Oh My Darling, Clementine
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"Oh My Darling, Clementine" is an American western folk ballad usually credited to Percy Montrose (1884), though sometimes to Barker Bradford. The song is believed to have been based on another called "Down by the River Liv'd a Maiden" by H. S. Thompson (1863).
The words are those of a bereaved lover singing about his darling, the daughter of a "49er", (a miner in the 1849 California Gold Rush). He loses her in a drowning accident – though he consoles himself towards the end of the song with Clementine's "little sister".
Oh My Darling, Clementine has become popular, especially with Scouts and other groups of young people, as a campfire and excursion song, and there are several different versions of the words. (There is even a Scottish version, the Climbing Clementine, which begins "In a crevice, high on Nevis...") The lyrics most often sung are those shown below.
The verse about the little sister was often left out of folk song books intended for children, presumably because it seemed morally questionable.
The song was used as the title of the 1946 film My Darling Clementine, which tells the tale of the Gunfight at the OK corral in Tombstone, Arizona. In the film Wyatt Earp falls in love with a school-teacher called Clementine. It is also a famous catchphrase of cartoon character Huckleberry Hound, who would sing it horrendously off-key.
Tom Lehrer wrote a parody of the song, "improving" it by singing each verse in the style of a famous artist or genre: Cole Porter, Mozart, Jazz and Gilbert and Sullivan. It was also parodied on Red Dwarf, where Lister sings the first verse, taking place in an asteroid, with an old plutonium miner. The Clementine mission was named after the song, as (once it is complete) the spacecraft was "lost and gone forever".
In his book South from Granada, Gerald Brenan attributes the melody to originally being an old Spanish ballad, which was made popular by Mexican miners during the Gold Rush, and given various English texts. No particular source is cited to verify that the song he used to hear in the 1920s in a remote Spanish village was not an old text with new music, but Brenan states in his preface that all facts mentioned in the book have been checked reasonably well.
Contents |
[edit] Lyrics
- In a cavern, in a canyon,
- Excavating for a mine
- Dwelt a miner forty niner,
- And his daughter Clementine.
- Refrain:
- Oh my darling, oh my darling,
- Oh my darling, Clementine!
- You were lost and gone forever
- Dreadful sorry, Clementine.
- Light she was and like a fairy,
- And her shoes were number nine,
- Herring boxes, without topses,
- Sandals were for Clementine.
- Refrain
- Drove she ducklings to the water
- Ev'ry morning just at nine,
- Stubbed her toe against a splinter,
- Fell into the foaming brine.
- Refrain
- Ruby lips above the water,
- Blowing bubbles, soft and fine,
- But, alas, I was no swimmer,
- So I lost my Clementine.
- Refrain
- How I missed her! How I missed her,
- How I missed my Clementine,
- But I kissed her little sister,
- I forgot my Clementine.
- Refrain
- Then the miner, forty-niner,
- Soon began to peak and pine,
- Thought he oughter join his daughter,
- Now he's with his Clementine.
- Refrain
- In a corner of the churchyard,
- Where the myrtle boughs entwine,
- Grow the roses and the posies,
- Fertilized by Clementine.
- Refrain
- In my dreams she still doth haunt me,
- Robed in garments soaked in brine;
- How in life I used to hug her,
- Now she's dead, I draw the line.
[edit] Older Version of the Lyrics
- In the centre of a golden valley,
- Dwelt a maiden all divine,
- A pretty creature a miner's daughter
- And her name was Clementine.
- Refrain
- Oh my darling, oh my darling,
- My darling Clementine,
- You are lost for me forever,
- Dreadful sorry, Clementine.
- Her noble father was the foreman
- Of ev'ry valued mine,
- And ev'ry miner and ranchman
- Was a brother to Clementine.
- The foreman miner, an old forty niner,
- In dreams and thoughts sublime,
- Lived in comfort with his daughter,
- His pretty child Clementine.
- When far away, he would often pray
- That in his sunny clime
- No harm might overtake her,
- His favorite nugget, Clementine.
- When the day was done and the setting sun
- Its rays they ceased to shine,
- Homeward came the brawney miner
- To caress his Clementine.
- None was nearer, none was dearer,
- Since the days of forty-nine
- When, in youth, he had another
- Who was then his Clementine.
- She led her ducks down to the river,
- The weather it was fine,
- Stubbed her toe against a sliver,
- Fell into the raging brine.
- He heard her calling: father,
- Her voice was like a chime,
- But alas he was no swimmer,
- So he lost his Clementine
[edit] Funny Version of the Lyrics - Last Verse
- Listen Boy Scouts, heed the warning
- In this tragic tale of mine,
- Artificial respiration,
- Would have saved My Clementine!
[edit] Clementine in Pop Culture
Oh My Darling, Clementine is a song commonly sung by Huckleberry Hound. It is also the inspiration for Kate Winslet's character's name in the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Clementine Kruczynski.
Oh My Darling, Clementine is referenced in the song "Clementine" by Elliott Smith.
It also featured in Back to the Future Part III (1990).
The song has been adopted by various football teams in the UK as a popular terrace chant.
Tom Lehrer had his own interpretation of this classic.
The tune to this ballad is also frequently adapted by secondary school teachers worldwide to teach about matrix multiplication:
- Row by column, row by column
- Multiply them line by line
- Add the products, form a matrix
- Now you're doing it just fine.
The authorship of this version has been disputed, but is most frequently attributed to the mathematician/musician Aaron B. Barnett.
