As recounted here, Jimmy would have been in his early twenties if and when he met Miss Jane Ross, and although he was well known, both as a colorful character and as a fiddler, she did not mention his name or the name of any other fiddler or piper. With some of the British upper classes, it was a point of pride not to know the names of social inferiors. Such knowledge would have indicated a degree of familiarity deemed unacceptable in that social stratum. It may have been that Miss Ross failed to identify McCurry by name for this reason.
Jimmy McCurry, however, is not credited with any lyrics to the Londonderry air. Some music historians have noted that there were many versions of lyrics written for the air prior to the turn of the twentieth century. Most of them were written after Petrie published the melody in 1855. According to The Fireside Book of Folk Songs, the following words were the first ever set to the Londonderry air:
Would God I were the tender apple blossom
That floats and falls from off the twisted bough
To lie and faint within your silken bosom
Within your silken bosom as that does now.
Or would I were a little burnish’d apple
For you to pluck me, gliding by so cold
While sun and shade you robe of lawn will dapple
Your robe of lawn, and you hair’s spun gold.
Yea, would to God I were among the roses
That lean to kiss you as you float between
While on the lowest branch a bud uncloses
A bud uncloses, to touch you, queen.
Nay, since you will not love, would I were growing
A happy daisy, in the garden path
That so your silver foot might press me going
Might press me going even unto death.
It’s interesting to note that the air has often inspired themes of death and farewells. Thomas Moore (1770-1852) wrote a ten-volume work, Irish Melodies (1807-1834), consisting of 130 poems set to music with the help of Sir John Stevenson. One of the poems, “My Gentle Harp,” is another early precursor to “Danny Boy”:
My gentle harp, once more I waken
The sweetness of thy slumb’ring strain
In tears our last farewell was taken
And now in tears we meet again.
Yet even then, while peace was singing,
Her halcyon song o’er land and sea,
Though joy and hope to others bringing,
She only brought new tears to thee.
Then who can ask for notes of pleasure,
My drooping harp, from chords like thine?
Alas, the lark’s gay morning measure
As ill would suit the swan’s decline.
Or how shall I, who love, who bless thee,
Invoke thy breath for freedom’s strains,
When e’en the wreaths in which I dress thee,
Are sadly mixed, half flours, half chains.
But before Moore and even the Londonderry air itself, a melody strikingly similar to “Danny Boy” was published in James Irish Minstrels, in 1831. The song, “Aisling an Agfhir” or “The Young Man’s Dream” had English words in addition to accompanying Gaelic text. It’s a song that, on the surface, tells of a young man’s love for a beautiful woman in lament. Upon closer inspection, of “The Young Man’s Dream”, however, the woman is clearly Ireland, a forerunner of the “Caitlin/Kathleen” songs, with themes of nature, loyalty and sacrifice.
In a dream of delusion, methought I was laid,
By a brook overarched with a fluttering shade;
A delicious recess, where silver-tongued rills,
And far cataracts deep roar echoed round from the hills;
Gleaming fish in clear waters were wantonly playing,
And hoarse murmuring bees o’er wild flow’rets were straying;
While sweet honey distilled from old oaks to regale,
The young and the fair in that odorous vale.
A beautiful bird on a blossomy spray,
Was warbling a varied and rapturous lay;
As I listened entranced in delightful surprise,
A lovely enchantress astonished my eye;
Her cheeks like the quicken’s rich clusters were glowing,
Her amber silk locks to her white ancles flowing;
Like a keen freezing star gleamed each sparkling blue eye,
Alas! in one month, for her loss, I must die.
When first she descried me, startled, alarmed,
And with coy supplication my sympathy charmed:
Oh favoured of men! do not ruin a maid,
By fate to your power unprotected betrayed;
For with sorrow and shame broken hearted I’d die,
Or for life thro’ wild desarts a lunatic fly.
Oh peerless perfection! how canst thou believe,
That I could such innocence hurt or deceive?
