“Dublin Jack of All Trades”
Description
Roving Jack arrives in Dublin and becomes a porter, pastry cook, baker, coffin maker, preacher .... listing the Dublin sites for each of his many occupations. He can't keep a job but places his "chief delight in courting pretty maids"
Notes
OLochlainn begins "I am a roving sporting blade" which improves an internal rhyme with "trades" but loses a play on "black Jack" and "Jack of Spades" - BS
There is an old-time country item, "Jack of All Trades," recorded by the Prairie Ramblers and by "Weary Willie" (Frank Luther) and Carson J. Robison, as well as more recently by Bob Bovee and Gail Heil. That has been credited to "Howard Johnson," though I wouldn't be surprised if Robison is largely responsible. That follows the same "gimmick" of a guy who can't keep a job, though the part about chasing girls is absent. I suspect but can't prove influence. It's definitely not the same song, though. - RBW
Broadsides
- Bodleian, 2806 b.9(255), "Dublin Jack of All Trades"("I am a roving sporting black, they call me Jack of all trades"), J.F. Nugent & Co. (Dublin), 1850-1899; also 2806 c.15(234), 2806 c.15(36), 2806 c.7(15), "Dublin Jack of all Trades"
References
- OLochlainn 40, "Dublin Jack of all Trades" (1 text, 1 tune)
- ADDITIONAL: Frank Harte _Songs of Dublin_, second edition, Ossian, 1993, pp. 58-59, "The Dublin Jack of All Trades" (1 text, 1 tune)
- Roud #3017
- BI, OLoc040