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My Grandfather’s Clock

[ Roud 4326 ; Ballad Index RJ19076 ; Folkinfo 736 ; DT GRANCLOK ; Mudcat 15370 , 26132 ; Henry Clay Work]

George Townshend Ives sang My Grandfather’s Clock in a recording made by Brian Matthews in between 1960 and 1964 that was published in 2000 on his Musical Traditions anthology Come, Hand to Me the Glass. Rod Stradling noted:

Written in 1876 by Henry Clay Work (1832-1884), a Connecticut Yankee who, next to Stephen Foster was probably the most important American popular song writer of the nineteenth century. His main period of productivity dates from the 1860s and ’70s and he wrote some of the great songs of the Civil War. He was a staunch anti-slavery campaigner (his father had helped slaves escape) and a number of his songs passed into oral tradition and were reprinted on broadsheets. His songs included Marching Through Georgia, The Ship That Never Returned (Harry Upton of Balcombe used to sing this) and Father, Dear Father Come Home With Me Now. The tune and form of his Ring the Bell, Sextant became a number of other songs including Strike the Bell, Second Mate and Click Go the Shears. My Grandfather’s Clock is probably his most popular and enduring work, reprinted many times in popular song books.

This song must have been extremely popular in England in the early-middle years of the 20th century, since everyone used to know it in my younger days. Oddly, Roud has only 16 instances, and all but two of theses are from the USA or Canada—the two English versions being the sound recordings by George and by Charlie Pitman, of Padstow, Cornwall. Another song largely ignored by British collectors.

Charlie Pitman from St Ives sang My Grandfather’s Clock at the Ship in Wadebridge, Cornwall in a recording that was released in 1992 on his and Tommy Morrissey’s Veteran Tapes cassette of Cornish songs, Pass Around the Grog.

Dave Williams played the tune My Grandfather’s Clock on his 2003 Forest Tracks album You’re On Nipper!.

Bill Murray sang Grandfather’s Clock on his 2008 album Down ’pon Ole Dartymoor. He noted:

We thought about leaving out this track on account of the chaos in the last verse, but in doing so we would have deprived you of the chance to listen to Rob Murch’s great banjo playing. Anyway, I seldom manage to get through it without some problem, and so it is a fair reflection of what happens towards the end of one of our Dartmoor Evenings. It is a great song that has been around for many years; everyone knows the chorus, and of all the songs, it is the one that they were all prepared to join in with.

Lyrics

George Townshend sings My Grandfather’s Clock

My grandfather’s clock was too large for the shelf,
So it stood ninety years on the floor.
It was taller by half than the old man himself,
Though it weighed on a pennyweight more.
It was bought on the morn of the day that he was born,
And was always his treasure and pride –
But it stopped, short, never to go again, when the old man died.

Ninety years without slumbering – tick, tick, tick, tick …
His life’s seconds numbering – tick, tick, tick, tick …
It stopped, short, never to go again, when the old man died.

In watching its pendulum swing to and fro,
Many hours he had spent when a boy,
And his childhood and ’s manhood the clock seemed to know,
And to share all his grief and his joy.
For it stuck twenty-four, when he entered at the door
With a blooming and beautiful bride,
But it stopped …

My grandfather said, that of those he could hire,
Not a servant so faithful be found.
For it wasted no time and had no [but one] desire –
At the close of each week to be wound.
And it kept in its place, not a frown upon its face,
And its hands never hung by its side,
But it stopped …

It rang an alarm in the dead of the night –
An alarm that for years had been dumb,
And we knew that his spirit was blooming for flight –
That his hour of departure had come.
Still the clock kept the time, with a soft and muffled chime,
And we silently stood by his side,
But it stopped …

Ninety years without slumbering – tick, tick, tick, tick …
His life’s seconds numbering – tick, tick, tick, tick …
Stopped, short, never to go again, when the old man died.