All Around My Hat

The song "All Around my Hat" (Roud 567, Laws P31) is of nineteenth century English origin.^{[citation needed]} In an early version, dating from the 1820s, a Cockney costermonger vowed to be true to his fiancee, who had been sentenced to seven years' transportation to Australia for theft and to mourn his loss of her by wearing green willow sprigs in his hatband for "a twelve-month and a day," in a traditional symbol of mourning.

In Ireland, Peadar Kearney adapted the song to make it relate to a Republican lass whose lover has died in the Easter Rising, and who swears to wear the Irish tricolor in her hat in remembrance.

The versions by Steeleye Span and other artists are discussed below.

Wikisource has original text related to this article: All Around My Hat (song)

Synopsis

A young man is forced to leave his lover, usually to go to sea. On his return he finds her on the point of being married to another man. In some versions he goes into mourning, with the green willow as a symbol of his unhappiness (willow is considered to be a weeping tree). In other versions he reminds her of her broken promise, and she dies mysteriously. In some versions he simply contemplates his lover left behind, without actually returning to find her being married. In other versions, the young man is a street hawker who is mourning his separation from his lover who has been transported to Australia for stealing.

Commentary

The song has typical archetypal elements of the separated lovers, the interrupted wedding, and the inconsolable rejected lover. In the "Yellow Ribbon" variants, the adornment is a reminder of lost love, similar to Ireland's The Black Velvet Band.

Sailors are notoriously unfaithful, so this is an interesting twist, with the man being true, and the woman being inconstant.

Historical background

The song is found in England and Canada, seafaring nations, but also in Scotland. In Ireland it has been adapted to a modern conflict - the Irish Republican movement.

Broadsides

The Bodleian Library has a version. This version has some cockney words.

Textual variants

Sabine Baring-Gould printed a version in "A Garland of Country Song" in 1895. This version is very close to the best known version, by Steeleye Span. The well-known soldier's song She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (as used in the John Ford film of the same name), has the words "Far away! Far away! She wore it for her soldier who was far, far away."^[1] This is probably a more recent variant of the nineteenth century song.

• cf. "The Green Willow" ("All around my hat" lyrics)

Songs that refer to All Around My Hat (song)

Jasper Carrot sang a parody "It's my bloody ribbon and it's my bloody hat" at the Cambridge folk Festival in 1976.

"I'm Going to Drown My Cat" is a parody sung from the perspective of a pet owner whose cat mistook her headgear for a litterbox. It's credited as "from Bob Walser, who got it from someone in England."^[2]

Motifs

Motifs of the song include separated lovers, a broken token, and death for love, common themes in tragic love songs.

Television and movie references

The song She Wore a Yellow Ribbon appears in John Ford's film of the same name. In the 'Watching TV' episode of British television sitcom Men Behaving Badly, Gary and Dorothy repeatedly end up singing the Steeleye Span version of the song while trying to remember the theme tune to Starsky and Hutch. Paul Whitehouse also sings the first lines of the song in an episode of The Fast Show, changing a key word in each line with "arse".

Recordings

Musical variants

• She Wore a Yellow Ribbon

Other songs with the same tune

• "The Death of Brush"
• "The Jolly Miller"
• "The Death of Brugh"

References

External links

• California State University at Fresno data on "All Around my Hat"
• Mudcat Origins? All Around my Hat.
• Folkinfo discussion - All Around my Hat
• A "street hawker" version of the song with tune and lyrics