Norway Bum, The

DESCRIPTION: "I'm a bum and addicted to rum." His father drove the singer from home because "I loved a fair lass far beneath my own class." They married; his wife and child died in a fire in Norway. "To drown sorrow I plunged into rum... And now I am only a bum"
AUTHOR: Joe Scott?
EARLIEST DATE: 1901 (April 13 Rumford Falls Times, according to Ives-Joe-Scott-TheWoodsmanSongmaker)
KEYWORDS: grief love marriage death mourning drink wife children
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar) US(NE)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Ives-Joe-Scott-TheWoodsmanSongmaker, pp. 282-306, "The Norway Bum" (2 texts, 3 tunes plu smention of 24 versions)
Ives-DriveDullCareAway-PrinceEdwardIsland, pp. 119-121, 251, "The Norway Bum" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #13992
NOTES [54 words]: Ives-DriveDullCareAway-PrinceEdwardIsland: "No one was killed in the fire that destroyed much of Norway, Maine, in 1894, and there is no evidence to show that the song is based on a real person or incident, but, since Scott was not given to fiction, we can be reasonably sure that he thought his source ... was factual." - BS
Last updated in version 3.2
File: IvDC119

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