"The Lost Chord"

1895

Perhaps the most successful song of modern times is "The Lost Chord," whose sale in Great Britain has exceeded 250,000 copies. The story of its composition, as told by Mr. Willeby in his "Masters of English Music," illustrates that in art, as in statesmanship, success came to those

Who knew the seasons, when to take
Occasion by the hand.

For nearly three weeks Arthur Seymour Sullivan had watched by the bedside of a dying brother. One night, when the end was not far off and his brother was sleeping, he chanced to come across some verse of Adelaide Procter's which five years before he had tried in vain to set to music.

In the silence of that night watch he read them over again, and almost instantly their musical expression was conceived. A stray sheet of music paper was at hand, and he began to write. The music grew, and he worked on, delighted to be helped while away the hours of watching. As he progressed he felt sure the music was what he had sought for and failed to find on the occasion of his first attempt to set the words. In a short time it was complete and not long after in the publisher's hands.

The Lullaby

1895

There can be no doubt that if the lullaby was not in advance of the war song it was at least contemporaneous with it. Mr. Mason tells of the low, sweet chant of the Zuni mother and her quaint baby songs. In making their bread he mentions the imitative power of the native women, who sing notes and words which are made to sound like their hand stones working in the mealing stones. — St. Louis Post-Dispatch.


Wished He Were A Dog

Burger, author of the "Wild Huntsman," fell in love with his wife's sister and married her after his wife had died of a broken heart. He soon discarded her for new favorite, who proved to be such a Tartar that Burger said, "I wish I had been born a dog."


Long River

The Atchalafaya river, in Louisiana, was so named from two Indian words meaning Long river.

"Poor and Old and Only in Way," Song of Music Master Was Prophecy

1920

Years ago Carl Raymond, the old music master of Chicago, wrote a song by this name:

"I'm Poor and Old, and Only in the Way."

Today Raymond is poor and old and he says he's only in the way. His home is wherever he hangs his hat. He has had riches and fame; now he has but memories. Sometimes he plays the piano in a little restaurant on a Chicago avenue.

Just now he's in the county hospital — broke and friendless. Weakly reclining on a hospital bed, he repeated words from one of his songs:

As we walk down the street,
How, how often do we meet
Some poor old man whose life is naught but woes;
And with age his form is bent,
In his pockets not a cent,
And for shelter he does not know where to go.
With relations by the score
Who turn him from their door
And, sneering, in the street just pass him by;
If you ask why 'tis done,
He'll answer you and say:
"I'm poor and old and only in the way."

As the old fellow's voice died away he said sadly: "That's my life in a nutshell. I never thought when I wrote those words that some day I would apply them to myself."

Raymond was born eighty-one years ago in the shadow of Bunker Hill monument, the son of a banker. At 16 he enlisted in the Mexican War. After peace was declared he became an intermittent correspondent for the New York Herald. Then came the Civil War and he joined the colors again. In 1857 he came to Chicago. All this time he was writing songs — hundreds of them, including "Just One Girl," "There Are No Friends but the Old Friends" and "Passing Away Beyond the Clouds."

"But now I'm thru," he said sadly. "You see, I'm poor and old and only in the way."

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Aug. 7, 1920, p. 1.

Whittier's Dog

1901

During one of the last birthday celebrations of the poet Whittier he was visited by a celebrated oratorio singer. The lady was asked to sing, and, seating herself at the piano, she began the beautiful ballad, "Robin Adair." She had hardly begun before Mr. Whittier's pet dog came into the room and, seating himself by her side, watched her as if fascinated and listened with a delight unusual in an animal. When she finished, he came and put his paw very gravely into her hand and licked her check.

"Robin takes that us a tribute to himself," said Mr. Whittier. "He also is 'Robin Adair.' "

The dog, hearing his own name, evidently considered that he was the hero of the song. From that moment, during the lady's visit, he was her devoted attendant. He kept by her side when she was indoors and accompanied her when she went to walk. When she went away he carried her satchel in his mouth to the gate and watched her departure with every evidence of distress. — St. Nicholas.

Ragtime Music Good for Children

1914

Expert at Music Conference Defends Popular Songs — Says They Are Beneficial

Minneapolis, Minn. — Ragtime music and the singing of popular songs of the day does not injure the musical mind of the public school child, but rather encourages individual musical ability, says Ralph L. Baldwin, musical supervisor of the public schools at Hartford, Conn., who is in Minneapolis attending the seventh annual meeting of the National Conference of Music Supervisors.

