American Folksongs & Ballads

Canada I-O

 

Canada I-O

by John Fitzsimmons | The American Folk Experience

Come all ye jolly lumbermen, and listen to my song
But do not get discouraged, the length it is not long;
Concerning of some lumbermen, who did agree to go
To spend one pleasant winter up in Canada-I-O.

It happened late one season in the fall of fifty-three
A preacher of the gospel one morning came to me;
Says he, “My jolly fellow, how would you like to go
To spend one pleasant winter up in Canada-I-O?”

To him I quickly made reply, and unto him did say,
“In going out to Canada depends upon the pay.
If you will pay good wages, my passage to and fro,
I think I’ll go along with you to Canada-I-O.”

“Yes, we will pay good wages, and will pay your wages out,
Provided you sign papers that you will stay the route;
But if you do get homesick and swear that home you’ll go
We never can your passage pay from Canada-I-O.”

“And if you get dissatisfied and do not wish to stay,
We do not wish to bind you, no, not one single day,
You just refund the money we had to pay, you know,
Then you can leave that bonny place called Canada-I-O.

It was by his gift of flattery he enlisted quite a train,
Some twenty-five or thirty, both well and able men;
We had a pleasant journey o’er the road we had to go,
Till we landed at Three Rivers, up in Canada-I-O.

But there our joys were ended, and our sorrows did begin,
Fields, Phillips and Norcross they then came marching in.
They sent us all directions, some where I do not know,
Among those jabbering Frenchmen up in Canada-I-O.

After we had suffered there some eight or ten long weeks,
We arrived at headquarters, up among the lakes;
We thought we’d find a paradise, at least they told us so,
God grant there may be no worse hell than Canada-I-O.

To describe what we have suffered is past the art of man;
But to give a fair description I will do the best I can:
Our food the dogs would snarl at, our beds were on the snow,
We suffered worse than murderers up in Canada-I-O.

Our hearts were made of iron and our souls were cased with steel,
The hardships of that winter could never make us yield;
Fields, Phillips and Norcross they found their match, I know
Among the boys that went from Maine to Canada-I-O.

But now our lumbering is over and we are returning home,
To greet our wives and sweethearts and never more to roam;
To greet our friends and neighbors; we’ll tell them not to go
To that forsaken G—- D— place called Canada-I-O.

If you have any more information to share about this song or helpful links, please post as a comment. Thanks for stopping by the site! ~John Fitz

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I am indebted to the many friends who share my love of traditional songs and to the many scholars whose works are too many to include here. I am also incredibly grateful to the collector’s curators and collators of Wikipedia, Mudcat.org, MainlyNorfolk.info, and TheContemplator.com for their wise, thorough and informative contributions to the study of folk music. 

I share this scholarly research on my site with humility, thanks, and gratitude. Please cite sources accordingly with your own research. If you have any research or sites you would like to share on this site, please post in the comment box.  

Thanks!

Edit links
"Canada-I-O"
Song
Writtenbefore 1700
Songwriter(s)Traditional

"Canada-I-O" (also known as "Canadee-I-O" or "The Wearing of the Blue") is a traditional English folk ballad (Roud 309).[1] It is believed to have been written before 1839.[2]

When her love goes to sea, a lady dresses as a sailor and joins (his or another's) ship's crew. When she is discovered, (the crew/her lover) determine to drown her. The captain saves her and they marry.

Based on similarity of title, some connect this song with "Canaday-I-O, Michigan-I-O, Colley's Run I-O". There is no connection in plot, however, and any common lyrics are probably the result of cross-fertilization.

The Scottish song "Caledonia/Pretty Caledonia" is quite different in detail — so much so that it is separate from the "Canada-I-O" texts in the Roud Folk Song Index ("Canaday-I-O" is #309;[3] "Caledonia" is #5543). The plot, however, is too close for scholars to distinguish.

