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Broadside ballad entitled 'Where did you get that hat?' |
CommentaryThis ballad begins: The way I came to wear this hat / Is very strange and funny, / Grandfather died and left to me / His property and money.' The text preceding it reads: 'Price one penny. / Can be had at the Poet's Box Overgate, Dundee.' These lyrics would eventually turn into the ironic common saying 'Where did you get that hat'. The words themselves were re-written in 1901 by James Rolmaz. He gave them a more political twist with comments about society and the Prince of Wales being passed. The comic sentiments expressed in these lyrics would probably have been highly entertaining and instantly recognisable to most of those in the audience. 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(97b)
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