MRS MCGRATH^©

Album's version

"Mrs McGrath," the sergeant said,
"Would you like a soldier out of your son Ted?
With a scarlet coat and a big cocked hat
Mrs McGrath will you like that?"

With your too-ri-aa fol-ded-dle-di-aa too-ri-oo-ri-oo-ri-aa
Too-ri-aa fol-did-dle-di-aa too-ri-oo-ri-oo-ri-aa

Now Mrs McGrath lived on the shore
And after seven years or more
She spied a ship come into the bay
With her son from far away

"O captain dear, where have ye been?
You been sailing the Mediterranean
Have you news of my son Ted
Is he living or is he dead?"

With your too-ri-aa fol-ded-dle-di-aa too-ri-oo-ri-oo-ri-aa
Too-ri-aa fol-did-dle-di-aa too-ri-oo-ri-oo-ri-aa

Then came Ted without any legs
And in their place two wooden pegs
She kissed him a dozen times or two
And said, "my God, Ted, is it you?

Now were ye drunk or were ye blind
When ye left your two fine legs behind?
Or was it walking upon the sea
That wore your two fine legs away?"

With your too-ri-aa fol-ded-dle-di-aa too-ri-oo-ri-oo-ri-aa
Too-ri-aa fol-did-dle-di-aa too-ri-oo-ri-oo-ri-aa
With your too-ri-aa fol-ded-dle-di-aa too-ri-oo-ri-oo-ri-aa
Too-ri-aa fol-did-dle-di-aa too-ri-oo-ri-oo-ri-aa

"Now I wasn't drunk and I wasn't blind
When I left my two fine legs behind
A cannonball on the fifth of May
Tore my two fine legs away"

"My, Teddy boy," the widow cried
"Your two fine legs were yer mother's pride
Stumps of a tree won't do at all
Why didn't ye run from the cannonball?"

With your too-ri-aa fol-ded-dle-di-aa too-ri-oo-ri-oo-ri-aa
Too-ri-aa fol-did-dle-di-aa too-ri-oo-ri-oo-ri-aa
With your too-ri-aa fol-ded-dle-di-aa too-ri-oo-ri-oo-ri-aa
Too-ri-aa fol-did-dle-di-aa too-ri-oo-ri-oo-ri-aa

"All foreign wars I do proclaim
Live on blood and a mother's pain
I'd rather have my son as he used to be
Than the King of America and his whole Navy"

With your too-ri-aa fol-ded-dle-di-aa too-ri-oo-ri-oo-ri-aa
Too-ri-aa fol-did-dle-di-aa too-ri-oo-ri-oo-ri-aa
With your too-ri-aa fol-ded-dle-di-aa too-ri-oo-ri-oo-ri-aa
Too-ri-aa fol-did-dle-di-aa too-ri-oo-ri-oo-ri-aa
With your too-ri-aa fol-ded-dle-di-aa too-ri-oo-ri-oo-ri-aa
Too-ri-aa fol-did-dle-di-aa too-ri-oo-ri-oo-ri-aa

Hey!

Page last updated: 27 Oct 2007

Bruce Springsteen recorded this traditional song with The Seeger Sessions Band during the "Seeger Sessions". The song is included on Bruce's 2006 cover album We Shall Overcome - The Seeger Sessions. The above lyrics are for Bruce's album version.

In late 1997, Bruce Springsteen agreed to record a song for a Pete Seeger tribute album on Appleseed Recordings, Where Have All The Flowers Gone. At the end of October, Jim Musselman, the activist lawyer who founded Applessed, sent Bruce a tape with 14 songs on it. MRS MCGRATH was one of them.

The Seeger Sessions consist of three recording sessions (02 Nov 1997, 19 Mar 2005, and 21 Jan 2006), during which all the album's songs were cut live in the living room of Bruce's New Jersey farmhouse. The songs were not rehearsed and all arrangements were conducted as Bruce and the band played. MRS MCGRATH was recorded on 19 Mar 2005, during the 2nd of the three sessions.

