It's a Long Way to Tipperary
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"It's A Long Way To Tipperary" is a music hall and marching song written by Jack Judge and Harry (Henry James) Williams in 1912. The well known chorus is:
- It's a long way to Tipperary,
- It's a long way to go.
- It's a long way to Tipperary
- To the sweetest girl I know!
- Goodbye Piccadilly,
- Farewell Leicester Square!
- It's a long long way to Tipperary,
- But my heart's right there.
It was popularised by the Connaught Rangers as they marched through Boulogne on 13 August 1914, witnessed by Daily Mail correspondent George Curnock, and reported on 18 August 1914. It was then picked up by other soldiers in the British Army.
First sung on the British music hall stage in 1913 by Florrie Forde, it was featured as one of the songs in the 1968 musical Oh! What a Lovely War. It was also sung by the prisoners of war in Jean Renoir's film La Grande Illusion, by the crew of U-96 in Wolfgang Petersen's Das Boot (that particular arrangement was performed by the Red Army Chorus), and by the newsroom staff in the final episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It is also the second part (the other two being "Has Anyone Seen the Colonel?" and "Mademoiselle from Armentières") of the regimental march of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry.
This song is not to be confused with a popular song from 1907 simply titled "Tipperary". Both were sung at different times by early recording star Billy Murray. Murray, with the American Quartet, sang "It's A Long Way To Tipperary" as a straightforward march, complete with brass, drums and cymbals, with a quick bar of "Rule Britannia" thrown into the instrumental interlude between the first and second verse-chorus combination.
The song is often cited when documentary footage of World War I is presented. One example of its use is in the annual TV special It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Snoopy (who fancies himself a WWI flying ace) dances to a medley of WWI-era songs played by Schroeder. This song is included, and at that point Snoopy falls into a left-right-left marching pace.
One of the University of Missouri-Columbia's main fight songs, "Every True Son," uses the tune of It's A Long Way To Tipperary. The University of Oregon also uses the tune for Mighty Oregon.[1]
[edit] Verses as sung in early versions
- Up to mighty London
- Came an Irishman one day
- As the streets are paved with gold
- Sure, everyone was gay
- Singing songs of Piccadilly,
- Strand and Leicester Square
- Till Paddy got excited
- And he shouted to them there...
- It's a long way to Tipperary...
- Paddy wrote a letter
- To his Irish Molly-O,
- Saying, "Should you not receive it
- Write and let me know!"
- "If I make mistakes in spelling,
- Molly dear," said he,
- "Remember, it's the pen that's bad,
- Don't lay the blame on me!"
- It's a long way to Tipperary...
- Molly wrote a neat reply
- To Irish Paddy-O
- Saying Mike Maloney
- Wants to marry me and so
- Leave the Strand and Picadilly
- Or you'll be to blame
- For love has fairly drove me silly:
- Hoping you're the same!
- It's a long way to Tipperary...
An alternate concluding chorus, bawdy by contemporary standards:
- That's the wrong way to tickle Mary
- That's the wrong way to kiss
- Don't you know that over here lad
- They like it best like this
- Hooray pour la francais
- Farewell Angleterre
- We didn't know how to tickle Mary
- But we learnt how over there