Broadsides

  • Bodleian, Harding B 11(1982), "Kennady I-o," J. Catnach (London), 1813-1838; also Firth c.12(329), Harding B 11(2039), "Lady's Trip to Kennedy"; Harding B 25(1045), "The Lady's Trip to Kennady"; Firth c.12(330), "Canada Heigho";[4] Firth c.13(240), Firth c.12(331), Harding B 11(2920), 2806 c.16(72), "Canada I, O"

Recordings

Alternative titles

[citation needed]

  • "Canada Heigho!!"
  • "Kennady I-o"
  • "Lady's Trip to Kennady"

Notes

References

  • Sam Henry, Sam Henry's Songs of the People (1990), H162, pp. 333–334, "Canada[,] Hi! Ho!" (1 text, 1 tune)
  • John Ord, Bothy Songs and Ballads (1930; Reprint edition with introduction by Alexander Fenton printed 1995), pp. 117–118, "Caledonia" (1 text)
  • MacEdward Leach, Folk Ballads & Songs of the Lower Labrador Coast (1965), 90, "Canadee-I-O" (1 text, 1 tune)
  • Maud Karpeles, Folk Songs from Newfoundland (1970), 48, "Wearing of the Blue" (1 text, 1 tune)
  • Helen Creighton, Folksongs from Southern New Brunswick (1971), 109, "She Bargained with a Captain" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
  • Dick Greenhaus & Susan Friedman (editors), "The Digital Tradition", CANADIO3* CALEDONIA*
  • Roud Folk Song Index #309 and 5543
  • Library and Archives Canada - Amicus #31009060



Source: Mainly Norfolk

Canadee-I-O

Roud 309 ; Ballad Index HHH162 ; Bodleian Roud 309 ; Wiltshire Roud 309 ; trad. arr. Nic Jones]

The ballad Canadee-I-O was printed in Leach, Folk Ballads & Songs of the Lower Labrador Coast.

Harry Upton of Balcombe, Sussex, sang Canadee-I-O to Peter Kennedy on September 5, 1963. This recording was included in 2012 on the Topic anthology of songs by Southern English singers, You Never Heard So Sweet (The Voice of the People Volume 21), and the song was included in 1970 in Ken Stubb’s book of English folk songs from the Home Counties, The Life of a Man. Another recording made by Mike Yates in 1974 was included in 1975 on the Topic collection of traditional songs from Sussex, Sussex Harvest, and in 2001 on the Musical Traditions anthology of songs from the Mike Yates Collection, Up in the North and Down in the South. Mike Yates commented in the latter’s booklet:

Canadee-I-O is something of a hybrid folksong, combining, as it does, two separate motifs; namely the girl who follows her truelove abroad, and the myth of the shipboard Jonah. As in many broadsides, however, there is a happy ending.

According to Frank Kidson, Canadee-I-O is a song which first appeared during the 18th century. In form, it is related to the Scots song Caledonia—versions of which were collected by Gavin Greig—although exactly which song came first is one of those ‘chicken and egg’ questions that so frequently beset folkmusic studies.

Harry Upton recalled singing this song in a Balcombe pub in 1940, and remained puzzled as to how a visiting Canadian soldier could join in a song which he believed to be known only to himself and his father. It could be argued that the Canadian might have more reasonably asked the question, since Harry is the sole English singer named among Roud’s 28 instances of the song.

Canadee-I-O is arguably Nic Jones’ best known song, recorded in 1980 for his Topic album Penguin Eggs. Bob Dylan recorded it also for his 1992 album,Good as I Been to You, John Wesley Harding for his Nic Jones tribute album, Trad Arr Jones, and Éilís Kennedy recorded Canadee-I-O in 2001 for on her debut CD Time to Sail.

Hannah Sanders sang Canadee-I-O in 2013 on her EP Warning Bells. She commented in her liner notes:

A beautiful traditional ballad, about a cross dressing sailor gal. This is how all good stories should begin! I doff my cap to Nic Jones’s version here.

Andy Turner sang Canadee-I-O as the September 6, 2014 entry of his project A Folk Song a Week.

