Driven from Home

DESCRIPTION: "Out in this cold world, out in the street, Asking a penny of each one I meet." "Fatherless, motherless, sadly I roam, A child of misfortune, I'm driven from home." No one will help. The child will wander until God's messenger comes
AUTHOR: Will S. Hays (source: sheet music catalog published by John L. Peters)
EARLIEST DATE: 1869 (Peters catalog)
KEYWORDS: orphan hardtimes begging
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Driven-From-Home-Songster, p. 3, "Driven from Home" (1 text)
Jim-the-Carter-Lad-Songster, pp. 52-53, "Driven from Home" (1 text)
Cotton-DownInACoalMineSongster, p. 11, "Driven from Home" (1 text)
CentralParkShowSongster, p. 55, "Driven from Home" (1 text)
Spaeth-WeepSomeMoreMyLady, pp. 40-41, "Driven from Home" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #24485
NOTES [115 words]: This is sort of the concentrated essence of orphan tearjerker songs. Which, if anything, makes it less effective, because there are no precise details. We've heard it all before.
In which regard I can't help but quoting something Fred E. Weatherly, that oh-so-sentimental composer, told Harold Simpson: "[T]imes change and I have changed with the time, for I have learned how tastes change also. No more songs of beggar children toing to heaven on triplets -- no more Golden Gates. As dear [Antoinette] Stierling said to me, 'You've taken them to heaven so often, you must find another place for them!'" (Harold Simpson, A Century of Ballads, 1810-1910, Mills & Boon, 1910, p. 198). - RBW
Last updated in version 7.2
File: DFHS003

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