"Don't Take My Darling Boy Away"
by Sam Ash
Sheet music from the Archeophone Records collection |
Even a song like "Don't Take My Darling Boy Away" was British and referenced British soldiers, but Americans embraced it, probably, as referring to troopers leaving for Mexico. The pathos of the mother begging to be left one son after having his father and his three brothers taken for the war would have resonated, especially in the South, where whole male generations of many families had been ravaged by the Civil War and there would have been a great nodding of heads when the mother says "But my duty's done / So for God's sake leave one / And don't take my darling boy away." But for Americans, their duty had not begun and their darling boys were not being taken—anywhere—and, so, the obviously British Music Hall sound of the arrangement that was current in recordings was broadly different from American Music Hall arrangements and differed diametrically from the sounds of minstrel and Vaudeville scores. Americans could hum it and remember their affection for Gilbert and Sullivan, and they could say, gratefully, "there, but for the grace of God and Mr. Wilson, go I."
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