This blog is dedicated to the amateur or beginner musician with music written in a simple and easy to read Alpha Notes format and with Chords for the left hand. This is to assist those with little or hardly at all note reading skills. This is a blog that shows all the chords in Alpha Notes format too which you can find the notes for the chords in one of the blogs. Please feel free to leave a comment or any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Enjoy!
"The Boys of Wexford" (also known as The Flight of the Earls) is an Irish ballad commemorating the Irish Rebellion of 1798 and, more specifically, the Wexford Rebellion. The aim of rebellion was to remove English control from Irish affairs and it resulted in the 1801 Act of Union.
On the Isle of Man, the tune is known as Yn Speigh Er My Gealin (The Pick On My Shoulder).
In James Joyce's novel Ulysses, in the Circe episode, a navvy shouts, "We are the boys. Of Wexford."
On the second day of President John F Kennedy's four-day trip to Ireland in June 1963, school children sang The Boys of Wexford and Kelly the Boy from Killanne for the President. When asked if he'd like another song, Kennedy replied, "Another verse of The Boys of Wexford would be fine". Before leaving, he asked one of the students for a copy of the lyrics.
The melody, from a traditional Irish folk song, was arranged for the United States Marine Band at the request of President Kennedy, whose ancestors hailed from Wexford. The arrangement was done by noted composer and arranger Samuel L. Nestico.
The tune, orchestrated by Nelson Riddle, was later used for the opening and closing theme of the 1964 television series Profiles in Courage, based on Kennedy's book of the same name.
The song also held a prominent place in the political rallies of his younger brother, Senator Ted Kennedy.
To download the easy alphanotes sheet music, look here.
Enjoy!
Lyrics:
In comes the captain's daughter, The captain of the Yeos, Saying "Brave United Irishmen, We'll ne'er again be foes. A thousand pounds I'll bring If you will fly from home with me, And dress myself in man's attire And fight for liberty."
We are the boys of Wexford, Who fought with heart and hand To burst in twain the galling chain And free our native land.
I want no gold, my maiden fair, To fly from home with thee. Your shining eyes will be my prize, More dear than gold to me. I want no gold to nerve my arm To do a true man's part - To free my land I'd gladly give The red drops of my heart.
We are the boys of Wexford, Who fought with heart and hand To burst in twain the galling chain And free our native land.
And when we left our cabins, boys, We left with right good will To see our friends and neighbours That were at Vinegar Hill! A young man from our Irish ranks A cannon he let go; He slapped it into Lord Mountjoy A tyrant he laid low!
We are the boys of Wexford, Who fought with heart and hand To burst in twain the galling chain And free our native land.
We bravely fought and conquered At Ross and Wexford town; And if we failed to keep them, 'Twas drink that brought us down. We had no drink beside us On Tubberneering's day, Depending on the long, bright pike, And well it worked that way.
We are the boys of Wexford, Who fought with heart and hand To burst in twain the galling chain And free our native land.
And Oulart's name shall be their shame, Whose steel we ne'er did fear. For every man could do his part Like Forth and Shelmalier! And if for want of leaders, We lost at Vinegar Hill, We're ready for another fight, And love our country still!
We are the boys of Wexford, Who fought with heart and hand To burst in twain the galling chain And free our native land.
"Matty Groves", also known as "Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard" or "Little Musgrave", is a ballad probably originating in Northern England that describes an adulterous tryst between a young man and a noblewoman that is ended when the woman's husband discovers and kills them. It is listed as Child ballad number 81 and number 52 in the Roud Folk Song Index. This song exists in many textual variants and has several variant names. The song dates to at least 1613, and under the title Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard is one of the Child ballads collected by 19th-century American scholar Francis James Child.
