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The Golden Vanity (Child 286)

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Almeda Riddle provides a classic, Ozark Mountain unaccompanied ballad style to the song.

Robbie Fulks’s performance at The Hideout in Chicago in March of 2014 reprises a stark and powerful mountain ballad style, at least vocally, even though the link says it’s a jazz arrangement. I find the drums an unwelcome distraction, but Fulks’s singing is compelling, with the bass and vibes providing a steady and sympathetic drone.

 

Child 286 makes an appearance on Rogue’s Gallery, the 2006 compilation of pirate ballads, sea songs, and chanteys. Loudon Wainwright III gives us the song as “Turkish Revelry.” Ironically, there’s nothing particularly chantey-like about Wainwright’s version. It’s a moving, non-ironic performance and a somber counterpoint within that often wild and bawdy collection. You’ll find a few sea chantey versions on the Spotify playlist, including those by Bounding Main (no surprise), Carl Peterson, and Tommy Makem.

The long history of this song and its maritime setting have drawn classical and light opera composers to it as well. In general, I find these performances less emotionally engaging than the more folk oriented pieces, but the song’s emergence into this repertoire speaks to the enduring value of the story as tragedy.  Ralph Vaughan Williams and Aaron Copland have each taken a turn with the tune and/or the lyrics. Here is a live performance of Copland’s version of “Golden Willow Tree.”

Benjamin Britten arranged the song for a children’s chorus as a companion piece to another choral work about Jonah and the whale. The individual movements of this work are included on the playlist. The YouTube clip below provides an entertaining live performance of the full work by Cor Vivaldi, a Catalan children’s choir.

 

Conclusion

This song has so many different titles and so many different narrative tweaks in the various versions that it has been quite a challenge to navigate its waters, so to speak. I’ve been helped greatly by Pat, as is frequently the case. He assembled the lion’s share of the playlist below, as he uses Child 286 for teaching purposes with middle school students. I’m also very grateful for his editorial suggestions. Thanks, as always, for reading and listening.

— Ken Bigger

Related posts:

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  2. The price, my dear, is you.
  3. In the Pines: A Guide
  4. ODETTA MEMORIAL SET FOR FEBRUARY
Pages: 1 2 3 4

Comments

The Golden Vanity (Child 286) — 4 Comments

  1. Pingback:The Ballad & The Requiem « Walter Bitner

  2. I should also add that in almost every version, the cabin boy’s promised betrothal to the captain’s daughter is pretty much a property transaction. It has implications for the cabin boy’s class status, but it is likely not a romantic scheme by the cabin boy and the daughter. The song’s audiences through much of its history would have understood it at some level as a property transaction. As I mention in the post, in a very few versions, the cabin boy refrains from sinking the ‘Golden Vanity’ in spite because of the love he bears for the captain’s daughter (as well as the crew), but she is effectively a symbol and a non-character in this story. You could even suppose that she is an invention of the captain for bargaining purposes.

    Regardless of how much credence you want to devote to the cabin boy’s declaration of love, if it’s there at all, the song fully embodies the patriarchy of its day (and many days that followed), and we’re well advised to keep that point in view.

  3. An auger would not have done the job but scratching out the oakum and caulk between planks would have accomplished the desired result before the crew would have discovered and dispatched to he offending cabin boy.

    • Agreed, John. Good point. Other sources I’ve seen point out that ships of the era would have had carpenters and pumps that would have made such an assault ineffective. The song seems to require some suspension of disbelief on this point. In some versions, the songwriters address this issue by alleging that the crew of the galley (be they Turkish, Spanish, pirates, or otherwise) were distracted by various unwholesome diversions. Most pointed in this regard is probably Paul Joines’s: “some were at cards and others at dice, while still others were taking the Devil’s own advice.”

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