When You and I Were Young, Maggie
Encyclopedia
When You and I Were Young, Maggie is a famous folk song
, popular song
and standard
. Though Springtown, Tennessee, has a small monument outside an old mill claiming the song was written by a local George Johnson, in 1820, for his Maggie, the truth is that its lyrics were written as a poem by the Canadian school teacher George Washington Johnson from Hamilton, Ontario. Margaret "Maggie" Clark was his pupil. They fell in love and during a period of illness, George walked to the edge of the Niagara escarpment, overlooking what is now downtown Hamilton, and composed the poem. The general tone is perhaps one of melancholy and consolation over lost youth rather than mere sentimentality or a fear of aging. It was published in 1864 in a collection of his poems entitled Maple Leaves. They were married in 1864 but Maggie's health deteriorated and she died on May 12, 1865. James Austin Butterfield
set the poem to music and it became popular all over the world. George Washington Johnson died in 1917. The schoolhouse where the two lovers met still stands on the escarpment above Hamilton, and a plaque bearing the name of the song has been erected in front of the old building.Houghton, Margaret (ed.) Hamilton street names, p. 85 (2002) In 2005, George Washington Johnson was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.
"as the Duprez & Benedict’s Minstrels programs, dated, will show" in 1870. The song was first recorded by Corinne Morgan and Frank C. Stanley
in 1905 and has been recorded since by many famous artists including opera tenors John McCormack and Jan Peerce
, early country singer
Fiddlin' John Carson
, bluegrass
musicians Stanley Brothers, Reno and Smiley
, Mac Wiseman
, David Grisman
and James Alan Shelton, crooner
s Perry Como
and Gene Autry
and popular singers such as Will Oakland, Henry Burr
,Harry MacDonough and Frank Dunn. Instrumental recordings of Butterfield's melody are also numerous, and date as far back as the 1930s. Notable recordings include those of jazz
men Benny Goodman
, Fats Waller
, Teddy Wilson
and Sidney Bechet
and ragtime pianist Johnny Maddox
and Country guitar, Speedy Haworth. "Maggie" has been re-scored as "When You and Were Young, Maggie Blues", by Jack Frost and Jimmy McHugh. Mills Music Inc. published this edition in 1922, and again in 1949 with Guy Lombardo's picture on the cover. John W. Schaum
arranged "When you and I were young Maggie Boogie" and had it published by Belwin Inc. in 1952. The song is also considered as a standard of dixieland
.
The song was used by Seán O'Casey
in his 1926 play The Plough and the Stars, but the name "Maggie" was changed to "Nora" because the character, Clitheroe, was singing it to his wife Nora. Johnny McEvoy
recorded it as "Nora" in 1968 and had a number one hit in Ireland. In 1983 Irish duo Foster & Allen
reached number 27 in the UK singles chart with their version. This led many people to think it was an Irish song. It was also recorded by De Dannan
on the album "Star-Spangled Molly", by Josef Locke
on "Let there be Peace",and by James Galway and The Chieftains
on "In Ireland". The Statler Brothers also recorded their harmonious rendition. In addition to Henry Burr, other Canadian performers such as Hank Snow, The Climax Jazz Band and Murray McLaughlin have also recorded it. American psychedelic rock band Magic Fern from Seattle (who wrote and performed together in the mid to late 1960s) recorded a version of this song entitled "Maggie" and that version is on the soundtrack for Adam Sandler's film "Strange Wilderness".
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, popular song
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
and standard
Traditional pop music
Traditional pop or classic pop or standards music denotes, in general, Western popular music that either wholly predates the advent of rock and roll in the mid-1950s, or to any popular music which exists concurrently to rock and roll but originated in a time before the appearance of rock and roll,...