"I have learned," said Mr. Baldwin, "that ragtime music or the singing of popular songs does not injure the child musically; that is, if not carried to an extreme. Ragtime music is nothing more nor less than a foot tickler for all of us, and it is a good change to fall back upon after pursuing music for some time. You know we have to have a change in music once in a while, just as we have to have a vacation or rest from our work, and this lighter vein of music is what brings about that change. It would not be good enough, though, for the public school pupil to just follow the popular songs of the day and do nothing else, for it leads to nothing."

The Lullaby Song Mother Used To Sing

1911

The Lullaby Song

Some time ago a western contemporary gave utterance to this practical, prosaic and unemotional declaration: "Another very pretty sentiment that should be exploded is the lullaby song. Did your mother rock you to sleep and sing while doing it, and you recall the song? As a rule, a woman has so many children they are hustled off to bed without being rocked, and what mother ever knew a lullaby from start to finish?"

There are some things that are too sacred for alleged humor or wit and the above is an instance in point, as there are many who will not accept it as either, for as observed by an exchange there are those whose years have exiled them to dreamland, who can call up tender recollections of childhood and remember the songs that mother used to sing.

There are plenty of old men living who had mothers who could sing in low, tender, though uncultivated, tones the lullaby song, and its melody is still enshrined in the heart and thrills in memory. The old man of German stock especially can remember the simple folk song of the Fatherland that his mother sang above his cradle. Long ago its music came from over the sea, and at last has incorporated in the runic rhymes the old colored nurse crooned or warbled to woo sleep to infantile eyelids.

It may be that in later years we have been privileged to hear the great voices of the day. But all their grand arias never so touched our hearts as when in an encore they gave us a melody that had been dedicated to babyland and which thousands of mothers had sung to the cradle's rocker beating time.

It is strange what a hold these simple melodies of childhood retain in a life, however long, however filled with changes and vicissitude. There is something in their joys though they be ever so fleeting, that remains indelible. Every now and then, in quiet hours, the heart will hark back over the intervening years and remember it with reverence. And who will say that we are not better men and women for such moments of reflection, even though they do bring back the sound of voices that have long been silent, and the touch of hands that are dust?

And can you recall the song? Of course! You hear the familiar notes again in the midst of other surroundings, and instantly the scene is changed about you. You are a child again, just for a moment, and you look up, as you did in days gone by, into a face you love — oh, it may be aged and wrinkled and homely now, but it's still to you the sweetest face in the world.

You look again into eyes that are eloquent with a mother's unspeakable love — the purest, sweetest, holiest feeling the human heart may know. You feel again the comforting presence of her who guided your first uncertain footsteps, who heard you lisp your first little words, and whose tender solicitude for you has never ceased in all these years.

Can you recall the song? A generation may have passed since you heard it. Perhaps, in the corner of some quiet churchyard the singer lies asleep. Years and experience may have come upon you since you heard it last from her dear lips. Scenes may have changed, and your feet have wandered far since then; but never, never have you forgotten.

Life has brought you discords, but they can't erase it. After it may have come the other songs of other days. but the echo of those earlier ones is with you always. Childhood can never die.

No, do not tell us that the lullabies have gone out of fashion, after all these ages in which they have been sung over cradle and couch, in hovel and palace, and been remembered by millions in whose hearts remained an echo and a light of other days. The childhood that never heard a mother's lullaby is not apt to have a manhood of wholesome sentiment or that reverence for womankind which ennobles the heart and uplifts the soul.

—The Mansfield News, Mansfield, Ohio, Feb. 28, 1911, p. 6.

Birds and Human Nature

1878

What is that legend of Mrs. Piatt's poem about the bird in the brain? Birds are perhaps the most human of creatures, and I should not be surprised if told we all carry more or less of them in our hearts and brains.

I have seen the hawk looking out of the human face many a time, and I think I have seen the eagle; I credit those who say they have seen the owl. Are not the buzzards and unclean birds terribly suggestive? The song-birds were surely all brooded and hatched in the human heart. They are typical of its highest aspirations, and nearly the whole gamut of human passion and emotion is expressed more or less in their varied songs.

