Songs of Sixty Years Ago

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 241, 31 December 1927, Page 16

Songs of Sixty Years Ago

Some “Admired Ballads” of The Crinoline Period

I SPENT a sweetly melancholy evening not long ago in turn ing over the "pages of bound volumes of old songs • songs that my mother sang as a girl. She is eighty >eai> old now. The songs of sixty years ago praised, and mno uncertain breath, the home, friendship, faithfulness, duty. “Admired ballad” was a favourite description often printed on the cover, where usually further information was git on such as “sung by Miss S. Hobbs, with unbounded applause, at the Nobilities’ Concerts.’’

Love Songs 'T/ATHLEEN MAVOURNEEN,” that great love song, it was that was sung by Miss Hobbs at the Mobilities’ Concerts with unbounded applause. The auguish of parting is one of the everlasting subjects for song. They sang of it then, we hear it sung now, But we do not now hear beautiful girls warbling of the immense superiority of love over money. There is something truly out-of-date about “Janet’s Choice,’* by the famous “Claribel.” Janet was offered marriage with the laird and wealth, but she sang, “But, oh, where would my heart be, in spite of my gems so gay?” Mother Songs The heroine of “My mother bids me bind my hair” (written to Haydn’s canzonet) could not do so, nor yet tie up her sieevs nor lace her bodice blue when her lover was away. This, toe, is very unmodern. Family sentiment, as expressed in such songs as “Hearts and Homes,” is also a thing that “dates.” Members of families have not ceased to love each other, but they have become reticent about it. There is one exception. “Mother” songs are never out of fashion. One of the best of these is “Rock me to sleep, Mother,” which belongs to 60 years ago. or nearly. We may smile at it, but how many of us even want to deny its essential truth to life as we know it?

A Song to Friendship The songs of Tom Moore were, of j course, very great favourites through- j out this period. His song to mend- , ship, “The Meeting of the Waters,” ought to be known and loved by all people who derive their chief joy in life from friendship, and. indeed, by all who cannot be made happy by the beauty of nature alone. “ ’Twas not the soft magic of streamlet or hill,” he writes. It was “something more exquisite still!” The “something more exquisite still” was that blending of thought and of mood which means the best happiness t in the world. ... The song ends art- j lessly, with words so honest that they : are ridicule-proof: “Where the Storms which we feel in , this cold world should cease, And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace.” We do not sing songs in praise of peace nowadays, and do not even know that most of us are sick for the need of it. We are. of course, much more “clever” and subtle than they were in 1860-1880. They did “spread themselves.” They did love moonlight and primrose dells, and liquid gems, and their ballads were sent out to the world j in covers trimmed with paper lace like j valentines. They had no restraint or i self-criticism. But they knew what , they admired; they even knew what ! they wanted. We live on a perpetual I question-mark, and our songs arc , mostly fragments.