. Though Springtown, Tennessee, has a small monument outside an old mill claiming the song was written by a local George Johnson, in 1820, for his Maggie, the truth is that its lyrics were written as a poem by the Canadian school teacher George Washington Johnson from Hamilton, Ontario. Margaret "Maggie" Clark was his pupil. They fell in love and during a period of illness, George walked to the edge of the Niagara escarpment, overlooking what is now downtown Hamilton, and composed the poem. The general tone is perhaps one of melancholy and consolation over lost youth rather than mere sentimentality or a fear of aging. It was published in 1864 in a collection of his poems entitled Maple Leaves. They were married in 1864 but Maggie's health deteriorated and she died on May 12, 1865. James Austin Butterfield
James Austin Butterfield
James Austin Butterfield was a British-born composer. His best known composition is When You and I Were Young, Maggie, first published in 1866 . Butterfield was born in England in 1837 and emigrated to the United States in 1856.He was also the second president of the Music Teachers National...
set the poem to music and it became popular all over the world. George Washington Johnson died in 1917. The schoolhouse where the two lovers met still stands on the escarpment above Hamilton, and a plaque bearing the name of the song has been erected in front of the old building.Houghton, Margaret (ed.) Hamilton street names, p. 85 (2002) In 2005, George Washington Johnson was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Recordings
Some claim that the song was first sung by Frank DumontFrank Dumont
Frank Dumont was a popular American minstrel show performer and manager., by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania -Life:...
"as the Duprez & Benedict’s Minstrels programs, dated, will show" in 1870. The song was first recorded by Corinne Morgan and Frank C. Stanley
Frank C. Stanley
Frank C. Stanley was a bass-baritone singer, stage performer and banjoist who made many early gramophone recordings on disc and cylinder during the 1890s and the 1900s. His real name was William Stanley Grinsted. He was born on 29 December 1868 in Orange, New Jersey...
in 1905 and has been recorded since by many famous artists including opera tenors John McCormack and Jan Peerce
Jan Peerce
Jan Peerce was an American operatic tenor. Peerce was an accomplished performer on the operatic and Broadway concert stages, in solo recitals, and as a recording artist. He is the father of film director Larry Peerce....
, early country singer
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
Fiddlin' John Carson
Fiddlin' John Carson
Fiddlin' John Carson was an American old time fiddler and an early-recorded country musician.-Early life:...
, bluegrass
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...
musicians Stanley Brothers, Reno and Smiley
Reno and Smiley
Reno and Smiley were a musical duo composed of Don Reno and Red Smiley. They were one of the most acclaimed duos in country music of the 1950s and early '60s.-How They Met:...
, Mac Wiseman
Mac Wiseman
Malcolm B. Wiseman , better known as Mac Wiseman, is an American bluegrass singer, nicknamed The Voice with a Heart. The bearded singer is one of the cult figures of bluegrass....
, David Grisman
David Grisman
David Grisman is an American bluegrass/newgrass mandolinist and composer of acoustic music. In the early 1990s, he started the Acoustic Disc record label in an effort to preserve and spread acoustic or instrumental music.-Biography:Grisman grew up in Hackensack, New Jersey...
and James Alan Shelton, crooner
Crooner
Crooner is an American epithet given to male singers of pop standards, mostly from the Great American Songbook, either backed by a full orchestra, a big band or by a piano. Originally it was an ironic term denoting an emphatically sentimental, often emotional singing style made possible by the use...
s Perry Como
Perry Como
Pierino Ronald "Perry" Como was an American singer and television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century he recorded exclusively for the RCA Victor label after signing with them in 1943. "Mr...
and Gene Autry
Gene Autry
Orvon Grover Autry , better known as Gene Autry, was an American performer who gained fame as The Singing Cowboy on the radio, in movies and on television for more than three decades beginning in the 1930s...
and popular singers such as Will Oakland, Henry Burr
Henry Burr
Henry Burr was a Canadian singer of popular songs from the early 20th century, an early radio performer and producer...
