Widow Nolan's Goat, The

DESCRIPTION: "Oh, I'm a lone widdy, myself and my daughter; We live in a house where there's welcome galore" with "My buck Billy Goat," which has been a very good goat but is now missing. "Oh, oh, oh, oh, ohone, Come back to my bosom, my own darling billy."
AUTHOR: Words: Edward Harrigan / Music: David Braham
EARLIEST DATE: 1882 ("Squatter Sovereignty")
KEYWORDS: humorous wife home animal
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Finson-Edward-Harrigan-David-Braham, vol. I, #74, pp. 271-273, "The Widow Nolan's Goat" (1 text, 1 tune)
Spaeth-ReadEmAndWeep, pp. 116-118, "'The Widow Nolan's Goat" (1 text, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: Stanley Appelbaum, editor, _Show Songs: from The Black Crook to The Red Mill_, Dover Publications, 1974, pp. 24-27, "The Widow Nolan's Goat" (1 text, 1 tune, a copy of the original sheet music)
Roud #27601
NOTES [437 words]: For background on Harrigan and Braham, see the notes to "The Babies on Our Block."
The play "Squatter Sovereignty" was one of Edward Harrigan's biggest hits, running 168 performances (Moody, p. 125) -- a very high number at the time. Moody, p. 126, calls it a "documentary" of the Shantytown of New York, where in the 1880s "squatters" had transformed old boxes, barrels, and the like into shanties by Central Park. In a typical Harrigan twist, one of the major characters was a goat, Billy, the subject of "The Widow Nolan's Goat." The widow's daughter Nellie (played by Gertie Granville, Tony Hart's soon-to-be wife) is supposed to marry Terrence McIntyre, son of the "royal astronomer to the Duchess of Connaught" (Harrigan) who can show you "Uranus, Venus, Mars, and Jew Peter" for ten cents (Moody, p. 126). As is typical of Harrigan, the show involves misplaced love (Nellie loves Fred Kline, the son of a glue maker, not McIntyre), conflict between ethnic groups -- and live animals.
Franeschina, p. 144, says, "A contract is drawn up between the Widow [Nolan] and Felix [McIntyre, the astronomer, father of Terrens] in which she bestows her daughter with a dowry of bedding and a billy goat, while he gives his son a pig and a goose, with the understanding that if either child shold refuse the marriage, the parent would forfeit the dowry.... When the widow learns of her daughter's marriage to Fred Kline, she refuses to give up her goat to McIntyre, igniting a feud.... Before the curtain falls... both families find themselves in another characteristic Comique melee in which the widow's shanty is torn down and all the animals are let loose from their cages."
David Braham gave up his usual pattern of marches and schottisches (Franceschina, p. 144): "There were no songs and dances, walk-around, or military parades. Instead, Braham borrowed from European operetta and Irish jig patterns to create, arguably, his most original score to date.
"The runaway song hit from Squatter Sovereignty was "Paddy Duffy's Cart," an ensemble number used at the beginning of the third act to announce the arrival of Paddy Duffy (Eugene Rourke), a character of tangential importance to the plot. Particularly notable is the antiphonal choral writing in the second chorus, the melody and lyric of Harrigan and Hart's earliest theatrical success: 'Little Fraud,/ Little Fraud,/ She's the daintiest darling of all. As the widow Nolan, Hart [who often played transvestite roles] was provided with 'The Widow Nolan's Goat, an attractive Irish jig with a chorus in the minor mode and a rather conservative melodic compass." - RBW
Bibliography

Franceschina: John Franceschina, David Braham: The American Offenbach, Routledge, 2003
Moody: Richard Moody, Ned Harrigan: From Corlear's Hook to Herald Square, Nelson Hall, 1980

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