The Outside Track sang Canadee-I-O in 2015 on their CD Light Up the Dark. They commented in their liner notes:

No album from a band with this many x-chromosomes in it would be complete without a story about a feisty girl on a mission. Nor only does she avoid walking the plank, but she arrives at her destination triumphant, ascending from stowaway to Captain’s Wife! One of the rarer cases where the song doesn’t end in death and destruction!

Matt Quinn learned Canadee-I-O from the singing of Harry Upton and recorded it for his 2017 CD The Brighton Line. He commented:

A girl escapes being thrown overboard by the ship’s crew when the captain falls in love with her. Well that’s one way to thwart death… Harry sang this to Mike Yates in the mid 1970s and he remains one of the [few] English traditional singers from whom it has been collected.

Lyrics

Nic Jones sings Canadee-I-O

It’s of a fair and handsome girl, she’s all in her tender years:
She fell in love with a sailor boy, it’s true that she loved him well,
For to go off to sea with him like she did not know how,
She longed to see that seaport town called Canadee-I-O.

So she bargained with a young sailor boy, it’s all for a piece of gold.
Straightway then he led her all down into the hold,
Saying, “I’ll dress you up in sailor’s clothes, your jacket shall be blue,”
You’ll see that seaport town called Canadee-I-O.

Now when the other sailors heard the news, well they fell into a rage
And with all the whole ship’s company they were willing to engage,
Saying, “We’ll tie her hands and feet me boys, overboard we’ll throw her.
She’ll never see that seaport town called Canadee-I-O.”

Now when the captain he’s heard the news, well he too fell in a rage
And with all of his whole ship’s company he was willing to engage,
Saying, “She’ll stay all in sailor’s clothes, her collar shall be blue.
She’ll see that seaport town called Canadee-I-O.”

Now when they came down to Canada, scarcely ’bout half a year
She’s married this bold captain who called her his dear.
She’s dressed in silks and satins now, and she cuts a gallant show,
She’s the finest of the ladies down Canadee-I-O.

Come you fair and tender girls wheresoever you may be,
I’ll have you to follow your own true love, when he goes out on the sea.
For if the sailors prove false to you, well the captain he might prove true,
You see the honour that I have gained by the wearing of the blue.

Digital Tradition version

It’s of a gallant lady, just in the prime of youth.
She dearly loved a sailor; in fact, she loved to wed,
And how to get to sea with him the way she did not know,
All for to see this pretty place called Canadee-I-O.

She bargained with a sailor all for a purse of gold,
And straightway he had taken her right down into the hold,
“I’ll dress you up in sailor suit; your colours shall be blue
And you soon will see that pretty place, called Canadee-I-O,”

When our mate had heard this, he fell into a rage,
Likewise our ship’s company was willing to engage:
“I’ll tie your hands and feet, my love, and overboard you’ll go,
And you’ll never see the pretty place called Canadee-I-O.”

And when the captain heard this: “This thing shall never be,
For if you drown that fair maid, hanged sure you’ll be;
I’ll take her to my cabin, her colours shall be blue,
And she soon will see that pretty place called Canadee-I-O.”

They had not arrived in Canada more than the space of half a year,
Before the Captain married her, and called her his very dear.
She can dress in silk or satin; she caught a gallant show;
She was one of the fairest ladies in Canadee-I-O.

Come all ye, young ladies, whoever you may be,
To be sure and follow your true love, if ever he goes to sea,
And if your mate, he do prove false, you’re captain he’ll prove true,
And you’ll see the honour I have gained by wearing of the blue

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Garry Gillard for transcribing Nic Jones’ lyrics.

Performances, Workshops, Resources & Recordings

The American Folk Experience is dedicated to collecting and curating the most enduring songs from our musical heritage.  Every performance and workshop is a celebration and exploration of the timeless songs and stories that have shaped and formed the musical history of America. John Fitzsimmons has been singing and performing these gems of the past for the past forty years, and he brings a folksy warmth, humor and massive repertoire of songs to any occasion. 