,Harry MacDonough and Frank Dunn. Instrumental recordings of Butterfield's melody are also numerous, and date as far back as the 1930s. Notable recordings include those of jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
men Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
, Fats Waller
Fats Waller
Fats Waller , born Thomas Wright Waller, was a jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer, and comedic entertainer...
, Teddy Wilson
Teddy Wilson
Theodore Shaw "Teddy" Wilson was an American jazz pianist whose sophisticated and elegant style was featured on the records of many of the biggest names in jazz, including Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.-Biography:Wilson was born in Austin, Texas in...
and Sidney Bechet
Sidney Bechet
Sidney Bechet was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer.He was one of the first important soloists in jazz , and was perhaps the first notable jazz saxophonist...
and ragtime pianist Johnny Maddox
Johnny Maddox
Johnny Maddox is a ragtime pianist and collector of ragtime memorabilia.His interest in the era of ragtime and blues was fueled by his Aunt Zula Cothron. She played ragtime piano at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, and taught Johnny to play...
and Country guitar, Speedy Haworth. "Maggie" has been re-scored as "When You and Were Young, Maggie Blues", by Jack Frost and Jimmy McHugh. Mills Music Inc. published this edition in 1922, and again in 1949 with Guy Lombardo's picture on the cover. John W. Schaum
John W. Schaum
John W. Schaum was an American pianist, composer, and educator.-Education:...
arranged "When you and I were young Maggie Boogie" and had it published by Belwin Inc. in 1952. The song is also considered as a standard of dixieland
Dixieland
Dixieland music, sometimes referred to as Hot jazz, Early Jazz or New Orleans jazz, is a style of jazz music which developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century, and was spread to Chicago and New York City by New Orleans bands in the 1910s.Well-known jazz standard songs from the...
.
The song was used by Seán O'Casey
Seán O'Casey
Seán O'Casey was an Irish dramatist and memoirist. A committed socialist, he was the first Irish playwright of note to write about the Dublin working classes.- Early life:...
in his 1926 play The Plough and the Stars, but the name "Maggie" was changed to "Nora" because the character, Clitheroe, was singing it to his wife Nora. Johnny McEvoy
Johnny McEvoy
Johnny McEvoy is an Irish singer of Country and Irish genre born in Banagher, County Offaly, Ireland.He was part of a duo called "Ramblers 2", and has been in the entertainment circuit since the 1960s.-Hits:...
recorded it as "Nora" in 1968 and had a number one hit in Ireland. In 1983 Irish duo Foster & Allen
Foster & Allen
Foster and Allen are a musical duo from Ireland consisting of Mick Foster and Tony Allen.-History:Foster and Allen began back in the 1970s when Foster and Allen were playing in country music bands around Ireland...
reached number 27 in the UK singles chart with their version. This led many people to think it was an Irish song. It was also recorded by De Dannan
De Dannan
De Dannan was an Irish folk music group. They were formed by Frankie Gavin , Alec Finn , Johnny "Ringo" McDonagh and Charlie Piggott as a result of sessions in Hughes's Pub in An Spidéal, County Galway, subsequently inviting Dolores Keane to join the band...
on the album "Star-Spangled Molly", by Josef Locke
Josef Locke
Josef Locke was the stage name of Joseph McLaughlin , a tenor singer who was successful in the United Kingdom and Ireland in the 1940s and 1950s....
on "Let there be Peace",and by James Galway and The Chieftains
The Chieftains
The Chieftains are a Grammy-winning Irish musical group founded in 1962, best known for being one of the first bands to make Irish traditional music popular around the world.-Name:...
on "In Ireland". The Statler Brothers also recorded their harmonious rendition. In addition to Henry Burr, other Canadian performers such as Hank Snow, The Climax Jazz Band and Murray McLaughlin have also recorded it. American psychedelic rock band Magic Fern from Seattle (who wrote and performed together in the mid to late 1960s) recorded a version of this song entitled "Maggie" and that version is on the soundtrack for Adam Sandler's film "Strange Wilderness".