Little Musgrave (or Matty Groves, Little Matthew Grew and other variations) goes to church on a holy day either "the holy word to hear" or "to see fair ladies there". He sees Lord Barnard's wife, the fairest lady there, and realises that she is attracted to him. She invites him to spend the night with her, and he agrees when she tells him her husband is away from home. Her page overhears the conversation and goes to find Lord Barnard (Arlen, Daniel, Arnold, Donald, Darnell, Darlington) and tells him that Musgrave is in bed with his wife. Lord Barnard promises the page a large reward if he is telling the truth and to hang him if he is lying. Lord Barnard and his men ride to his home, where he surprises the lovers in bed. Lord Barnard tells Musgrave to dress because he doesn't want to be accused of killing a naked man. Musgrave says he dare not because he has no weapon, and Lord Barnard gives him the better of two swords. In the subsequent duel Little Musgrave wounds Lord Barnard, who then kills him. (However, in one version "Magrove" instead runs away, naked but alive.)
Lord Barnard then asks his wife whether she still prefers Little Musgrave to him and when she says she would prefer a kiss from the dead man's lips to her husband and all his kin, he kills her. He then says he regrets what he has done and orders the lovers to be buried in a single grave, with the lady at the top because "she came of the better kin". In some versions Barnard is hanged, or kills himself, or finds his own infant son dead in his wife's body. Many versions omit one or more parts of the story.
It has been speculated that the original names of the characters, Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard, come from place names in the north of England (specifically Little Musgrave in Westmorland and Barnard Castle in County Durham). The place name "Bucklesfordbury", found in both English and American versions of the song, is of uncertain origin.
Some versions of the ballad include elements of an alba, a poetic form in which lovers part after spending a night together.
There are few broadside versions. There are three different printings in the Bodleian Library's Broadside Ballads Online, all dating from the second half of the seventeenth century. One, The lamentable Ditty of the little Mousgrove, and the Lady Barnet from the collection of Anthony Wood, has a handwritten note by Wood on the reverse stating that "the protagonists were alive in 1543".
Below are the first four verses as written in a version published in 1658.
As it fell one holy-day, hay downe, As many be in the yeare, When young men and maids Together did goe, Their Mattins and Masse to heare,
Little Musgrave came to the church dore, The Preist was at private Masse But he had more minde of the faire women; Then he had of our lady grace
The one of them was clad in green Another was clad in pale, And then came in my lord Bernards wife The fairest amonst them all;
She cast an eye on little Musgrave As bright as the summer sun, And then bethought this little Musgrave This lady's heart have I woonn.
It seems that the ballad had largely died out in the British Isles by the time folklorists began collecting songs. Cecil Sharp collected a version from an Agnes Collins inLondonin 1908, the only known version to have been collected inEngland.James Madison Carpenterrecorded someScottishversions, probably in the early 1930s, which can be heard on theVaughan Williams Memorial Librarywebsite.The Scottish singerJeannie Robertsonwas recorded on separate occasions singing a traditional version of the song entitled "Matty Groves" in the late 1950s byAlan Lomax,Peter KennedyandHamish Henderson.However, according to theTobar an Dualchaiswebsite, Robertson may have learned her version from Johnny Wells andSandy Paton, Paton being an American singer and folk song collector.
Dozens of traditional versions of the ballad were recorded in the Appalachian region. Jean Bell Thomas recorded Green Maggard singing "Lord Daniel" in Ashland, Kentucky, in 1934, which was released on the anthology 'Kentucky Mountain Music' Yazoo YA 2200. Bascom Lamar Lunsford was recorded singing a version called "Lord Daniel's Wife" in 1935. Samuel Harmon, known as "Uncle" Sam Harmon, was recorded by Herbert Halpert in Maryville, Tennessee, in 1939 singing a traditional version. The influential Appalachian folk singer Jean Ritchie had her family version of the ballad, called "Little Musgrave", recorded by Alan Lomax in 1949, who made a reel-to-reel recording of it in his apartment in Greenwich Village; she later released a version on her album Ballads from her Appalachian Family Tradition (1961). In August 1963, John Cohen recorded Dillard Chandler singing "Mathie Groves" in Sodom, North Carolina, whilst Nimrod Workman, another Appalachian singer, had a traditional version of the song recorded in 1974.
The folklorist Helen Hartness Flanders recorded many versions in New England in the 1930s and 40s, all of which can be heard online in the Flanders Ballad Collection.
