Songs of ALL TIME

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 37, 24 February 1939, Page 9

Songs of ALL TIME

THAT quotation by Fletcher of Saltoun, ‘‘Let me make the ballads of a people, and I care not who make the laws,’’ has a peculiar aptness when one thinks of ‘‘Danny Boy.’’ In its original title, before it had FE. E, Weatherly’s moving ‘poem to lend it added charm, it was called ‘‘Irish Tune from County Derry,’ being still better known as the ‘‘Londonderry Air.’’

. The tune is first found in print ‘an George Petrie’s collection of Irish folk songs, published in 1855, and the composer is unknown. The melody was given to Petrie by Miss Jane Ross, of Limavady, who, with her sister, made a practice of taking down tunes from the peasants who came to that town on market day. Doubtless it was known, loved, and sung by the family of a former Prime Minister of New Zealand, William Ferguson Massey. it was in the pretty little market town of Limavady, in the valley of the Roe, that he was born. In that old homestead, near the church, this fine old tune may have been whistled, hummed and sung by all. In 1912, a sister-in-law of F. EB. Weatherly, the famous writer of lyrics for popular songs, sent him the music of "The Londonderry Air," the music and even the name of which he had never heard until then, The sister-in-law sent the tune from America, and this family interest in Weatherly’s work in song-writing led to the birth of one of the most famous songs of the century. "Danny Boy" It appears that two years pre.

viously he had written a song called "Danny Boy," which, by lucky chance, only' required a few alterations to make it fit the beautiful melody that had been sent him. The song was published by Boosey’s, and in that arrangement and in many others, notably those by Percy Grainger, the tune has winged its way round the world. "The Londonderry Air" was heard and noted down at Limavady, which is twelve miles west of the historic city of Londonderry itself. Thanks to an Irish enthusiast, an English songwriter and an Australian composer, it is now known and heard all over the globe. The first lines known to have been set to this tune were by the poet Alfred Percival Graves, who: wrote two sets of words for it, viz, ‘Would I were Erin’s Apple BSsom," and "EHmer’s Farewell." The tune figures in Stanford’s first "Trish Rhapsody." It was once described by Sir Hubert Parry as "the most beautiful tune in the world," and it aroused the enthusjlastic acclaim of Harry Plunket

Greene, one of TIreland’s finest singers, Among all the 3000 songs F. E. Weatherly left us, there is none which is more loved than the one whose opening lines are:Oh, Danny Boy, the pipes, the pines are ealling, From glen to glen, and down the mountain-side, The summer's gone, and all the roses falling, Its you, it’s you must go ‘and I must bide. . This song, with its lover's pro: mise, has an unfailing appeal and may, with its deathless tune, well be called one of the songs of all time. 2YA listeners will hear "Danny ‘Boy’ sung by Heather Kinnaird, : contralto, on Wednesday, March