All Around My Hat (song)

The song "All Around my Hat" (Roud 567, Laws P31) is of nineteenth-century English origin.[citation needed] In an early version, dating from the 1820s, a Cockney costermonger vowed to be true to his fiancée, who had been sentenced to seven years' transportation to Australia for theft and to mourn his loss of her by wearing green willow sprigs in his hatband for "a twelve-month and a day," in a traditional symbol of mourning. The song was made famous by Steeleye Span in 1975.

In Ireland, Peadar Kearney adapted the song to make it relate to a Republican lass whose lover has died in the Easter Rising, and who swears to wear the Irish tricolor in her hat in remembrance inThe Tri-coloured Ribbon.

Contents
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 * 1 Synopsis
 * 2 Commentary
 * 2.1 Historical background
 * 2.1.1 Broadsides
 * 2.2 Textual variants
 * 2.3 Songs that refer to All Around My Hat (song)
 * 2.4 Motifs
 * 2.5 Television and movie references
 * 2.6 Recordings
 * 2.7 Musical variants
 * 2.8 Other songs with the same tune
 * 3 References
 * 4 External links

Synopsis[edit]
A young man is forced to leave his lover, usually to go to sea. On his return he finds her on the point of being married to another man. In some versions he goes into mourning, with the green willow as a symbol of his unhappiness (willow is considered to be a weeping tree). In other versions he reminds her of her broken promise, and she dies mysteriously. In some versions he simply contemplates his lover left behind, without actually returning to find her being married. In other versions, the young man is a street hawker who is mourning his separation from his lover who has been transported to Australia for stealing.

Commentary[edit]
The song has typical archetypal elements of the separated lovers, the interrupted wedding, and the inconsolable rejected lover. In the "Yellow Ribbon" variants, the adornment is a reminder of lost love, similar to Ireland's The Black Velvet Band.

Historical background[edit]
The song is found in England, Scotland and Canada, all seafaring nations. In Ireland it has been adapted to a modern conflict - the Irish Republican movement.

Broadsides[edit]
The Bodleian Library has a version. This version has some cockney words.

Textual variants[edit]
Sabine Baring-Gould printed a version in "A Garland of Country Song" in 1895. This version is very close to the best-known version, by Steeleye Span.[1] This is probably a more recent variant of the nineteenth-century song.
 * cf. "The Green Willow" ("All around my hat" lyrics)

Songs that refer to All Around My Hat (song)[edit]
Jasper Carrot sang a parody "It's my bloody ribbon and it's my bloody hat" at the Cambridge folk Festival in 1976.

Motifs[edit]
Motifs of the song include separated lovers, a broken token, and death for love, common themes in tragic love songs.

Television and movie references[edit]
The song She Wore a Yellow Ribbon appears in John Ford's film of the same name. In the 'Watching TV' episode of British television sitcom Men Behaving Badly, Gary and Dorothy repeatedly end up singing the Steeleye Span version of the song while trying to remember the theme tune to Starsky and Hutch. Paul Whitehouse also sings the first lines of the song in an episode of The Fast Show, changing a key word in each line with "arse".

Musical variants[edit]

 * She Wore a Yellow Ribbon

Other songs with the same tune[edit]

 * "The Death of Brush"
 * "The Jolly Miller"
 * "The Death of Brugh"