I implore the Great Fountain of glory and love,
And all the blessed saints in their synod above;
That connubial affections our souls may combine,
And the pearl of her sex be immutably mine.
The green grass shall not grow, nor the sun shed his light,
Nor the fair moon and stars gem the forehead of night;
The stream shall flow upward, the fish quit the sea,
Ere I shall prove faithless, dear angel to thee.
Her ripe lip and soft bosom then gently I prest,
And clasped her half-blushing consent to my breast;
My heart fluttered light as a bird on the spray,
But I woke, and alas, the vain dream fled away.
There is more evidence of late, this time in the form of an ancient Scottish manuscript, which dates the melody as far back as the early 1700s. It may well be that the tune originated, or was at least annotated in Lowland Scotland, and it may well be that the melody was simply well-traveled and retooled from region to region. In short, there is no telling when or where the melody truly originated. Historians can only rely on written records, and, as you can see, even these are open to speculation and unverifiable conjecture. The air’s conception, hardly immaculate, may be the one mystery of “Danny Boy” that can truly never be solved. But despair not. Let us move on now to the other great mystery!
From glen to glen
Lyrics Meet Melody
Whether or not the tune, air or melody we now know as “Danny Boy” was composed in Ireland some three hundred years ago, there is no doubt about the origin of the words. The lyrics are not Irish and they were not written by an Irishman, and no matter how vehemently the Irish claim authorship to the song, the fact remains that “Danny Boy” was written by, of all people, a British lawyer. After countless attempts by others, such as Alfred Perceval Graves and Edward Lawson, who put words to the Londonderry air, the ones that finally took root were those of an Englishman who probably never set foot in Ireland, and pulled the “Danny Boy” lyrics out of a dead file of his own failed songs. He could never have realized the impact his words would have on future generations whose eyes would well up with tears before the first line of the song was finished. And he might have been equally surprised by the amount of intrigue and mystery surrounding the words he wrote.
Indeed, an English barrister by the name of Frederick Edward Weatherly put pen to paper and gave birth to the boy Danny. The son of a country doctor, Weatherly was born one of thirteen children in 1848 in Portishead, England, a small fishing village in Somerset on the shore of the Bristol Channel. While his childhood was certainly not one of privilege, he grew up in an artistic and intellectual environment, discovering the pleasures of the classic poets at an early age.
Weatherly also had early recollections of his mother’s fondness for folk songs from England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. In Piano and Gown, (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1926) the autobiography he penned in his seventies, Weatherly recalled specific melodies his mother sung around the house, and he credited her voice as a kind of muse for his songwriting, even into the latter sta
ges of his songwriting career. In fact, Fred’s mother may well be the answer to one of the song’s mysteries.
In 1859, Weatherly attended the Hereford Cathedral School where his exposure to art and music took hold. “It was the music of the place for which my thanksgiving is the deepest,” he wrote in Piano and Gown. He became so fascinated with the performances of the cathedral choir that “if I could squeeze in half an hour between football and tea I did so.” In spite of his passion for romance and poetry and song, Weatherly did not write verses himself until the end of his schooldays, “when I burst into song in the shape of two exceedingly doleful elegies, one in English and one in Latin,” on the death of a Dean at the school. This marked a poignant turning moment in his life, since it was the first time he felt comfortable expressing himself in such a manner. In 1867, Weatherly was awarded a scholarship to Oxford, and at the age of eighteen, he left his small-town life for good.
“I went to Oxford with my visions limited,” he wrote, “my knowledge and range of literature circumscribed. The poets I loved were Byron, Tennyson, Longfellow and James Thomson, the Thomson who wrote “The Seasons.” And when I began my life at Oxford, I found myself among books and pictures and men of whom in my little world at school I had only faintly heard.”
