Bloom Is on the Rye, The

DESCRIPTION: "My pretty Jane, my pretty Jane, Ah, never look so shy But meet me in the evening While the bloom is on the rye." If she will name the day, he will buy a ring. "The village bells shall ring... The summer nights are coming."
AUTHOR: See NOTES
EARLIEST DATE: 1939 (cited by probable author Edward Fitzball, according to Harold Simpson, _A Century of Ballads, 1810-1910_)
KEYWORDS: love courting marriage
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Waiting-for-a-Broadway-Stage-Songster, pp. 18-19, "Pretty Jane" (1 text)
Little-Maggie-May-Songster, p. 26, "My Pretty Jane" (1 text)
Wandering-Refugee-Songster, p. 6, "Pretty Jane" (1 text)
RovinIrishBoySongster, p. 48, "Pretty Jane" (1 text)
Roud #25872
NOTES [357 words]: The Levy collection has two different sheet music versions of this. One, from 1834, says is is "Arranged & Partly Composed by James G. Maeder." The other, which is undated, has the words as by Edward Fitzball and the music by Henry R. Bishop. The lyrics are the same or nearly. The music is not identical but is very similar except that the Maeder version is in A, the Bishop version in B flat. Given that Bishop is an established composer and Maeder is no one, I'd be inclined to trust the attribution to Bishop, but I can't prove it. Also, Fitzball worked with a lot of people, though very little of his work is now remembered.
Harold Simpson, A Century of Ballads, 1810-1910, Mills & Boon, 1910, p. 95, "Next of Bishop's ballads to 'Home, Sweet Home' in point of popularity is 'My Pretty Jane,' the words of which are by Edward Fitzball. This was first published under the title of 'The bloom is on the rye.' The story goes that Fitzball wrote the lyric when quite a young man, and found it some years afterwards in a drawer among a bundle of old papers. He sent it to Bishop, with whom he was then collaborating a good deal, and the latter set it, but thought so poorly of it that he threw it into the wastepaper basket, whence Fitzball luckly rescued it Of its production in public and its imediate success the author has the following to say in his Reminiscences: '"My Pretty Jane," inimitably sung by Robinson, made quite a furore; and was encored every night of the season. Bishop thought nothing of the melody; I do not believe he would have consented to its being sung but in a moment of necessity, when no other song could be supplied for Robinson."
According to the web site "The Works of James Joyce," this is used in Joyce's Ulysses -- "This song serves as the musical signature or leitmotiv for Leopold Bloom throughout the Sirens episode, the most musical chapter of the novel." (Checked July 29, 2025).
Keen-Love-Among-Der-Sweitzer-Songster, p. 64, has a song, "Pretty Jane," beginning "My pretty Jane, my pretty Jane, What makes you of me shy." It is not listed as a parody of this, but I feel confident that it is one. - RBW
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File: WBSS018

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