Festivals & Celebrations
Coffeehouses School
Assemblies

Library Presentations
Songwriting Workshops
Artist in Residence House
Concerts
Pub Singing
Irish & Celtic
Performances

Poetry Readings
Campfires

Music Lessons
Senior Centers
Voiceovers & Recording

“Beneath the friendly charisma is the heart of a purist gently leading us from the songs of our lives to the timeless traditional songs he knows so well…”

 

Globe Magazine

Join Fitz at The Colonial Inn

“The Nobel Laureate of New England Pub Music…”

Scott Alaric

Adventures in the Modern Folk Underground

On the Green, in Concord, MA Every Thursday Night for over thirty years…

“A Song Singing, Word Slinging, Story Swapping, Ballad Mongering, Folksinger, Teacher, & Poet…”

Theo Rogue

Songcatcher Rag

Fitz’s Recordings

& Writings

Songs, poems, essays, reflections and ramblings of a folksinger, traveler, teacher, poet and thinker…

Download for free from the iTunes Bookstore

“A Master of Folk…”

The Boston Globe

Fitz’s now classic recording of original songs and poetry…

Download from the iTunes Music Store

“A Masterful weaver of song whose deep, resonant voice rivals the best of his genre…”

Spirit of Change Magazine

“2003: Best Children’s Music Recording of the Year…”

Boston Parent's Paper

Fitz & The Salty Dawgs Amazing music, good times and good friends…

Listen here

TheCraftedWord.org

Writing help

when you need it…

“When the eyes rest on the soul…that’s Fitzy…”

Lenny Megliola

WEEI Radio

Trawler

Leave the fog stillness
of a cold harbor town;
cup our hands
in the warm diesel sound—
leave while the children
are calmed in their dreams
by light buoys calling:
“Don’t play around me.”

The Fallacy of Philanthropy

There are thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one striking at the root. ~Henry David Thoreau     I just spent a long day deconstructing our backyard. EJ sold his alpacas, and so our fenced in pasture and barn can now return to its suburban origins as a shed...

Ready. Set. Go.

Who forgets to rinse his hair? Me, I guess, for that was the start of my day. I smelled something like coconut oil on my way to school, and then I realized, dang, my hair is still pretty wet. Wet with hair conditioner. And then I get sot school all coconutty smelling...

Diesel Lullaby

I've been spending a lot of time lately writing sketches of songs—some more complete than others. I have found that it takes time for a song to evolve into its final form, so what I have posted here is more the end of the beginning, not the end. Denise gave me the...

Life Outside the Curriculum

“My teachers could have written with Jesse James for all time they stole from us...” ~Richard Brautigan, “Trout Fishing in America”        My classroom is often a bit of a mess—a mass of sprawled bodies scattered around like casualties of battle, ensconced in various...

Redefining Literacy

 My life is the poem I could have writ, But I could not both live and utter it ~Henry David Thoreau    The common man goes to an orchard to taste the fruit. The rich man man learns how to plant his own orchard. The poet, however,  grows an even better fruit and gives...

Winter in Caribou

I know your name. It’s written there.
I wonder if you care.
A six-pack of Narragansett beer,
Some Camels and the brownie over there.
Every day I stop by like I
Got some place I’ve got to go;
I’m buying things I don’t really need:
I don’t read the Boston Globe.

But I, I think that I
Caught the corner of your eye.
But why, why can’t I try
To say the things I’ve got inside
To you ….

Make Something out of Something

It's hard to make chicken salad out of chicken manure      Dirty hands are a good sign, so hopefully, you got some mental mud on your hands and created some content to work with today.  To a starving man, any food is good food--unless it...

The Nagging Thing

Not many more nights like this, warm enough to sit outside on the back porch. The kids and Denise long asleep. Usually, during the school year, this is my "time" to catch up on schoolwork--grading, posting the assignments for the week and playing the general catchup...

A New Hearth

It has been a long time since I wrote a simple old "this is what I am going to do today" post. So this is what I am going to do today: [and trust me, it will have nothing--absolutely nothing--to do with school work:)] Before the true winter settles in, I am going to...

