"Riding Down from Bangor" is a song, written by 1871, about a train journey from Bangor, Maine.
Text
editThe words, as published with music in The Scottish Students' Song Book (1897),[1] are:
- Riding down from Bangor, on an eastern train
- After weeks of hunting, in the woods of Maine
- Quite extensive whiskers, beard, moustache as well
- Sat a student fellow, tall and slim and swell
- Empty seat behind him, no one at his side
- Into quiet village, eastern train did glide
- Enter aged couple, take the hindmost seat
- Enter village maiden, beautiful, petite
- Blushingly she faltered, “Is this seat engaged?”
- Sees the aged couple, properly enraged
- Student’s quite ecstatic, sees her ticket through
- Thinks of the long tunnel, thinks what he will do
- Pleasantly they chatted, how the cinders fly!
- Till the student fellow, gets one in his eye
- Maiden sympathetic, turns herself about
- “May I if you please sir, try to get it out?”
- Then the student fellow, feels a gentle touch
- Hears a gentle murmur, “Does it hurt you much?”
- Whiz! Slap! Bang! Into tunnel quite
- Into glorious darkness, black as Egypt’s night
- Out into the daylight glides that eastern train
- Student’s hair is ruffled, just the merest grain
- Maiden seen all blushes when then and there appeared
- A tiny little earring, in that horrid student’s beard.
History and variants
edit"Riding Down from Bangor" was a poem written by Louis Shreve Osborne in 1871 while attending Harvard.[2] The text mentions the Eastern Railroad which ceased only a few years later in 1884 when it became part of the Boston and Maine. At some early point, Osborne's poem was set to music.[1] It was recorded as a traditional song in 1934 by Frank Crumit and in 1950 by the husband and wife duo Marais & Miranda.[3][4]
It is the same poem as "The Harvard Student", also titled "The Pullman Train" (attributed to Louis Shreve Osborne, 1871)[5] by Doney Hammontree.[6]
Orwell essay
edit"Riding Down from Bangor" is also the title of an essay published in 1946 by the English author George Orwell. In it, he muses on 19th-century American children's literature and the type of society it portrayed.
Not to be confused
editThe song should not be confused with the folk style song "Day Trip to Bangor", a 1980 hit by Fiddler's Dram about "the day we went to Bangor" in Wales.[7]
References
edit- ^ a b "Riding Down from Bangor". The Scottish Students' Song Book (sixth ed.). London & Glasgow: Bayley & Ferguson. 1897. p. 272.
- ^ Cohen, Norm (2000). Long Steel Rail: The Railroad in American Folksong, 2nd Ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. pp. 50–52. ISBN 0-252-06881-5. Retrieved 2014-11-18.
- ^ "Frank Crumit-31-40". Internet Archive. Retrieved 2014-11-18.
- ^ "Marais & Miranda: Ballads of Many Lands". AllMusic. Retrieved 2014-11-18.
- ^ Waltz, Robert B.; Engle, David G. (2012). "The Harvard Student (The Pullman Train)". Folklore The Traditional Ballad Index: An Annotated Bibliography of the Folk Songs of the English-Speaking World. California State University, Fresno. Retrieved 2013-02-19.
- ^ Johnson, Zac. "Various Artists: Ozark Folksongs". AllMusic. Retrieved 2013-02-19.
- ^ "Day Trip to Bangor". YouTube. Retrieved 2014-11-18.