Index
Songs Renny Has Sung
These are not authentic to the way she would have sung them, but are versions of the song.
- The Fox
- I think I got Renny's text for this from Peacock. While that version was collected in Newfoundland in the 1950s, the song actually goes back to 1500s England, so Renny certainly could have known it. (Roud 131)
- The Foolish Shepherd AKA The Baffled Knight
- Again I got Renny's text from Peacock. That text was a sort of shanty-ized version, from which I stripped the chorus to get back to something closer to what it would have been like in Renny's time. This is Child 112, going back to at least 1605.
Songs From Renny's Background
- Wadham's Song
- Jim Payne put me onto this song, which dates to 1756 and so is the first (and I think only?) authentic Newfoundland-written song I've been able to find that definitively was written pre-1820. (If you listen to the recorded version, the melody he uses is I'm fairly certain not the one the song was originally attached to.) The lyrics are sailing directions for the north coast of Newfoundland.
- Ryans and the Pittmans
- Renny has actually quoted from this song once or twice in the game. I've not been able to figure out a firm date on it, but it's a version of Spanish Ladies which predates Renny by a few years, and the chorus is another set of sailing directions which suggests to me it is old. (Actually, Wikipedia claims most of the verses are from 1875, but not the one Renny tends to quote!)
- The Union From St John's
- This is one of the oldest Newfoundland-specific songs I've been able to track down. It's from approximately 1833, so it hasn't yet been written in Renny's timeline (and of course might not be due to differences in history), but it's close, so I'm reckoning it's similar in style to songs she would have known.
- Bold General Wolfe
- This Canadian / British broadside ballad is probably from the generation or two before Renny; it tells the story of Wolfe's 1759 conquest of Quebec. Given that it's extremely plausible that Renny would know the song and we have our own Field Marshall Wolfe, it's irresistible to make this one of the songs Renny knows. She just hasn't sung it yet. (Version collected in Newfoundland. Mainly Norfolk writeup.)
