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** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
Period songs about Jack
Casebook Message Boards: General Discussion: Research Issues / Philosophy:
Period songs about Jack
Author: judy eklond
Friday, 05 April 2002 - 12:41 am |        | | I am haveing a play I wrote about the women Jack killed produced in May ,and would like to have one of the women sing a peroid song about Jack . Can anybody help ? |
Author: brad mcginnis
Friday, 05 April 2002 - 12:58 am | | | How about"He Hit Me Throat Like a Shoat" by Ingrid Bleatard Alotte? |
Author: Jack Traisson
Friday, 05 April 2002 - 02:09 am | | Hi Judy,
You can never go wrong with "A Violet From Mother's Grave," which Mary Kelly was overheard singing on the night of her death.
Words and music here:
http://www.casebook.org/victims/mary_jane_kelly.violets.html?show=all
Alternatives:
"The Ratcatcher's Daughter." A tragic ditty telling of love between a seller of sprats and a vendor of white sand (used for cleaning knives, lining bird cages, and other purposes). The lyrics are by a clergyman, the Rev. E. Bradley.
"The Workhouse Boy." Comic and gruesome ballad of a workhouse boy who disappears on Christmas Eve only to be found later in the stewpot. This is a parody of a well known Victorian piece, The Mistletoe Bough. Reference to The Workhouse Boy is made in Bleak House, where shrill young voices taunt a beadle with having boiled a boy, singing fragments of a popular song 'importing that the boy was made into soup for the workhouse.'
Since we don't know the tone or approach of your play, it is difficult to find the right song. So, please do tell us more about this spectacle -- the when and where.
Cheers,
John |
Author: Christopher T George
Friday, 05 April 2002 - 02:13 pm | | Hi, Judy, John, and Brad:
Hmmmmm, where is music hall expert Andy Aliffe when we need him? 
I note, Judy, that you say you are actually looking for a period song about Jack, not just any period song. So "A Violet From My Mother's Grave" although correct to the case is not actually about Jack. There is a webpage, "Hurrah! For The Life Of A Soldier," which states that "During the Egyptian and Sudanese campaigns of the 1880s, the Whitechapel Polka, a gruesome ditty about Jack the Ripper, was a particular favourite."
This sounds a bit off-base to me... the Sudanese campaign took place, I believe, in the early 1880s not later so maybe the "gruesome ditty" was sung more likely by the British troops in the upcoming Boer War (circa 1898) or some other conflict?
There is a song in the Frogg Moody musical Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper where they sing a period children's song about Jack the Ripper:
Jack the Ripper's dead
and lying on his bed.
He cut his throat with Sunlight soap.
Jack the Ripper's dead.
All the best
Chris George |
Author: Vila
Saturday, 06 April 2002 - 12:16 pm | | I clicked on the link to "Only a Violet..." and that took me *waaaaaay* back. I remember doing the original MIDI arrangement from the sheet music that Spryder sent me. Back in the old days of the first version of the Casebook. You know, back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth and Spryder haddn't even *met* Alegria?
To my ear, it didn't sound the same as the version I wrote, so I'm guessing that either Stephen is using a different arrangement, or the player's loop option that has the song repeating induced an odd effect.
I always wanted to do a version that used a calliope rather than a piano, but that would have sounded too festive for the Casebook. LOL!
Vila |
Author: judy eklond
Saturday, 06 April 2002 - 04:40 pm | | Thanks for all the info, we will probably go with the Frogg Moody piece if it is available to us, or we will write something like it. We were looking for a kids rhyme or a street ditty and it seems closest.
As far as the tone of our piece, we do not try to identify Jack, we choose to examine the women. We stage it in an unidentfied room, our mystery man is seated tied to a chair to the rear of the stage, he is atended by the women who taunt him and tend him they try to explain him and to understand who he is and how they fell so far. Polly has no dialouge, but serves him like a nurse. Mary Kelly is ghostly and detached as if part of her ego has been devoured, she will sing the violet song and hand out violets to Annie, Kate and Liz.
Thanks Again,
Judith Eklond director
John Eklond writer |
Author: Neil K. MacMillan
Sunday, 07 April 2002 - 12:39 pm | | | Depending on what you plan to do, In my novel that I am working on I use "Dusty Bluebells" There is a sight for Counting songs which is where I pulled up dusty bluebells But I don't remember which one right now. It may well be here on the boards. There is sheet music for "Just a violet from Mother's Grave." Some of the other songs that would have been sung in those days in that area would have been sailing chanteys such as "Haul Away Joe" and likely would have been known by Jack's victims. Check out the Mudcat cafe if you decided to go that way. They've been a huge help and the Digitrad lyric archive is awesome in that respect. Kindest regards and good luck |
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