MRS MCGRATH was reported to be rehearsed for The Seeger Sessions Tour on 20 Mar and 06 Apr 2006 at the Paramount Theater, Asbury Park, NJ. It was played during all 4 public rehearsal shows for the tour - 20, 24, 25, and 26 Apr 2006 at the Convention Hall, Asbury Park, NJ. It was also reported to be rehearsed on 20 Sep 2006 at the Paramount Theatre, Asbury Park, NJ, during the private rehearsals for the fall 2006 European leg of the tour.

Note that the 20 Apr 2006 performance of the song was dedicated to activist Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a fallen veteran of the Iraqi War, who initiated protests against conflict by picketing Brush's ranch in Aug 2005.

The song was performed on all of the The Seeger Sessions Tour's 55 dates. The 17 Nov 2006 performance at The Point Theater, Dublin, Ireland, was officially released on Live In Dublin, both the CD and DVD. Check out the live 17 Nov 2006 version for more details.

The song was also performed during two off-tour stops:

• 30 Apr 2006 at New Orleans Fair Grounds, New Orleans, LA, (twice) when Springsteen and the Seeger Sessions Band closed the first weekend of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.
• 09 May 2006 at St. Lukes Church, London, UK, during the Sold On Song special for BBC. The show was broadcast on BBC Radio 2 (13 May 2006) and televised on BBC 2 (20 May 2006) and BBC 4 (19 May 2006).

Pete Seeger, to whom the above album is dedicated, has recorded a solo version of MRS MCGRATH in 1963. It is included on:

• We Shall Overcome: The Complete Carnegie Hall Recording June 8, 1963 (1989 - Columbia 45312)
• A Link In The Chain (1996 - Columbia/Legacy C2K 64772A)

The Weavers were the first to bring this Irish folk song to the US, when they recorded it in 1951. The song has a strong anti-war message and was a great favorite of the Irish Volunteers of the 1913-1916 Irish Rebellion. However, it dates back to the Napoleonic Wars; it is known from a Dublin broadside of 1815. The song is found in songbooks as both "Mrs. McGraw" and "Mrs. McGrath", and it is also known as "My Son John". Check out Dave Marsh's liner notes below for more details.

In Ireland, "McGrath" would be pronounced "McGrah", not "McGraw" as Dave Marsh writes in his liner notes.

"The fifth May" is from the 1808 Peninsular War which pitted an alliance of Spain, Portugal, and the United Kingdom against France on the Iberian Peninsula (modern day Spain, Portugal, Andorra, and Gibraltar) during the Napoleonic Wars. Mrs. McGrath's son enters the British Army who fought the French in Spain, and apparently, that's where he lost his legs.

Thanks Shawn O'Hare for the help on this page.

Dave Marsh's liner notes about MRS MCGRATH:

Very popular with the Irish Republicans, particularly during the Easter Rising of 1916, "Mrs McGrath" is much older, dating to the Napoleonic Wars. It is known from a Dublin broadside of 1815. (A broadside was a cheaply printed edition of a song's lyrics, usually with a well-known tune suggested as the melody, a practice that developed in the 1500s and last well into the nineteenth century.) when the foreign war referred to would have been not World War I, as commonly supposed, but the Peninsular Campaign of 1808-1814, part of the long battle against Napoleon. It was part of a whole stream of anti-recruiting songs that encouraged young men to resist entering the British Army. "Mrs McGrath" survives in part because of what Burl Ives called "the use of wit to paint a tragedy and make the telling bearable."

The song is sometimes known as "Mrs. McGraw"--in Irish, McGrath is pronounced McGraw.

"Mrs McGrath" has mostly been recorded by Irish singers such as the Clancy Brothers, the Dubliners, and Tommy Makem, although some American folksingers, including Ives and Ed McCurdy as well as Pete Seeger, both solo and with the Weavers, have done versions of it. Seeger's solo version is on A Link in the Chain and We Shall Overcome: The Complete Carnegie Hall Concert.