SONGS THAT HAVE LIVED.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXIII, 5 April 1926, Page 2

SONGS THAT HAVE LIVED.

POPULAR BALLADS AND THEIR STORIES. Songs that .have lived! How many of them there arc! And how difficult it- is to make choice among them anti decide as to their respective claims. Here is a list which has recently been put forward —“Home, Sweot Home,” “Annie LaUrie,” “Sally in Our Alley,” •JMen of Harlech,” “Tlio Minstrel Bo.v” “Tlio Last Rose of Summer,” “Killarney,” “Tom Bowling,” “Alice, here Art Thoufi” “Kathleen MavoUrneen,” “Come Into tho Garden, Maud” “Hearts of Oak,” “Auld Lang Svno.” A mixed bag, it may ho said, looked at front the critic’s standpoint. Yet, accepting popularity a 6 a final test, it must bo conceded that one and all have claims. Certainly it must be on this ground chiefly that “Homo, Sweet Homo,” heads the list. THE GREATEST FAVOURITE Rather curious and not unam l usihg is tho history of this famous song which has acquired such an invincible hold upon the affections of. the Eng-' lish-spcaking world. For the music was published originally as a “Sicilian Air”, by Sir Henry Bishop ill a collection of national melodies, though he had in point of fact composed it himself! Later lie used tho tuii9 again in ono of his operas (“Clari; or the Maid of Milan”), when it acquired such popularity that in order to protect Ids rights lie had to make confession of tho fraud which lie had perpetrated in calling it a Cicilian tune. The words, by John Howard Payne, an American, were fitted to it later. Much oarlier in date is “Sally in Our Alley.” Both words and tune in this caso ape ascribed to Henry Carey, ,tlio well-known eighteenth-eontury opera composer, though the tuno as we now know it is really quite different from that which Carey wrote, being a variant of a much older ballad tunc known as “The Country Lass,” upon which Sarey had possibly founded his cwn. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. Another eighteenth century example is “Hearts ol Oak,” which, it may surprise some to learn, was written by no less notable a parson than David Garrick, the actor, the music being by Dr Boyce. Though almost invariably speken of and sung nowadays as “Hearts of Oak.” it should really bo “Heart of Oak”:— Heart of oak are our ships, Jolly tars our men, being Garrick’s original words, though the popular emendation was in tins caso almost inevitable. From a somewhat later period comes “Tom Bowling,” one of tlio most famous of Dibdiu’s many sea soi.gs, which was originally produced ' towards the olid of the eighteenth century) at an entertainment given by Dibdin himself, under the name of “Tho Oddities,” at the Lyceum Theatre. In these “Table Entertainments,” as he called them, Dibdin was at once author, composer, speakor, and singer, and it was for these that nearly all of his many sea songs wore composed. “Tom Bowling” was written by Dibdin on the death of his elder brother, Captain Thomas Dibdin. Of the several Scottish songs included tho finest and most faUlous is, of course, ‘Auld Lang Syne,’ to which, as regards both words and music, a long and involved history is attach id, It is, however, now established beyond reasonable doubt that the beautiful, words wore written by Burns (although); lie himself pretended at first that ho had obtained them from an . earlier 1 ‘old song’ ’) and that the music, long ascribed to one Shield, was really derived from an old Scots strathspey. SCOTLAND AND WALES. “Annie Laurie” has been credited to both Lady John Scott and to a Mr Douglas, of Fingland, its heroine being one of tho daughters of Sir Robert Laurie, first Baronet of Maxwellton. But it is disappointing to know that the ardent devotion expressed in it — And for bonnie Annie Laurie I’d lay mo doon and dee — went unrewarded, since the lady in' the end married someone else. • In the caso of ‘The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond,’ the words hero fire traditional, as is also the music, the latter dating back to Jacobite days, but the song itself has only acquired its great popularity within comparatively recent times.

For the music of “Men of Harlech” —the one Welsh song in the list—great antiquity is claimed, but it did rot appear in print till 1794, and the words to which it is sung, with tho stirring refrain, “Cambria ne’er can yield,” are quite modern, having been written by John Oxenfora. Of the four Irish songs—‘The Minstrel Boy,” Killarney,” “Kathleen Mavournccn,” and “The Last Rose of Summer”—all date from the last century, the last-named boing perhaps the; most notable. Tom Moore wrote tlie words, of course, while the music, he adapted from an older song, “The Groves of Blarney,’ by an unknown composer. “The Minstrel Boy” is another of Moore’s songs, based on an old air called “The Moreen,” which he likewise adapted very freely. “Killarney” mid •‘Kathleen Mavournocn” are both of later date, the one having been.written by Balfe, tho composer of that popular opera, “Tho Bohemian Girl” (to, words by G. Falconer), and the other by F. N. Crouch to words by Mrs Crawford.

Balfe was also the composer of “Come Into tho Carden Maud,” which, despite tho onormous popularity which it enjoyed, thanks largely, no doubt, to Sims Reoves’s singing of it, cannot bo regarded as one of his happiest productions. Tennyson's words being hacked about in the most unpardonable manner. “Alice, Whore’ Art Thou?” is’ another mid-Victorian favorite, composed by Joseph Asclier, a popular musician of the period.—“ John o’ London’s Weekly.”-