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Broadside ballad entitled 'The Lodger's Come' |
CommentaryThis ballad begins: 'One night I wanted lodgings in a country town, / And to a cozy cottage I was led, / When the landlady informed me, as her lodger was away, / She'd agre[e]d that I should take the lodger's bed'. It was published and distributed by the Poet's Box of the Overgate, Dundee, and probably sold for one penny. The patterers and pedlars who wandered the towns and countryside selling broadsides ballads, often sang the songs to encourage people to buy a sheet. As musical notation very rarely accompanied the lyrics, it was the perfect opportunity to teach the melody to the purchaser. In many cases, the same familiar tune was used for a vast array of songs. 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. Broadsides are single sheets of paper, printed on one side, to be read unfolded. They carried public information such as proclamations as well as ballads and news of the day. Cheaply available, they were sold on the streets by pedlars and chapmen. Broadsides offer a valuable insight into many aspects of the society they were published in, and the National Library of Scotland holds over 250,000 of them.
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Probable period of publication:
1880-1900 shelfmark: RB.m.143(149)
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