“Molly Malone”
Description
Singer tells of meeting sweet Molly Malone in Dublin, where she sold shellfish from a barrow; her parents were also fishmongers. She dies of a fever; now her ghost wheels the barrow. Chorus: "Singing 'Cockles and mussels, alive, alive-o"
Notes
We don't have "peddler" as a keyword -- pity. Meanwhile, I believe this started out as a Tin Pan Alley song? For better or for worse, it seems to have entered tradition -- at least, at every Irish gig I've played, some drunk asks for it. - PJS
Although the Poet's Box broadside is the earliest version I've found, it can hardly be the original; incredibly badly printed (Apart from the title, it can't decide if Miss Malone is Molly or "Melly," and the chorus runs "Alive, alive, O! alive, alive O! Crying Cockles and! alive, alive, O!"), and no tune is indicated. It has to be derivative. - RBW
Cross references
- cf. "The Walnut Girl" (subject)
Broadsides
- NLScotland, L.C.Fol.70(82a), "Cockles and Mussels. Aliv, O" (sic.), Poet's Box (Dundee), c. 1890
Recordings
- Pete Seeger, "Molly Malone" (on PeteSeeger32)
References
- Silber-FSWB, p. 124, "Molly Malone" (1 text)
- DT, MOLLYMAL*
- ADDITIONAL: Kathleen Hoagland, editor, One Thousand Years of Irish Poetry (New York, 1947), p. 256, "Cockles and Mussels" (1 text)
- Frank Harte _Songs of Dublin_, second edition, Ossian, 1993, p. 12, "Molly Malone" (1 text, 1 tune)
- Roud #16392
- BI, FSWB124B