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Broadside ballad entitled 'Don't Sit Down and Grumble' |
CommentaryVerse 1: 'There's people in this world, who though, / Possessed of strength and health; / Will sit and sigh and grumble, / Because they have not wealth; / Instiad of trying to win it, / They're time they wile away, / When people such as these I meet, / To them these words I say.' This song was written, composed and sung by Tom Glen, and published by the Poet's Box, Overgate, Dundee. With its simple refrain, and sentiments such as 'Pluck up courage, don't despair', this song was clearly designed to raise the morale of its listeners. It is likely that the song was written to be performed in music halls, which in the second half of the nineteenth century were the most popular outlets of public entertainment in Britain. A better-known but similarly cheerful song that originated in music hall culture is 'It's a Long Way to Tipperary', by Jack Judge and Harry Williams. 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: L.C.Fol.70(91b)
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