The Mendicant Bug

While listening to Pandora a few months ago I heard “Mrs. McGrath” by Pete Seeger and found it catchy, but like most songs I hear on Pandora, it passed and didn’t come again for a long while. But today I was sitting around and started singing the chorus:

Would you too-rye-ah
Foddle-diddle-dah
toorye oorye oorye-ah
Would you toorye-ah
Foddle diddle dah
toorye oorye oorye-ah

Feeling the need to pursue the song and listen to the full version, I found the name and then found the version I liked on iTunes. Of course, sharing is difficult, but I did find a version on YouTube by Raymond Crooke, bless him. The way Pete Seeger sang it was a little more clean and having the crowd singing the chorus in the background stirs me deeply in a way that Raymond doesn’t quite capture, but his version is the more traditional one. Pete Seeger was singing that concert at Carnegie Hall in 1963, and I’m guessing the audience was a bunch of hippies.

The song is an Irish folk song almost two hundred years old, dating back to a Dublin printing of the lyrics in 1815. It is also known as “Mrs. McGraw.” In the song, Mrs. McGrath watches her son go to war as a soldier and waits for seven long years as the Peninsular Wars between Britain and Napoleon play out. On the fifth of May, a cannonball took off both her son’s legs and he returns to her on wooden pegs.

Napoleon instituted a blockade of Europe against England in 1806. He then carried out a stealthy invasion of Spain in 1808 and in a coup de main, overthrew the government without any hopes for a Spanish military reprisal. Charles IV abdicated, leaving Napoleon’s brother Joseph to assume the throne. However, Joseph was completely unwanted in Spain and a popular uprising ensued. The French forces put down the rebellion, inspiring the painting by Goya “The Third of May.” The US should take a lesson here. Ruled by kings for centuries and then Napoleon comes in and puts up a government and the Spanish reject it. Iraq was taken in a coup de main, as well. Britain entered the war later that year.

Mrs. McGrath’s son Ted says his legs were swept away on the fifth of May, and I’ve been trying to figure out just what event this might be alluding to. The uprising in Madrid occurred on May 2, 1808 and was put down the same day. The prisoners were executed the next day. This was before British involvement, which began several months later in August. There was fighting in Portugal around May 10th between Wellesley (Britain) and Soult (France) in 1809. Then in 1811, there was the Battle of Fuentes de Onoro, from May 3-5. My guess is this is the battle where Ted lost his legs.

Interestingly, the term guerrilla entered English around this time. There were groups of Spanish irregulars who opposed the French, and the British gave them aid. The Spanish called these skirmishes guerra de guerrillas (“war of little wars”).

The song is about more than just a mother’s worry for her son at war and her lament for his lost legs. It’s often considered an anti-war song. The mother rails against “all foreign wars” in the final verse. Anti-war sentiment is nothing new but many people seem to dismiss it as being for the hippies. I think it’s cool that this song became popular in Ireland and was printed up so soon after the end of the war.

“Oh, Mrs. McGrath,” the sergeant said
“Would you like to make a soldier out of your son Ted
With a scarlett coat and a big cocked hat
Now, Mrs. McGrath, wouldn’t you like that?”

Chorus:
Would you too-rye-ah
Foddle-diddle-dah
toorye oorye oorye-ah
Would you toorye-ah
Foddle diddle dah
toorye oorye oorye-ah

So, Mrs. McGrath sat on the sea shore
For the space of seven long years or more
‘Til she spied a ship come a sailin on the sea
“Hallah-loo babbah-loo and I think it is he”

Chorus

“Oh captain dear, where have you been
Or have you been sailing on the Meditereen
Have you any tidings of my son Ted
Is the poor boy living or is he dead?”

Chorus

Then up steps Ted without any legs
And in their place, two wooden pegs
She kissed him a dozen times or two
“Holy Moses, it isn’t you”

Chorus

“Oh was you drunk or was you blind
When you left your two fine legs behind
Or was it walking upon the sea
Wore your two fine legs from the knees away?”

Chorus

“I wasn’t drunk and I wasn’t blind
When I left my two fine legs behind
But a cannon ball on the fifth of May
Swept my two fine legs from the knees away”

Chorus

“Oh, Teddy my boy,” the widow cried
“Your two fine legs were your mother’s pride
I’d rather have my Ted as he used to be
Than the King of France and his whole navy”

Chorus

“All foreign wars I do proclaim
Between Don John and the King of Spain
By the heavens I’ll make ‘em rue the time
They swept the legs from a child of mine!”

Chorus