 |
Victorian/Edwardian Sheet Music 1880-1910 - Sheets 5 |
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| Page 93o5 | Great Canadian Heritage Discoveries |
|
|
Use Internet Explorer |
More important Canadian antique memorabilia the Museum has preserved. For Related Items/Info - USE OUR BOER WAR SEARCH ENGINE |
|
But How - Can You Help It
- 1900
1. This fighting Boers is a terrible shame
But how - can you help it,
They don't like Britons, or Chamberlain,
But how - can you help it?
2. Our men are there with guns to spare
But how - can you help it
If they don't look out, they'll wipe them out
But how - can you help it?
3. Now all good people know we're right
But how - can you help it
And Britons are ready when they have to fight
But how - can you help it?
4. There are nations who say our hands they'd stay
But how - can you help it
For the Union Jack would not have that
But how - can you help it?
 Great Canadian Heritage Treasure |
 |
Sheet Music, Remember Our Soldier Boys, 1900 |
Orig. sheet music - Size - 26 x 35 cm, copyright 1900 Found - Ann Arbor, MI |
A fabulous piece of Canadian sheet music written by a local boy from Baden, Ontario, HJ Weiler. He captioned it "Affectionately Dedicated to the Canadian Volunteers in the Transvaal." Canadian boys were eager to join the March against the Boers.
But no more than the scribes of our day, Harry couldn't quite get it right, on why Our Soldier Boys were fighting, though he makes it pretty clear, by repeating it, in the chorus, that it was fame. Oh, and as an afterthought, in the final verse, the Righteous cause of Liberty. Almost sounds like George Bush talking... Whose liberty? It wasn't the liberty of the Boers who were to be stripped of their own republics, or the Blacks, who were to be socially segregated, deprived of the vote, and politically castrated in British South Africa for scores of years to come, all thanks to "Our Soldier Boys." Canadians have been in Afghanistan since 2001, but only started their shooting war in early 2006. Terrorist attacks, which till then hadn't varied much, have since been on a spectacular increase all over the world right. Merely by coincidence... Right? |
Remember Our Soldier Boys - 1900
2. Now upon the battlefield our gallant boys are fighting |
When the only Culture was Agriculture...
Sheet music, and lithos, in Victorian Canada, are frequently labeled similarly to this one, which is "Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada in the year 1900 by JM Gould at the Department of Agriculture."
In 1900, Canada was still a frontier country - in fact the west was just then starting to open up for settlement in a big way - and government funding was tied to conquering the vast wilderness in the west and north. That left no extra cash for a Ministry devoted to promoting dance, song, books, poetry, or other frivolous activities... It wasn't until 1993 that the Department of Canadian Heritage was set up, from a hodgepodge of programs scattered here and there among other government ministries.
The Essential Military Song American bards have been writing war songs about Iraq and Afghanistan, but as is to be expected, however humorous they are, they are still typically American jingoism run amok... Introspection is seemingly not to be found in the American lexicon... Another way Canadians are different from Americans.We commend the Canadian Poet Laurier for taking the time to harness his considerable poetical skills, to pen a most valuable, and decidedly Canadian, war song, which captures, so vividly, the viewpoint of the common Canadian soldier in Afghanistan. We believe this work is a fine example of the best of the military song genre, as it has all the essential ingredients that have made the most successful examples long outlive their creators, and the times whereof they speak... |
Localisms - Names, words, and places that reflect the times, local customs and situations Bravado - Putting the best face on a scary business... Fear - The constant preoccupation of military men - and women, as confessed publicly, by Jessica Lynch - who are forced to go out into harm's way, day after day, after day... Over preoccupation with personal matters such as cleanliness, underwear, bowel movements... sometimes the only things you have got to look forward to... Sexual allusions - Never far from the minds of many of these youngish boys whenever a babe wanders near... Tourists at the Front - Snide asides about journalists and other tourists making safe quickie tours while they are left holding the bag for the long term... Names of the high and mighty - Rarely seen on the front lines; they're never there when the shooting starts... Growing and pervasive skepticism - Questioning authority, the judgment of their political and military superiors, when grunts find the realities they face, are not what they were led to believe were true, at all... Doom and gloom - How the hell did I get into this mess and how the hell will I get out, alive? Self-criticism - Does what we are doing really make sense, on any level? Irreverence - Thinking and saying, out loud, the unthinkable, the politically incorrect... Subversion - Doing stuff that flout the rules, any rules, like Lee Marvin's Dirty Dozen Grudging respect for the abilities of their opponents - To help explain the obvious lack of success they see as things drag on and deteriorate, casualties grow, and victory seems increasingly elusive... Momma - Every military song worth its salt mentions Mother; after all she was the first one to get him into this mess... and, if worse comes to worse, will be the only one still remembering him, long after others have moved on... like, to other husbands... Humour - When #%@&*% happens, and booze, and weed, and all else fails... |
Copyright Goldi Productions Ltd. 1996-1999-2005 |
For the finest collection of Canadian recordings you can hear, in the world, visit the Canadian Archives at:
Many of its finely re mastered originals can be found on our pages.