Garden Woman

I woke today and had my tea
and at the window spent the morning:
the same scene I’ve seen so many times
is each day freshly born;
from the ground I turn each spring and fall
come the flowers sweetly blooming;
you disappear among the weeds—
you are the garden woman.

China Journal: Part Two

II The grass grows. The rain falls Nothing is done. Nothing is left undone ~Buddha   A day can be perfect. I have to believe this. Today was. Is. Is was a day in china. The sun breaking through today after yesterday’s typhoon. Lazy walk to the coffee shop....

The March Snow

An early March snow brought down all these branches Cracking and crashing throughout a long night, Piling them impatiently in the yard Like jacksticks in a child’s messy room. The stepladder I used to rake the ridge Stands like an awkward sculpture draped in white...

Doing What Needs To Be Done

The rain falls;The grass grows:Nothing is done.Nothing is left undone~Buddha        Sometimes you just do what you got to do, and that never changes from the first time you take out the trash as a kid until the time in life where you are taking care of little chores...

There is in an easiness

When I begin to think of myself. My girded shell squeezing Oysters in a jar; My oily viscera Jammed and joggled Into impossible places. My pancreas Is never where it should be; My esophagus cut cleanly Swirls in a diaspora. My tongue is a trapped In a tangle of...

Know Thyself…

Writing a Metacognition Know Thyself… Explore, Assess, Reflect & Rethink If we don’t learn from what we do, we learn little of real value. If we don’t make the time to explore, reflect and rethink our ways of doing things we will never grow, evolve and reach our...

Zenmo Yang Ni

I lost the time I hardly knew you,
half-assed calling:
“How you doing?
Laughing at my hanging hay field;
I never knew the time
that tomorrow’d bring,
until it brung to me.

Yuan lai jui shuo: “Zenmoyang ni?”
Xianzai chang shu: “Dou hai keyi”;
Xiexie nimen, dou hen shang ni.
Xiwang wo men dou hen leyi
Dou hen leyi

Crows & Swallows Release

There is seldom a red-carpet celebration when a book of poetry is released, so I will keep this a quiet and humble affair. My newest book of poetry, “Crows & Swallows” is now on iBooks, so fresh you can almost smell the ink. My business model is unchanged: It is a...

A New Beginning

 I guess if there is any constant in my life, it is new beginnings.  This blog--and this website--is another new beginning starting here late on a cold night on my back porch. I've been keeping a blog (in fact several blogs) since the first blogs made their way on to...

Out of the Forge: April 13, 2017

In my forty years or so of actively singing and playing folk music and writing songs, I have played together with a remarkably narrow list of musical partners: Rogue, Wally and Barry with camp songs and Hatrack and Seth with literally everything. These last few years...

The Late and Lazy Teacher

I guess this is a good thing. I showed up five minutes late for class, and my classroom was empty. I walked the hallways of the school and could not find any of them. I sheepishly asked the assistant headmaster if he "happened to see a class of wandering boys?"No, he...

Searching for an Alibi

Here I am out on the road again
and it feels longer than it was back then;
when I was younger, man, it saw me through—
now it don’t do
what I want it to—

Too ra loo ra loo ra lady I—
I’m just out searching for an alibi
Too ra loo ra loo ra lady I
I’m just out searching for an alibi.

The Mystery Within

EJ wanted a banana tree for Christmas so that early morning brought a plastic bag, a few meager roots and no directions. I bought some potting soil and a square cedar box EJ placed deliberately by a westward window. He gently splayed the roots, pressed the soil, and...

Weeds

  Somewhere locked in this choke of weeds spread like a mangy carpet is the hardened vine of Pipo’s Concord Grape he planted in an eager spring three years ago. Gasping for air and sun and water perhaps it has found some way to hide from my flailing hoe and the...

Creating a Digital Workflow in the Classroom

One Teacher’s Solution To Everything  Years of teaching woodshop at my school has reinforced in me the utility of developing a workflow that works best for the project at hand using the tools and equipment already in the shop. The same can be said of my other life as...

