
To help me on my way;
Two to weep, two to pray,
Two to carry my soul away.
"Johnson, Johnson is my name,
Brooklyn is my station,
Heaven is my resting place,
And God is my salvation."