He proved to be a mediocre student at Oxford. The College Musical Society became a “charming distraction” to his studies, and later, the Oxford University Dramatic Society captivated his interests. He inscribed his first “words for music” for his friend Joseph Roeckel in 1868. Roeckel taught him the musical requirements of song, and the next two lyrics he penned were for Molloy and Michael Maybrick (who worked under the pseudonym of Stephen Adams). Weatherly described these two composers as his “first, best and dearest in the world of music.” He later credited Molloy, a poet, as the man who taught him his trade. Weatherly felt he owed Molloy a great debt of gratitude for suggesting subjects for lyrics, as well as helping him to improve them, and the two collaborated on several songs.
On a more sensational note, the Maybrick name was a familiar one to British newspapers in 1889. James Maybrick, Molloy’s brother, was poisoned to death and the main suspect was James’ young American wife, Florie, who eventually stood trial, was convicted, and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. The murder trial was covered extensively in the British press and considered by many pundits and legalists to have been a miscarriage of justice. Florie’s conviction actually led to significant reforms in the British legal system. Over a hundred years later, conspiracy theorists began mentioning James Maybrick as a possible suspect in the Jack the Ripper murders because of the dubious discovery of a diary, “found” in the early 1990s, purported to belong to James. The diary was later assumed by “Ripperologists” to be a hoax, but not before more adventurous conspiracy buffs tried to link poor Fred, because of his legal position and relationship with the Maybricks, into the tangled web of the Jack the Ripper murders. It’s my opinion that Weatherly’s prolific songwriting career, (estimated at 3,000 songs) in addition to his full time work as a barrister, left him little time or energy to be traipsing about London in the wee hours with cloak and dagger. So let’s relegate Fred to only the mysteries of “Danny Boy.”
In 1873, Weatherly married, finished his schooling at Oxford, and set about to coach pupils in subjects such as Greek and English. He also spent much of his free time penning lyrics. He wrote for Life, the Whitehall Review, London Society, and Cassell’s Magazine, as well as books for children and some verses for Christmas cards. “But not mottoes for crackers,” he wrote, bursting with pride. “I drew the line there.”
Weatherly songs have been enjoyed by millions all over the English speaking world, yet he was quite modest in his praise for himself. He allocated most of the credit to the musicians and singers who spread his words to the hearts of the people. “I do not claim to be a ‘poet,’” he wrote in Piano and Gown. “I don’t pretend that my songs are ‘literary,’ but they are ‘songs of the people’ and that is enough for me.”
As Weatherly began his career, the influence of his mother and the old ballads she sung around the house had a tremendous impact on his own writing. He remembered vividly “Old King Cole” which she voiced to him in his childhood. And another, Frederick Clay’s setting to W.G. Wills’s words, “I’ll sing thee songs of Araby,” was, to Weatherly, “surely the most beautiful love song ever written.”
Throughout his autobiography, Weatherly refers to his mother’s voice as a poignant and lasting reminder of the love they shared. Decades after her death, he included the Portishead newspaper’s glowing obituary of her in his book, painting a keenly felt portrait of the woman who enchanted him with music. Throughout Piano and Gown, Weatherly wrote of instances where he imagined his mother’s voice, singing the words he wrote in moments of inspiration, even into the twilight of his writing career. Indeed, many of his songs appear to have been written from the point of view of a loving mother to a beloved son.
Weatherly was the first to admit that his lyrics were romantic and sentimental and he had too much respect for the poets he admired to compare his work to theirs. He maintained a “humble hope” that he, too, would write words which accomplished composers would set to music and illustrious singers would make their own. “I thought to myself,” he wrote, “if my words shall be good enough for that there will be something in them.”
