Even the Old School has an Old School

Lately, I've been listening to folk music more than normal.  By folk music, I don't necessarily mean stuff like Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed, Michelle Shocked, or even newer contemporary stuff like Flogging Molly, and Mumford and Sons, although I have been listening to those too.  I mean folk music by the earliest definition.

I mean traditional folk ballads, stuff that predates my grandparents.  I like it when contemporary artists cover tunes like these, from both British and American folk culture.  Bruce Springsteen did it on his Seeger Sessions album.  Flogging Molly and the Dropkick Murphys cover at least one or more traditional songs on each of their albums.  Even Greg Graffin from Bad Religion recorded an album filled with folk covers.

I enjoy these bits of music past.  I like Fairport Convention, Steel-eye Span, the Dubliners, etc.  This post will be the first of many that will highlight a famous traditional folk ballad.  Since today is Mother's Day, I decided to begin with this song:

Mrs. McGrath

Oh, Missis McGrath, the sergeant said,

Would you like to make a soldier out of your son, Ted?

With a scarlet coat, and a three-cocked hat,

Now Missis McGrath, wouldn't you like that?

Wid yer too-ri-aa, fol de diddle aa
Too-ri-oo-ri-oo-ri-aa.

Oh Mrs. McGrath lived by the seashore

For the space of seven long years or more;

Till she saw a big ship sail into the bay,

Here's my son, Ted, wisha, clear the way!

Wid yer too-ri-aa, fol de diddle aa

Too-ri-oo-ri-oo-ri-aa.

Oh, Captain, dear, where have ye been

Have you been in the Mediterranean?

Will ye tell me the news of my son, Ted?

Is the poor boy livin', or is he dead?

Wid yer too-ri-aa, fol de diddle aa

Too-ri-oo-ri-oo-ri-aa

Ah, well up comes Ted without any legs

An in their place he had two wooden pegs,

She kissed him a dozen times or two,

Saying, Holy Moses, 'tisn't you.

Wid yer too-ri-aa, fol de diddle aa

Too-ri-oo-ri-oo-ri-aa

Oh then were ye drunk, or were ye blind

That ye left your two fine legs behind?

Or was it walkin' upon the sea

Wore your two fine legs from the knees away?

Wid yer too-ri-aa, fol de diddle aa

Too-ri-oo-ri-oo-ri-aa

Oh, I wasn't drunk and I wasn't blind

But I left my two fine legs behind.

For a cannon ball, on the fifth of May,

Took my two fine legs from the knees away.

Wid yer too-ri-aa, fol de diddle aa

Too-ri-oo-ri-oo-ri-aa

Oh, Teddy, me boy, the old widow cried,

Yer two fine legs were yer mammy's pride,

Them stumps of a tree wouldn't do at all,

Why didn't ye run from the big cannon ball?

Wid yer too-ri-aa, fol de diddle aa

Too-ri-oo-ri-oo-ri-aa

All foreign wars I do proclaim

Between Don John and the King of Spain

And by herrins I'll make them rue the time

That they swept the legs from a child of mine.

Wid yer too-ri-aa, fol de diddle aa

Too-ri-oo-ri-oo-ri-aa

This particular song is about, basically, an Irish son who joins the King's Navy (British King), during the Napoleonic Wars in the early 19th century.  The song focuses on the mother of the sailor and how foreign wars affect the homeland.  The power of the song lays in its ability to paint together the emotion of reunion, and celebration of life, with the despair and horror, and trauma of armed conflict, and how difficult that can be to share even with loved ones.  These themes can be seen in later contemporary work by Dylan (John Brown), and Steve Goodman (Ballad of Penny Evans) and I'm sure in others.  

This particular song, although it predates the 20th century, became a political statement and protest anthem during the Easter Rising in Ireland in 1916 at the height of World War One.  Folk music would continue to be used for protest culminating during Vietnam conflict and beyond.