Ten Thousand Miles Away

DESCRIPTION: "Sing ho! for a brave and a gallant ship, And a fair and fav'ring breeze, With a bully crew and a captain too To carry me over the seas...." The singer wishes for a ship to carry him to his sweetheart, transported to Botany Bay "ten thousand miles away"
AUTHOR: see NOTES
EARLIEST DATE: before 1867 (broadside, Bodleian Harding B 11(3763))
KEYWORDS: love separation transportation ship
FOUND IN: Australia US(NE,Ro) Britain(England(South),Scotland(Aber)) Ireland
REFERENCES (28 citations):
Gardham-EarliestVersions, "TEN THOUSAND MILES AWAY"
Colcord-SongsOfAmericanSailormen, pp. 159-161, "Ten Thousand Miles Away" (1 text, 1 tune)
Harlow-ChantyingAboardAmericanShips, pp. 116-118, "Ten Thousand Miles Away" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hugill-ShantiesFromTheSevenSeas, pp. 409-410, "Ten Thousand Miles Away" (1 text, 1 tune) [AbEd, pp. 311-312]
Huntington-TheGam-MoreSongsWhalemenSang, p. 194, "Ten Thousand Miles Away" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
Meredith/Anderson-FolkSongsOfAustralia, pp. 84-85, 272-273, "Ten Thousand Miles Away" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Meredith/Tritton-DukeOfTheOutback, pp. 82-83, "Ten Thousand Miles Away" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fahey-Eureka-SongsThatMadeAustralia, pp. 31-32, "Ten Thousand Miles Away" (1 text, 1 tune)
Flanders/Brown-VermontFolkSongsAndBallads, pp. 148-149, "Ten Thousand Miles Away" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lane/Gosbee-SongsOfShipsAndSailors, pp. 70-71, "Ten Thousand Miles Away" (1 text, 1 tune)
Sandburg-TheAmericanSongbag, pp. 100-101, "Ten Thousand Miles Away" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hubbard-BalladsAndSongsFromUtah, #71, "Ten Thousand Miles Away" (1 text, 1 tune)
Copper-SongsAndSouthernBreezes, pp. 232-233, "Blow the Winds I Oh" (1 text, 1 tune)
Manifold-PenguinAustralianSongbook, pp. 8-9, "Ten Thousand Miles Away" (1 text, 1 tune)
Greig-FolkSongInBuchan-FolkSongOfTheNorthEast #169, p. 2, "Blow Ye Winds" (1 text)
Greig/Duncan6 1102, "Blow Ye Winds, Ay Oh" (6 texts plus a single verse on p. 544, 4 tunes)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 86, "Ten Thousand Miles Away" (1 text)
GusWilliamsLeedleGermanBandSongster, p. 14, "Ten Thousand Miles Away" (1 text, with a parody on p. 15, "Dree Dousand Miles Avay")
JohnnyRoach-NewVarietySongster, p. 36, "Three Thousand Miles Away" (1 text, in which, despite the title, the girl is ten thousand miles away)
CentralParkShowSongster, p. 11, "Ten Thousand Miles Away" (1 text)
Howes-GreatLondonFemaleMinstrelSongster, p. 26, "Ten Thousand Miles Away" (1 text)
Harrigan-Hart-MulcaheyTwinsSongster, p. 57, "Ten Thousand Miles Away" (1 text)
KissBehindTheDoorSongster, p 56, "Ten Thousand Miles Away" (1 text)
AgnesWallace-LittleGemSongster, p. 39, "Ten Thousand Miles Away" (1 text)
FolkSongAndMusicHall, "Ten thousand miles away"
DT, THOUSMIL*
ADDITIONAL: Hugh Anderson, _Farewell to Judges and Juries: The Broadside Ballad and Convict Transportation to Australia, 1788-1868_, Red Rooster Press, 2000, p. 52, "Ten Thousand Miles Away" (1 text, with tune on p. 540)
Tristram P. Coffin and Hennig Cohen, _Folklore in America: Tales, Songs, Superstitions, Proverbs, Riddles, Games, Folk Drama and Folk Festivals_, Doubleday, 1966, pp. 68-69, "Ten Thousand Miles Away" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #1778
RECORDINGS:
Robert Cinnamond, "Ten Thousand Miles Away" (on IRRCinnamond03)
Eugene Jemison, "Ten Thousand Miles Away" (on Jem01)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 11(3763), "Ten Thousand Miles Away" ("Sing oh! for a brave and valiant bark"), J. Harkness (Preston), 1840-1866; also Firth c.13(286), 2806 c.16(88), Harding B 16(286c), "Ten Thousand Miles Away"
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "A Capital Ship" (tune & meter)
cf. "Ho for California (Banks of Sacramento)" (tune & meter)
cf. "The Old Palmer Song" (tune)
cf. "Forsaken Folk Maun Live" (tune, per Greig/Duncan6)
SAME TUNE:
The Old Palmer Song (File: PASB038)
No More Shall I Work in the Factory (File: Grnw122)
Blackwell's Island ("Sing I of a gallant Isle, my boys, not many miles away, Where there's lots of time for digging stone And little time for play") (DollyVardenSongster, p, 22)
NOTES [112 words]: FolkSongAndMusicHall thinks this was composed by the music hall writer J. B. Geoghegan. The alternative is that it is a traditional song taken over by Geoghegan. Which hypothesis is more likely depends very much on the exact date of the Harkness broadside, which is sadly uncertain. If the broadside is from Harkness's last years in business, then Geoghegan's claim is likely correct. But if the broadside is early, the song must be from another source.
There is also the interesting fact that, by 1870 or so, people were rewriting the song to make the distance three thousand miles rather than ten thousand. As best I can tell, this was mostly an American phenomenon. - RBW
Last updated in version 7.2
File: MA084

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