In Piano and Gown, Weatherly recounted what inspired him as a lyricist. It’s hard not to recall the scenery and emotion of “Danny Boy” when he observes:
FRIENDS OFTEN ASK ME HOW I WRITE MY SONGS, WHERE DO I FIND MY SUBJECTS? ARE THEY HISTORIES OF ACTUAL FACTS? THOSE ARE QUESTIONS WHICH ARE DIFFICULT IF NOT IMPOSSIBLE TO ANSWER EXCEPT VAGUELY. SOMETHING SEEN, SOMETHING READ OF, SOMETHING TOLD; SOME TRAGEDY, SOME COMEDY OF LIFE OF WHICH ONE HAS HEARD OR IN WHICH ONE HAS TAKEN A PART; KNOWLEDGE OF PEOPLE’S WAYS AND PECULIARITIES; LOVE OF BEAUTIFUL THINGS, THE SEA, THE FORESTS, THE ROLLING HILLS, THE WAKING VOICES OF THE DAWN, THE SOLEMN HUSH OF NIGHT, ALL THESE THINGS AND THE POWER TO APPRECIATE THEM GO TO THE MAKING OF SONGS.
Weatherly had an enormous amount of respect for songs that people love. They may not have been labeled artistic or shop ballads by music critics, but he recognized “the heart of the people is still simple and healthy and sound,” and he admits he wished he had been the author of many more popular songs.
By 1887, Weatherly had tired of the drudgery of coaching at Oxford. When he received his call to the Bar at the Inner Temple, he took chambers in London with Henry Dickens, son of the eminent novelist. The two never discussed literature or music, and funneled all their energies into the practice of law. However, Weatherly provedto be a prolific lyricist in his spare time, writing on trains to some distant court, or in the court itself, waiting for a trial to open. Can you imagine a song as heartbreaking and emotional as “Danny Boy” being put to paper on a jostling train by a man in a suit and briefcase, on his way to attend to the morning’s motions and proceedings? I can’t, frankly. I would like to think that an elegant and plaintive Weatherly managed to locate some shade beneath a tree one sunny English day, where he poured himself a cup of tea, surveyed the rolling hills and realized a moment of inspiration. I’d like to believe that. More likely, though, he jotted out some tentative lines while waiting for a judge to pass sentence on some poor sod on trial for some ordinary crime. If so, it certainly offers a new and slightly sadistic meaning to the first verse, if one could envision “pipes” as a slang term for prison bars! We can debate whether “Danny Boy” is a farewell from a lover, father or mother into eternity. However, it is relevant to note that Weatherly often wrote songs from the point of view of the opposite sex. “The Glory of the Sea” is a lover’s lament of her man lost at sea, and it echoes some of the same themes in “Danny Boy”:
O get you home, brave sailor!
Good night, and let me be!
Thank God I gave my dearest
To the Glory of the sea!
And there he’s safely
sleeping
In God Almighty’s keeping,
Till the sound of the last Trumpet
Shall give him back to me!
It is only the line,
And did you see the gray ship
That took my man from me?
that alludes to a woman longing for her man, but as with many of Weatherly’s lyrics, this ambiguity can be explained by the habit of lyricists at the time to write songs for either male or female singers, thus potentially doubling the buying public for sheet music sales.
Weatherly joined the Local Bar in Bristol in 1893 and though he enjoyed success in his practice, he maintained his enthusiasm for writing lyrics. The beginning of World War I inspired Weatherly to plumb the kind of passion and tragedy that only wartime can convey. In the same romantic and heroic vein as “Danny Boy,” he wrote “The Deathless Army”:
Marching for the dear Old Country,
Leading us for evermore,
For the souls of the heroes die not,
In the land that they adore!
The other song which gained Fred a lot of notice and quite a bit of money was “Roses of Picardy.” It turned out to be a huge hit with the troops and their left-behind loves during World War I. Written in 1916, it proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that our man liked roses:
She is watching by the poplars,
Colinette with the sea-blue eyes,
She is watching and longing and waiting,
Where the long white roadway lies.
And a song stirs in the silence,
As the wind in the boughs above,
She listens and starts and trembles,
’Tis the first little song of love:
Roses are shining in Picardy,
In the hush of the silver dew,
Roses are flow’ring in Picardy,
But there’s never a rose like you!
And the roses will die with the summertime,
And our roads may be far apart,
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