The Soldiers of the Queen - 1898
|
2. War clouds gather over ev’ry land We’ve done with diplomatic lingo We’ll do deeds to follow on our words We’ll show we’re something more than “jingo” And though Old England’s laws do not Her sons compel To military duties do We’ll play them at their game And show them all the same An Englishman can be a soldier too (2) So when we say that England's master Remember who has made her so So when we say that England's master Remember who has made her so... |
|
All - Canadian Boer War Era Sheet Music |
| Great Canadian Heritage Treasure |
||
 |
A great day in the history of Halifax, Nova Scotia, was Nov. 1, 1900, when the heroes of Canada's First Contingent returned from "the wars," aboard the SS Idaho. The men of Canada's first military contingent to ever serve in a foreign war, had stopped off in London to accept Queen Victoria's personal thanks on behalf Britain and the Empire. On the clock it is 10:09 a:m. As the ship noses in to the dock, with her precious cargo of local, and Canadian "boys," the docks, the streets, and rooftops, balconies, and telephone poles, are crowded with cheering admirers. After all, these were the Heroes of Paardeberg, whose fabled exploits on the battlefield had helped give Britain the first major victory in the war. On the left the train station totally destroyed in the Halifax Explosion in 1917. Left the exact view of the same site today, with a war ship nosed into the same Pier #2 behind the Canadian Navy building where the Idaho docked. This entire shore along here is now the Atlantic base for the Canadian Navy. Below, the Royal Canadian March composed in their honour. |
|
| Troopship SS Idaho docks at Halifax, Nov 1, 1900, bringing home the Royal Canadian Regiment | ||
| Orig. photo - Image Size - 15 x 20 cm Found - Vancouver, BC |
||
Written on the back, "The Boys." Sadly, recordings of these Canadian songs are not known to exist. Here is one that does: Canadians Harry Macdonough and the Haydn Quartet, singing |
||
| Great Canadian Heritage Treasure |
A fabulously rare piece of sheet music - the only one we've ever seen - is this copy of the Royal Canadian March - no words, just two pages of music - published by Whaley Royce - they also made bugles - with offices in Toronto, Ontario, and a western branch in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Hey, in 1900, there was no Canada, to speak of, west of Portage and Main. Sure British Columbia had been a province since 1871 but it was an awful long way away from Canada's Heartland, and in between was a lot of empty space occupied mostly by wild sorts (fine wild-eyed example - probably an Albertan, below)
Some of those "red-necked" plowboys - big time immigration to these vast empty prairie lands was just beginning - wanted a break from all the mundane chores around the sod hut, when they heard that there was some serious butt kicking to be done, overseas. And they signed up in droves - I mean But How Can You Help It... In fact thousands had to be turned down... Oh well, back to milking Bessie, on Rosebud Creek... |
||
 |
|||
| Sheet Music, Royal Canadian March - 1900 | |||
| Orig. sheet music - Size - 26 x 35 cm, copyright 1900 Found - Barrie, ON |
Song of The Canadian Contingent
|
7 Our troops are here by Afghan desire, Tell... (scherzo) (fortissimo)
|
| Great Canadian Heritage Treasure |
||
 |
Johnny Canuck's the Lad - 1900 Fabulously rare sheet music form 1900, reflecting the growing identity of Canadians as something separate from just being Brits, which almost all immigrants, for the past hundred years, had been. 1. The month was bright October, the year was ninety-nine
2. 'Twas just a few weeks later, when Johnny trod the veldt, 3. Our Johnny asked no favours, but tried to keep in front, |
