“The Telegraph Wire”
Description
"Oh, dear me, the world's on fire, news sent around on a telegraph wire! Lord have mercy, only think, news sent to Mexico quicker than a wink! Oh dear, what shall I do? Every year brings something new!" A catalog of marvels and changes of the modern age
Supplemental text
Telegraph Wire, The
Partial text(s)
*** A ***
From Anne Warner, Traditional American Folk Songs from the Anne &
Frank Warner Collection, #75, p. 181. From the singing of
Lena Bourne Fish of New Hampshire. Collected 1940.
Oh, dear me, the world's on fire,
News sent around on a telegraph wire!
Lord have mercy, only think,
News sent to Mexico quicker than a wink!
Chorus
Oh dear, what shall I do?
Every year brings something new!
Cyrus Field, he won renown
By stretching a cable to London town.
Ben Franklin surely won renown
When he brought that pesky lightning down.
(3 additional stanzas)
Historical references
- 1752 and following - Franklin's experiments with lightning
- 1844 - Samuel Morse installs the first electromagnetic telegraph
- 1857, 1858, 1866 - Cyrus Field attempts to lay a transatlantic cable. (The 1857 attempts failed, the 1858 cable was briefly operational; the 1866 cable was the first true success)
References
- Warner 75, "The Telegraph Wire" (1 text, 1 tune)
- ST Wa075 (Partial)
- BI, Wa075