This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on It's a Long Way to Tipperary is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:
Related Sponsors
 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2007) |
"It's a Long Way to Tipperary" is a British music hall and marching song written by Jack Judge and Harry Williams (Henry James Williams), a song that, allegedly, was written for a 5 shilling bet in Stalybridge, on the 30 January 1912 and performed the next night at the local music hall. Jack's parents were Irish, and his grandparents came from Tipperary.1
Contents |
The Song
The well known chorus is:
- It's a long way to Tipperary,
- It's a long way to go.
- It's a long way to Tipperary
- To the sweetest girl I know!
- Goodbye Piccadilly,
- Farewell Leicester Square!
- It's a long, long way to Tipperary,
- But my heart's right there.
alternatively
- But my heart lies there.2
It was popularised by the Connaught Rangers as they marched through Boulogne on 13 August 1914, witnessed by Daily Mail correspondent George Curnock, and reported on 18 August 1914. It was then picked up by other soldiers in the British Army. In November 1914 it was recorded by John McCormack, which helped contribute to its world-wide popularity.3
Versions
First sung on the British music hall stage in 1913 by Florrie Forde, it was featured as one of the songs in the 1930s stage musical Oh! What a Lovely War and the 1970 musical Darling Lili, sung by Julie Andrews. It was also sung by the prisoners of war in Jean Renoir's film La Grande Illusion, by the crew of U-96 in Wolfgang Petersen's Das Boot (that particular arrangement was performed by the Red Army Choir), as background music in The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, and by the newsroom staff in the final episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It is also the second part (the other two being Has Anyone Seen the Colonel? and Mademoiselle from Armentières) of the regimental march of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. It is also sung by British soldiers in the film The Travelling Players directed by the Theo Angulopous. Also sung by a Czech soldier in the movie Cerni Baroni.
This song is not to be confused with a popular song from 1907 simply titled "Tipperary". Both were sung at different times by early recording star Billy Murray. Murray, with the American Quartet, sang "It's A Long Way To Tipperary" as a straightforward march, complete with brass, drums and cymbals, with a quick bar of "Rule Britannia" thrown into the instrumental interlude between the first and second verse-chorus combination[1].
The song is often cited when documentary footage of World War I is presented. One example of its use is in the annual TV special It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Snoopy (who fancies himself as WWI flying ace Roy Brown) dances to a medley of WWI-era songs played by Schroeder. This song is included, and at that point Snoopy falls into a left-right-left marching pace. Schroeder also played this song in Snoopy Come Home at Snoopy's party. And Snoopy himself, in a series of strips about his going to the 1968 Winter Olympics was seen singing the song himself out loud.
The German U-boat crew sings the song as they start patrolling in the North Atlantic ocean to disturb convoy traffic to England, (morale is then boosted in the boat) in the World War II film Das Boot. The crew also sing it as they cruise toward home port after near disaster.
The Kannadiga playwright and poet, T.P. Kailasam, as part of a wager from an English friend, translated the song into Kannada, adding witty Kannada-specific lyrics. The resulting song, "Namma Tipparahalli balu Doora" (Halli meaning "village" in Kannada), is a popular song in Karnataka.
The song is peculiarly popular among a generation of Sri Lankans who were born as late as the 1940s and 50s. It is frequently sung at parties as part of a bajau along with other Colonial-era music hall songs such as "My Old Man's a Dustman" and "My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean", the 1960s calypso hit "Mary Ann" as well as traditional Sinhala language songs.
The final episode of the long-running sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show ended with the cast singing the tune in unison.
The title has been used in various humorous stories, where a disambiguation is the basis of the joke's premise. The stories usually involve the purchase of a rare animal (a bird or a type of rabbit), called a "Rary", which the story's owner in the end is forced to get rid of because of some grave annoyance. This animal, unable to move all by itself can only roll around, and when its owner is forced to put away the animal, he travels a long way in order to tip it off a cliff, thereby triggering a comment from a passer-by who says: "That's a long way to tip a Rary!". 4
Parody
The song is the basis for the scientific parody about evolution: It's a Long Way from Amphioxus.5
Verses as sung in early versions
- Up to mighty London
- Came an Irishman one day
- As the streets are paved with gold
- Sure, everyone was gay
- Singing songs of Piccadilly,
- Strand and Leicester Square
- Till Paddy got excited
- And he shouted to them there...
- It's a long way to Tipperary...
- Paddy wrote a letter
- To his Irish Molly-O,
- Saying, "Should you not receive it
- Write and let me know!"
- "If I make mistakes in spelling,
- Molly dear," said he,
- "Remember, it's the pen that's bad,
- Don't lay the blame on me!
- It's a long way to Tipperary...
- Molly wrote a neat reply
- To Irish Paddy-O
- Saying Mike Maloney
- Wants to marry me and so
- Leave the Strand and Picadilly
- Or you'll be to blame
- For love has fairly drove me silly:
- Hoping you're the same!
- It's a long way to Tipperary...
An alternative concluding chorus, bawdy by contemporary standards:
- That's the wrong way to tickle Mary
- That's the wrong way to kiss
- Don't you know that over here lad
- They like it best like this
- Hooray pour les francais
- Farewell Angleterre
- We didn't know how to tickle Mary
- But we learnt how over there.
See also
References
- ^ Gibbons, Verna Hale (1999). The Judges: Mayo, to the Midlands of England. West Midlands: Sandwell Community Library Service.
- ^ AllAboutIrish - It's A Long Way to Tipperary
- ^ Gibbons, Verna Hale (1998). Jack Judge: The Tipperary Man. West Midlands: Sandwell Community Library Service. ISBN 1 900 689 073.
- ^ Example story "Fur Ball" by John Browne
- ^ "It's a Long Way From Amphioxus". Nature.
External links
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 21 November 2008, at 19:39.
Wikipedia Authorship and Review
Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.
Wikipedia Usage Guidelines
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "It's a Long Way to Tipperary".
The URL for this specific entry is:
All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.