|
Johnny Bore the Brunt... Some things never change. In Afghanistan, during 2007, the Canadians were dying at three times the rate of the Americans, the British, and the Dutch, who were also doing the real fighting in southern Afghanistan. And today it is the other NATO partners in the alliance who look on in amazement to see Canadians committing to battles to which they would not consider exposing their own military men and women... There is another difference; Canadians are complaining, these days, that most of the others ten coalition partners are not pulling their weight, and Johnny Canuck has to bear the brunt - again - with a growing number of processions of hearses down village streets back home.... |
||
| Sheet Music, Johnny Canuck's the Lad, 1900 | ||
| Orig. sheet music - Size - 26 x 35 cm, copyright 1900 Found - New Westminster, BC |
||
| YOU DON'T SAY! - This non-coloured sheet music was a hand-out from a prosperous merchant.
And, in the days before radio, movies, and TV, the advertising it carried below was well on the way to paving the way for the modern TV hucksters who infest the airwaves night and day... |
||
| Great Canadian Heritage Treasure |
A Letter from the Front (1901)
2. A woman grey, in grief stood one day, |
|
 |
||
| Sheet Music, A Letter from the Front - 1901 | This sheet music shows an interesting insight into the regionalization of the US economy in the days before transportation and communications improvements transformed everything at the dawn of the 20th century. Here the US was split into East and West - of the Ohio River - with the base for servicing the western states, at Williamsport, Pennsylvania...! Toronto, of course, was perfectly able to handle everything just fine for the rest of the country... |
|
| Orig. sheet music - Size - 30 x 40 cm, copyright 1901 Found - Potter, NE |
||
| What did the war accomplish? Letters mostly, to next of kin... 300 Canadians died, 500 Australians, 21,000 Brits. 4,000 Boer fighting men died, but also 26,000 of their women and children... |
| Great Canadian Heritage Treasure |
The Soldiers of the Queen - 1900 (Play it) The famous song, written by Leslie Stuart, in the late 1890s,, was on everyone's lips and the staple for every band parade by 1900. This sheet was issued in Toronto in 1898, and sold for 50 cents. In 1900 Canadian soldiers really were Soldiers of the Queen. Because Canada had no real standing army to speak of, many Canadians served in British units. In fact when the war broke out in 1899, scores of Canadian officer graduates of the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario, were serving in British units in South Africa, far, far more officers than were there in Canadian units. In fact the first Canadians to die in South Africa were killed while serving in British units before any Canadian contingents were at the front, such as Lt. C Wood of Halifax, Nova Scotia, serving in the Lancashire Regiment, who was killed at Belmont, and Lt. JW Osborne of Brantford, Ontario, who was killed serving with the Scottish Rifles at Spion Kop. Oh, What a Lovely War!
Songs that were saucy became widespread in World War I when the idiocies of combat were seen as so truly awful that you could only laugh about them. In World War II the "D-Day Dodgers" was one of many memorable songs that used a humorous approach. Sadly, Canadians are not singing about Afghanistan; to fill the vacuum Canada's own Poet Laurier offers a modest contribution below. |
||
 |
|||
| Sheet Music, Soldiers of the Queen, 1898 | |||
Orig. sheet music - copyright 1898 The song was originally written in 1894, for the opening of the Manchester Ship Canal, then years later, had the words changed to how they are popularly known today. |
Dedicated to
