A PEOPLE'S SONGS

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19724, 14 September 1929, Page 15

A PEOPLE'S SONGS

WEATHERLY MEMORIES. "NANCY LEE" AND "THE HOLY CITY." 'srecsALLi wariTEjf fob thz pbkss.) [Bt Cyrano .] Some public figures become institutions, and seem to be touched by immortality As a boy you are i ntro ~ duced to their well-established position : in middle age they are still with you. Forty yeara ago a collection of » UDw and uncles introduced me to rteatherly, and then "Nancy Lee" wore all the appearance of an old favourite, it might have Deen, for all i knew, as old as "Auld Lang riyue." It is stiU a favourite, and its music has become a, classic among popular marches. PossiMy there are many who think it is an oici folk song. Wcatherlv. however, is just dead, the author of over 1-300 song*, ranging fi-om "Nancy Lee" throuan "The Holy Citv" and "Beauty s &ves to "Roses' of Picardy," a link between the mid-Victorian world of easy sentiment and "straight'' tunc-: ;uid the post-war world of jazz. What mixed memories of a past ana strange world Weatherly's songs caU up. I can see a.gsin the musical evening of the 'nineties, when we sat stilly round a stiff and over-furaished room and listened to the ballads of the day, sung by sometimes reluctant singers. • •'Will von sing. Miss X—?" "Oh, I really couldn't." "Oh, do! " "Oh, you know I can't sing. I'd really rather not!" "Oh do; we shall all be so dr»appointed!" In the end, of coursu., Miss X— sings, and badly.) At«r every item there was a response. cf tow-toned 'Thank yous!" like Tennyson's murmur of innumerable bees. I sometimes wonder if we really enjoyed those highlv conventionalised evenings, but 1 suppose we did. Certainly a sreat many people enjoyed F.. E. Weatherly and his partner in crime, Stephen Adam*. These men wrote what really wero the people's songs. Weatherly, and not Mr Kipling, was the most popular poet of that time. Scores of thousands of homes knew no better music or poetry. I doubt whether among the piles of sonss in the household where I heard "The Holy City ' sung so often (and joined in the chorus) there were half a dozen even moderatelv cood songs, and I was eighteen before I awoke to the fact that there reallv was music higher th*»n the draw-ing-room ballad and the ballroom waltz. It was 'The Messiah" that opened the door for me, and for how many millions it must have done the same service! We took our ballads seriously, lhay represented real sentiment tind real tragedy. Generallv they were sad — songs about sunderings of lovers, and misunderstandings, and faded roses, and death. "Mona." one of Stephen Adams's efforts, gave rise to serious arguments. What really happened to Mona? Yet, judged as literature, the words of these songs were nearly always the veriest commonplace, and the music, though tuneful, was weak and slushy. Consider the words of 'Beauty's Eyes":—

1 want no stars in heav'n to guide me, I need no moon—no sun to shine— While I have yon, sweetheart, beside me, While I know—that yoa are mice. I need not fear—whate'er betide me, For straight and sweet my pathway lie*— I want no stars —in heav'n to guide me, While I gaze—in your dear eyes.

Consider, too, eliminating altogether the religious element, the merits of "The Hqly City" :-

Last iligfit I lay asleaping, I dreamed a dream so fair I stood in old Jerusalem beside the templa there; I heard the children singing, and aver as they sang, Methought the voice of angels from Heaven in answer rang, Methought the voice of angels from Heaven in answer rang.

Here is no literary merit whatever, though there is in "Beauty's Eyes" a certain faint prettiness, and in both a certain amount of feeling. But from the literary point of view "Nancy Lee" is much worse.

Of all the wives as e'er you know. Yeo hoi lads I hoi Yeo hot ladsl hoi There's none like Nancy Lee, I trow, Yeo hoi lads! hoi yeo hfct She there she stands an' waves her hands, upon the quay, An* ev'ry day when I'm away She'll watch for me. An' whisper low, when tempests Mow, for

Jack at sea, Y&o hoi lads! bo I yeo bo! The sailor's wife the sailor's star shall be, Yeo hoi we go across the sea. The sailor's wife the sailor's star shall be, The sailor's wife his star shall be.

What a godsend "yeo ho!" is to the poets! This classic was written in the reverse to the usual order, the music first and then the words. Stephen Adams sent the music to Weatherly, who fitted in the words while he waited for an unpunctual pupil. The song reads like it. Weatherly sometimes wrote twenty or thirty songs in a week- He was a practising barrister for forty years, but I wager he made much more out of songs than out of law. It is always a puzzle to those who appreciate poetry that so many of the songs that are composed, snng, and (apparently) enjoyed are so utterly commonplace. There is all the immense field of beautiful lyrics to choose from, yet someone writes music to this sort of thing: For yon, for you, my darling, I spoke those words untrue. I left yon, though I loved yoa And broke my heart for yon.

Often one sees singers spending years and a small fortune on their musical education, yet never getting beyond the Ella Wheeler Wilcox level in literary appreciation. They bring to the platform a trained voice and much enthusiasm, and present themselves in songs that no self-respecting editor would accept. As a rule good composers choose good lyrics; witness the immortal marriage between Schubert and Shakespeare. But one can understand why Weatherly is popular. He writes for the average man and woman, whose literary tastes are not highly developed. He treats an idea simply and directly, and his verse has a pleasant lilt and is easily understood and easily stmg. It might almost be described as the apotheosis of the obviously sentimental. Its sentiment satisfies the romantic cravings of millions; its fragrance, as in '"110868 of Pieardy,' '

{ions; its rragrance, as in '"Eoses of Pieardy,' ' Hosei »r« shining in Picardy, fa tk« hnsh of the silver dew, Rosss are Cowering in Picsrdy, but there'! never a rose like yon touches emotions that are exploited by popular novelists. Among Britons, at any rate, to be popular a song must be simple and obvious in words, and in musie tuneful and easily singable. "The Shropshire Lad" abounds in verses attractive to the composer, but none of them would ever be popular. Much, of course, lies in the tnne, for as one of the best humorous songs of our time says: •''So long as the tune has a right gootl swing, it doesn't much matter what words you sing." The musieal evenings of my voulh, 1 am told, are dead. Music that was once provided by the individual is now provided by the machine, and no doubt a! good deal of it is much better. There! are still, however, popular songs, and' some of them make me regret the davsj of Weatherly and Adams. Weatherlv's sentiment was inclined to be treacly, but he was wholesome, and British. Syncopated invocations to maidens in Ohio or Hawaii please me less.