Among our own birds there is the song of the hermit-thrush for devoutness and religious serenity, that of the wood-thrush for the musing, melodious thoughts of twilight, the song-sparrow's for simple faith and trust, the bobolink's for hilarity and glee, the mourning-dove's for hopeless sorrow, the vireo's for all-day and every-day contentment, and the nocturne of the mocking-bird for love. Then there are the plaintive singers, the soaring, ecstatic singers, the confident singers, the gushing and voluble singers, and the half-voiced, inarticulate singers. The note of the pewee is a human sigh, the piping of the chickadee unspeakable tenderness and fidelity. There is pride in the song of the tanager, and vanity in that of the cat-bird.

There is something distinctly human about the robin; his is the note of boyhood. I have thoughts that follow the migrating fowls northward and southward, and that go with the sea-birds into the desert of the ocean, lonely and tireless as they. I sympathize with the watchful crow perched yonder on that tree, or walking about the fields. I hurry outdoors when I hear the clarion of the wild gander; his comrade in my heart sends back the call. — John Burroughs, in Scribner's Magazine.

"Annie Laurie's" Kin to Wed Englishman

1920

Friends Pray for Happier Romance Than Famous Song Tells

LONDON, England. — Mrs. Emma Curtler-Ferguson, a direct descendant of "Annie Laurie," is to marry this spring. Her husband to be is Maj. Vivian Eyr, late of the royal air forces. Her family home is Craigdarroch, Dumfrieshine, and her friends are hoping she will have a happier romance than the bonnie Annie who married Alick Ferguson of Craighdarroch, after jilting a lover who actually did "lie down and die."


Melted Gold Coins, Get Jail Sentences

Six Englishmen Heavy Losers in Illegal Transactions

LONDON, England. — Six months' imprisonment was the sentence pronounced upon the six men who have been on trial charged with melting gold coin.

The gold they had in their possession, amounting to more than 110,000 sovereigns, was ordered forfeited. Included in the group are Harry Lewis, a barrister, and Shure & Chamberlaid, diamond merchants.

It was brought out in the trial that the accused withdrew from the Bank of England during 1919 gold weighing eighteen hundredweight. During December alone, it was charged, they disposed of bar gold worth 9,400 pounds sterling.

New Stanza Written for "My Country 'Tis of Thee"

1889

An Additional Stanza Added to the Hymn By the Author.

CHICAGO, April 29. — The Daily News to-morrow will publish for the first time, an additional stanza to the hymn "My Country 'Tis of Thee." The author of the hymn, Rev. S. F. Smith, has written the new stanza for the Daily News in honor of the national anniversary celebrated to-morrow. He calls it the "Centenary Stanza," and hopes to have it sung before it is a day old at a number of the churches and mass meetings here to-morrow. The lines are as follows:

"Our joyful hosts to-day
Their grateful tribute pay
Happy and free —
After our toils and fears,
After our blood and tears —
Strong with our hundred years —
O Lord, to Thee."

—The Pittsburgh Post, Pittsburgh, PA, April 30, 1889, p. 1.

Note: April 30, 1889 was the 100th anniversary of George Washington's inauguration.

The Old Oaken Bucket In The Well – Unfortunately, Stolen

1916

THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET.

That Famous Moss Covered One That Hung In the Well.

Not far from Boston is located the well which inspired the familiar lines of Samuel Woodworth to the "Old Oaken Bucket." Every time the place is visited many new traditions are told concerning the famous old bucket about which people have been singing these many years. Having drunk deep of the sparkling waters between whistled snatches of the familiar refrain, how disconcerting it was to have the charm broken by learning that the original "old oaken bucket" was stolen shortly after his well known poem became famous!

The youngest daughter of Samuel Woodworth, the author, who died in Berkeley, Cal., often used to tell about the real old oaken bucket and of the sadness which came over the household on the day it was stolen. It seemed as if one of the family were missing. In this age of souvenir collection who knows but that some day the real old "moss covered bucket that hung in the well" may turn up in a museum or serve as a water tank in the show windows of some enterprising advertiser?

There is no other water bucket in the world so enshrined in homely, genuine romance as this one. Even the golden goblets of royalty and the treasured chalices of the crusaders have never awakened the universal and popular interest attained by the "old oaken bucket that hung in the well" until it was stolen and carried away in the zenith of its fame. — Joe Mitchell Chapple in National Magazine.