Danny Boy

Revisiting an old, old tune at Sometimes a Song

Sometimes a Song just has to be sung .. again and again!

How many collectors do you know? Are you a collector, yourself? I think that most people become collectors eventually, whether intentionally or otherwise. My husband, as a boy, collected fossils. He roamed the woods and hillsides near his home in Northeastern Pennsylvania all the time, and along the way he found treasures among the rocks and rubble that time had deposited there. One of the saddest stories he tells is about the day he learned that his mother had “thrown out his rocks.” Alas. He has described some of these fossils to me, and we both are sure that more than a few of them were quite rare. He still has a substantial coin collection from his youth, half of all that he and his father and his brother accumulated back in the days when you could still find some pretty valuable coins in pocket change. After their father passed away, Tony and his brother divided up that large collection into two rather impressive smaller collections, one for each of them.

As a child, I was also a collector, but of books, and even then, of antiques. My father used to take me to auctions with him, and he often bought me some small treasure from the long ago. But once he realized that he had a voracious reader in the house, he began to bid on boxes of books that came up for sale. We’d bid on a box of books, sight unseen, and then take it home to see what we had gained for my growing collection. Bookcases in our house began to be crowded. At about age ten or eleven, I began collecting book series that I loved and wanted in my own home library. Mostly from auctions, I quickly assembled a respectable collection of antique 19th century school books. Back then there was a company called “Old Authors,” in Rowan, Iowa, that I read about in a magazine advertisement. If you sent them a “wish list” of out-of-print books, they would search for them for you. And if they found something on your list, they’d write and tell you about it, with a price, and you’d send them a check. In due course, your wished-for book would arrive. I collected a whole set of original printings of the Little House Books (out of print at that time) from them. I remember that I was slightly irked when, just after I had collected the last book of the series from Old Authors, all of the Little House books were released in a new edition. (But mine are originals!)

I will say this: don’t take your child to antiques auctions unless you are prepared to face the consequences. I am still toting around with me to this day many of my childhood collections (including those Little House books, and the old school books and many other books) as well as my hundreds of 78’s in shellac and vinyl, which I began to accumulate long before I found a proper old phonograph to play them on. Yes, even from childhood, I was a collector of old songs, some in the form of records, but many more in the form of musical memories. And that finally brings me, in a round-about way, to this week’s song.

Do you recall the first time you ever heard the “Londonderry Air” (or as it is more frequently called, “Danny Boy”)? I can’t recall a time when I did not know that song. But if I had to guess, I’d bet that my first experience of it came from watching old TV reruns of “Make Room for Daddy” as a kid. The star of that show, Danny Thomas, was a beloved entertainer, singer, actor, and later television producer. And for obvious reasons, his producers adapted (and jazzed up!) “Danny Boy” to become his theme song, though Thomas was a Lebanese American. In 1953, when Thomas premiered his show, there couldn’t have been a person in the world who was not familiar with that song. But (other than from Ireland!), just where did the song come from?

Well, I wasn’t just spinning my wheels when I began this post talking about collectors. I’ve covered many folk songs over the past few years at Word & Song. However, in the case of the “Londonderry Air,” the song might easily have fallen into oblivion but for a few dedicated collectors of songs, and particularly of folk songs, back in the 19th century. Some people guess that the tune is linked to a couple of other folk songs even older than that. But we know that the tune itself first appeared in print, unnamed, in "The Ancient Music of Ireland” ( published by The Society for the Preservation and Publication of the Melodies of Ireland, 1855). The editor of that book, George Petrie, had been about the business of literally collecting old Irish folk tunes which had never been notated, much less published. The unnamed air — along with a good number of other genuine old Irish tunes — had been notated and sent to Mr. Petrie by yet another song collector, Miss Jane Ross of Limavady in County Derry, in Northern Ireland.

According to Mr. Petrie, Miss Ross’s collection was a tremendous help to his project because it included musical notation for songs which had never been published and which were “very old” (even then) and otherwise liable to have been lost altogether to the world. Some experts believe that the tune later called the “Londonderry Air” could date back as far as the 17th century. The story goes that in about 1850 Miss Ross heard the air played by a street fiddler in her home county, and pointedly wrote it down more or less in the form that we still know it today, 170 years later. Mr. Petrie’s book preserved the tune; and certainly it was still played until the end of the century, but only as an instrumental. The “Danny Boy” lyrics did not appear until 1914, when a poet and librettist, Frederic Weatherly, was sent the song by his Irish sister-in-law, with a request that he set words to it. As it happened, Weatherly already had a poem which he had composed for a different tune a few years earlier and which fit the “Londonderry Air,” with only minor modifications. He in turn gave the song to English opera singer, Elsie Griffin, who sang it when she went to entertain the British troops in the First World War. And from there the song traveled the world and became one of the most popular songs of the 20th century.

Since the era of recording. “Danny Boy/Londonderry Air” has been commercially released nearly 1000 times, with the earliest recordings appearing in 1914. But for today I have selected for you an old-time and understated but very dear rendition of the song, circa 1940, with Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra. I’m also providing a link to a fine orchestral performance, with George Weldon conducting the London Philharmonia Orchestra, with arrangement by Percy Grainger. I’m sure that very many of you have your own favorite versions of the song. They say that everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. And may everyone with a heart enjoy this dear old Irish song!

Eugene Ormandy conducts “Londonderry Air” with the Philadelphia Orchestra in a strikingly beautiful arrangement by Arthur Harris. Bravo!

And here’s a hat tip to George Weldon conducting the “Irish Tune,” arranged by Percy Grainger, 1960.