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Broadside ballad entitled 'My Father's Old Coat' |
CommentaryThis ballad begins: 'There's puir wee Johnny Clark, / That Sells the News and Star, / He whistles and he sings, / And he paddles through the glaur'. 'Glaur' is a Scots word used to describe muddy, slippery, and especially icy conditions. The song was published by the Poet's Box of Dundee. Johnny Clark is a well-liked paperboy, but his appearance is dreadful. He needs a coat, so his mother makes him a jacket out of his father's old one. Unfortunately, it seems Johnny is scruffy by nature, because the thing he is most excited about is the fact that the pockets can hold a pound of potatoes! It is not clear what the connection between the different Poet?s Boxes were. They almost certainly sold each other?s sheets. It is known that John Sanderson in Edinburgh often wrote to the Leitches in Glasgow for songs and that later his brother Charles obtained copies of songs from the Dundee Poet?s Box. There was also a Poet?s Box in Belfast from 1846 to 1856 at the address of the printer James Moore, and one at Paisley in the early 1850s, owned by William Anderson. Early ballads were dramatic or humorous narrative songs derived from folk culture that predated printing. Originally perpetuated by word of mouth, many ballads survive because they were recorded on broadsides. Musical notation was rarely printed, as tunes were usually established favourites. The term 'ballad' eventually applied more broadly to any kind of topical or popular verse.
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Probable period of publication:
1880-1900 shelfmark: L.C.Fol.70(31a)
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