Uploaded November 2015 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Here's a song about our valley's (and I think our state's) only native snakebite death, 1761, sung at the grave of the victim, Timothy Mirick in Wilbraham, formerly Springfield Mountain, Massachusetts.
It seems somebody wrote a poem about Mirick's death for a historical celebration several decades after his death, sung to the tune Old Hundred, and for some reason it became popular. Some Boston people made a stage burlesque out of it, making fun of the country bumpkins out in Hampden County and introducing various bits of rude stage business and a silly chorus. That's the way it was mostly remembered, but some people held onto something like the original. My singing is most influenced by Yankee John Galusha's.
I sang this and "I Am A Stranger Here Below" from the Harp of Ages (favorite song of my friend Eric Morgan from Santa Fe, NM who introduced the book to me) for years before it dawned on me that they use the same tune. Amazing how tunes get around.
Also, tunes in 5 beats are not exotic. It's just a 2 and a 3. I think at some point somebody in western Europe decided fancy music had to be easily divisible by 2 unless it was 3. As to why, I couldn't tell you, but there's lots of music where twos and threes go together in ways that aren't six, and it all comes out fine. Still, I've seen minds' get blown over dance tunes from ex-Jugoslavia that go one two, one two, one two, one two three, which is as straight forward as "gimme gimme gimme sandwiches."
Here's a song about our valley's (and I think our state's) only native snakebite death, 1761, sung at the grave of the victim, Timothy Mirick in Wilbraham, formerly Springfield Mountain, Massachusetts.
It seems somebody wrote a poem about Mirick's death for a historical celebration several decades after his death, sung to the tune Old Hundred, and for some reason it became popular. Some Boston people made a stage burlesque out of it, making fun of the country bumpkins out in Hampden County and introducing various bits of rude stage business and a silly chorus. That's the way it was mostly remembered, but some people held onto something like the original. My singing is most influenced by Yankee John Galusha's.
I sang this and "I Am A Stranger Here Below" from the Harp of Ages (favorite song of my friend Eric Morgan from Santa Fe, NM who introduced the book to me) for years before it dawned on me that they use the same tune. Amazing how tunes get around.
Also, tunes in 5 beats are not exotic. It's just a 2 and a 3. I think at some point somebody in western Europe decided fancy music had to be easily divisible by 2 unless it was 3. As to why, I couldn't tell you, but there's lots of music where twos and threes go together in ways that aren't six, and it all comes out fine. Still, I've seen minds' get blown over dance tunes from ex-Jugoslavia that go one two, one two, one two, one two three, which is as straight forward as "gimme gimme gimme sandwiches."
