Danny Boy Read Online Free

from the point of view of a loving mother to a beloved son.
    Weatherly was the first to admit that his lyrics were romantic and sentimental and he had too much respect for the poets he admired to compare his work to theirs. He maintained a “humble hope” that he, too, would write words which accomplished composers would set to music and illustrious singers would make their own.“I thought to myself,” he wrote, “if my words shall be good enough for that there will be something in them.”
    In Piano and Gown , Weatherly recounted what inspired him as a lyricist. It’s hard not to recall the scenery and emotion of “Danny Boy” when he observes:
    F RIENDS OFTEN ASK ME HOW I WRITE MY SONGS, WHERE DO I FIND MY SUBJECTS? A RE THEY HISTORIES OF ACTUAL FACTS? T HOSE ARE QUESTIONS WHICH ARE DIFFICULT IF NOT IMPOSSIBLE TO ANSWER EXCEPT VAGUELY . S OMETHING SEEN, SOMETHING READ OF, SOMETHING TOLD; SOME TRAGEDY, SOME COMEDY OF LIFE OF WHICH ONE HAS HEARD OR IN WHICH ONE HAS TAKEN A PART; KNOWLEDGE OF PEOPLE’S WAYS AND PECULIARITIES; LOVE OF BEAUTIFUL THINGS, THE SEA, THE FORESTS, THE ROLLING HILLS, THE WAKING VOICES OF THE DAWN, THE SOLEMN HUSH OF NIGHT, ALL THESE THINGS AND THE POWER TO APPRECIATE THEM GO TO THE MAKING OF SONGS .
    Weatherly had an enormous amount of respect for songs that people love. They may not have been labeled artistic or shop ballads by music critics, but he recognized “the heart ofthe people is still simple and healthy and sound,” and he admits he wished he had been the author of many more popular songs.
    By 1887, Weatherly had tired of the drudgery of coaching at Oxford. When he received his call to the Bar at the Inner Temple, he took chambers in London with Henry Dickens, son of the eminent novelist. The two never discussed literature or music, and funneled all their energies into the practice of law. However, Weatherly provedto be a prolific lyricist in his spare time, writing on trains to some distant court, or in the court itself, waiting for a trial to open. Can you imagine a song as heartbreaking and emotional as “Danny Boy” being put to paper on a jostling train by a man in a suit and briefcase, on his way to attend to the morning’s motions and proceedings? I can’t, frankly. I would like to think that an elegant and plaintive Weatherly managed to locate some shade beneath a tree one sunny English day, where he poured himself a cup of tea, surveyed the rolling hills and realized a moment of inspiration. I’d like to believe that. More likely, though, he jotted out some tentative lines while waiting for a judge to pass sentence on some poor sod on trial for some ordinary crime. If so, it certainly offers a new and slightly sadistic meaning to the first verse, if one couldenvision “pipes” as a slang term for prison bars! We can debate whether “Danny Boy” is a farewell from a lover, father or mother into eternity. However, it is relevant to note that Weatherly often wrote songs from the point of view of the opposite sex. “The Glory of the Sea” is a lover’s lament of her man lost at sea, and it echoes some of the same themes in “Danny Boy”:
    O get you home, brave sailor!
    Good night, and let me be!
    Thank God I gave my dearest
    To the Glory of the sea!
    And there he’s safely sleeping
    In God Almighty’s keeping ,
    Till the sound of the last Trumpet
    Shall give him back to me!
    It is only the line,
    And did you see the gray ship
    That took my man from me?
    that alludes to a woman longing for her man, but as with many of Weatherly’s lyrics, this ambiguity can beexplained by the habit of lyricists at the time to write songs for either male or female singers, thus potentially doubling the buying public for sheet music sales.
    Weatherly joined the Local Bar in Bristol in 1893 and though he enjoyed success in his practice, he maintained his enthusiasm for writing lyrics. The