The Fisher

To cast far is to cast well. I’ve always believed that the biggest fish are just beyond my range and lie in dark water I could never swim to. But experience is the wisdom that has me now casting closer to shore, nearest the reeds and overgrowth — a subtleness geared...

Joshua Sawyer

I doubt I’d ever have taken this road
had I known how fallen it really was
to disrepair: driving comically,
skirting ruts and high boulders, grimacing
at every bang on the oil pan.
I tell you it’s the old road to Wendell —
that they don’t make them like this anymore.

Raccoon

I’ve stopped the chinks with newspaper and rags wedged tightly against the wind blowing cold three days now. I feed the fire and curse its hissing and steaming mixing green oak with sticks of dried pine calling myself Raccoon grown fat in the suburbs sleeping in...

Waiting for a Poem

  It’s not like a poem to come curl by my feet on this morning too beautiful to describe, though I am looking and listening and waiting: A rooster crows above the low hum of morning traffic; the trash truck spills air from brakes and rattles empties into bins; my...

Ring of Fire: The Power of Simplicity

In fifth grade my mother finally let me go to the Concord Music store and buy a "45" single.  I bought Johnny Cash’s version of “Ring of Fire” written by his future wife June Carter and Merle Kilgore, a noted country songwriter of his day. There was no doubt in my...

The Small Potato

Maybe there is a God. I just came home and sat down in the kitchen to grade some papers and input some grades, but the internet is buggy and slow, and I thought, "maybe this is the message" that I am trading my soul for work. I even remember myself  pontificating in...

Molting

I am always molting; leaving my hollowed skin in awkward places, scaring people and making them jump. They touch me and think I’m real; then laugh and say things like “What a riot.” I’m tired of this changing of skins. I’d rather stumble on myself and be fooled; and...

Ghetto of Your Eye

I wrote this song back in the winter of 1989, in the dining car of a steam driven train, somewhere along the Trans-Siberian railway, after meeting a group of Russian soldiers fresh from battle in Afghanistan—that poor country that has been a battleground for way too long.

We stare together hours the snow whipped Russian plain—
rolling in the ghetto of your eye.
We share a quart of vodka
and some cold meat on the train—
you know too much to even wonder why;
I see it in the ghetto of your eye.

The Snow

has dropped a seamlessness before the plows and children can patch it back to a jagged and arbitrary quilting putting borders to design and impulse. I imagine myself falling everywhere softly, whispering, I am here, and I am here.

A Redemptive Moment

I see the clock ticking towards 7:00. The kids are deep in their weekday world of homework, juggling soccer balls around the house, watching TV, but I am in my “got to rally” and get to the inn mode that happens very Thursday. Tonight I am tired. I’ll admit it, but...

Paris: 11/13/15

It is a sad day for humanity. Another sad day on top of many others happening every day--many in places we hear about only obliquley and sometimes not at all. Paris is that much closer to home for most of us here and in Europe, but freedom and tolerance has to...

The Litter in Concord

I have been following a Facebook thread about the movement in my beloved hometown of Concord to ban plastic water bottles, plastic bags and styrofoam cups. I am trying to discern whether or not my initial responses are pure and true and not simply reactionary and...

The Value of a Classic

“Classic' - a book which people praise and don't read.” ~Mark Twain A note to my 8th grade class:      All of you are supposedly reading a classic book, but what Twain says is true: few of us go thirsty to the well and willingly read the greatest works of literature...

A Hard Sell

     As a teacher, I am tired of the word blog, probably because the word “blogging” is incredibly limiting and myopic, especially for someone whose teaching is centered around an online curriculum with blogs front and center on my academic table. I sat through a...

Thanksgiving

I am surprised sometimesby the suddenness of November:beauty abruptly shedto a common nakedness--grasses deadenedby hoarfrost,persistent memoriesof people I’ve lost.It is left to those of us dressed in the hard barky skin of experienceto insist on a decorumthat rises...

Contact John Fitzsimmons...and thanks!