Play recording: Soldier, Soldier
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- Teideal (Title): Soldier, Soldier.
- Uimhir Chatalóige Ollscoil Washington (University of Washington Catalogue Number): 853909.
- Uimhir Chnuasach Bhéaloideas Éireann (National Folklore of Ireland Number): none.
- Uimhir Roud (Roud Number): 489.
- Uimhir Laws (Laws Number): none.
- Uimhir Child (Child Number): none.
- Cnuasach (Collection): Joe Heaney Collection, University of Washington, Seattle.
- Teanga na Croímhíre (Core-Item Language): English.
- Catagóir (Category): song.
- Ainm an té a thug (Name of Informant): Joe Heaney.
- Ainm an té a thóg (Name of Collector): Lucy Simpson.
- Dáta an taifeadta (Recording Date): 01/1980.
- Suíomh an taifeadta (Recording Location): Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York, United States of America.
- Ocáid an taifeadta (Recording Occasion): private.
- Daoine eile a bhí i láthair (Others present): unavailable.
- Stádas chóipcheart an taifeadta (Recording copyright status): unavailable.
‘Soldier, soldier, will you marry me now?’
With the hee and a ho and the sound of the gun
‘No, fair maid, I cannot marry you
For I have no shirt for to put on.’
So she ran to the shop as fast as could run
With the hee and a ho and the sound of the drum
She bought him a shirt of the very very best
‘And now my small man, put this on!’
JH: I’m singing now – this is the way my uncle1 used to sing it:
‘Soldier, soldier, will you marry me now?’
With the hee and a hoo and the sound of the drum
‘No, fair maid, I cannot marry you
For I have no jacket for to put on.’
So she ran to the shop as fast as could run
With the hee and a hoo and the sound of the drum
She bought him a jacket of the very very best
‘And now my small man, put this on!’
‘Soldier, soldier, will you marry me now?’
With the hee and a hoo and the sound of the drum
‘No, fair maid, I cannot marry you
For I have no shoes for to put on.’
So she ran to the shop as fast as could run
With the hee and a ho and the sound of the drum
She bought him shoes of the very very best
‘And now my small man, put these on!’
‘Soldier, soldier, will you marry me now?’
With the hee and a hoo and the sound of the drum
‘No, fair maid, I cannot marry you
For I have no cap for to put on.’
So she ran to the shop as fast as could run
With the hee and a hoo and the sound of the drum
She bought him a cap of the very very best
‘And now my small man, put this on!’
‘Soldier, soldier, will you marry me now?’
With the hee and a hoo and the sound of the drum
‘No, fair maid, I cannot marry you
For I have a wife and six kids at home.’
LS: He did it like that – he slowed down like that?
JH: That’s the way, now, exactly the way he sang it. Well, now, you could sing that now, tomorrow, and put another couple of things in it, if you wanted to, you know. ‘I have no overcoat,’ you have no – something. But that’s exactly the way he used to sing it, now, slow down when he came to the crucial points, you know. You know what I mean. Exactly the way he’d sing it. That’s on the record…
LS: What record?
JH: Alan Lomax record that he made with- about 1945 in Ireland. [unintelligible]
LS: He made with who?
JH: Alan Lomax, in 1945. In Carna.
LS: A record, or tape?
JH: Record. A tape – It’s a record. Folkways. You know. It’s a collectors’ record. And, eh, my uncle is singing it on that and of course later on, of course, the Clancys started, started banging hell out of it, you know. Not the way he did it, now. You know what I mean? Up on the stage, with [bangs on table]…
LS: Where did they learn it?
JH: They got it off that record.
LS: Off that record? Really?
JH: Séamas Ennis had the record, and he showed them the song. He showed them the song.
LS: When I was in college we sang a song like that, I don’t know if it’s the same song really. [sings] ‘Soldier, soldier, won’t you marry me, with your musket, fife and drum?’…
JH: Same song.
LS: ‘Oh no, sweet maid, I cannot marry you, for I have no boots to put on.’
So up she went to her grandfather’s chest
And got him boots of the very very best
She got him some boots of the very very best and the soldier put it on…
JH: That’s good! That’s the same thing, now! Do you have any more of that?
LS: Yeah, and a hat, and you know, everything.
JH: Well, it’d be interesting now for you to do that version of yours and me to do… the other one?
LS: I don’t know if I’d want to hear that same song- that whole song twice!
JH: I’m not talking about now – at a concert or something. Like I did with Peggy Seeger one time in England, in the Singers’ Club2.
LS: No, but I mean I don’t know if I’d want to hear it two times.
JH: But that is good!
Notes
1. Colm Ó Caodháin (Colm Keane, 1893-1975) from Glinsk, a few miles northeast of Carna. He was actually Joe’s second cousin, not his uncle. Working mainly with Séamas Ennis, he contributed well over 200 songs, tunes, and items of folklore to the Irish Folklore Commission in the 1940’s, as well as additional material which Ennis recorded later for the BBC. Joe was very proud of his relationship with Colm Ó Caodháin, and stood in amazement at the amount of material he knew.
2. The Singers’ Club was an influential group of singers and would-be singers run by Ewan Mac Coll and his wife Peggy Seeger in London from the 1950’s; it had a considerable – and at times controversial – impact upon the folk revival, especially in the UK. Joe Heaney was a founder member and Irish artist-in-residence at the Singers’ Club when he lived in England in the 1950’s and 60’s, up to the time of his departure for the United States.
The recording Joe is referring to is the ‘Ireland’ LP issued in 1955 as part of the Columbia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music (Columbia AKL 4941; Rounder 1742). Alan Lomax served as overall editor of the series, and himself collected material in Ireland and elsewhere beginning in 1951. The ‘Ireland’ recording (reissiued in 1998 by Rounder, CD 1742) contains material recorded by both Lomax and Séamas Ennis, who accompanied the American on his travels, introduced him to a number of his own informants, himself sang a number of the tracks that appeared on the LP, and collaborated with Lomax on the written notes. The earliest commercially-released recording of traditional Irish singers and musicians, this LP was seminally important to the international revival of folk music that was getting underway shortly at the time of its release.