Marie Hare - Lost Jimmy Whelan

This song is sung a cappella. The song tells the story of a woman walking along the banks of a river, mourning for her drowned love; he then appears and comforts her.



The song also appears elsewhere in the Manny collection as (011-01) and is sung by the same person, Mrs. Marie Hare, and in the same year, 1959.

At (104-07) it is sung by John R. Dignam and Mrs. Vera Reid. Spellings of the name vary from Jimmie Whelan to Jimmy Whalen. Ken Homer, the emcee, speaks at first, saying: Next we re going to hear from Mrs. Perley Hare. Remember Mrs. Hare was with us last year and sang Green Valley and several other songs, we all enjoyed her singing. We re looking forward to hear her sing again tonight. And the song she has selected for this first evening s program is The Lost Jimmie Whelan. After the announcement and applause the recording stops and then starts again when Mrs. Hare starts singing, but the sound is much clearer and does not sound like it was recorded in a large hall. After the seventh stanza the recording switches back to the poorer quality concert-hall sounding version. This version seems to be the same recording as [011-03] after the seventh stanza. The three published versions of the song are quite similar to the above text.

The version in Lumbersongs of the North Woods has Jimmie drown in the Mississippi. This same version (stanza 6) also reads "death is the debtor that tore us asunder", differing from the above transcription and the version in Songs of Miramichi which go death is the dagger that keeps us asunder. The most notable differences appear in Creighton's published version wherein the stanza in which Jimmie tells of his death and final thoughts (stanza 6) is entirely omitted. In Creighton s version the stanza where the woman asks for Jimmie to stay and later for Jimmie to let her join him in death (stanza 7) is also omitted. In print Jimmie's last name is spelled as both Whalen and Whelan.