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Broadside ballad entitled 'The Country I'm Leaving Behind' |
CommentaryVerse 1: 'My barque leaves the harbour tomorrow, / Across the wide ocean to go, / But, Kitty, my burden of sorrow / Is more than I'd wish you to know. / There's a dreary dark cloud hanging o'er me, / And a mighty big cloud on my mind, / And I think of the prospects before me, / And the country I'm leaving behind.' This ballad was published by the Poet's Box, 190 Overgate, Dundee. This ballad is narrated by a man preparing to leave Ireland and his sweetheart Kitty. The name 'Erin', used in the chorus of this ballad, is a poetic name for Ireland, derived from the Irish 'Eire', which is still used today. Ballads about leaving Ireland were not uncommon. In the eighteenth and in particular the nineteenth centuries, emigration from the largely rural island was very high. Some migrants crossed the Atlantic, but many others came to industrialising Scotland, hence the number of Irish songs to be found in Scottish broadsides. 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(83a)
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