Sweet Molly Malone
In response to my Dad's comment in the last post, I have to say I didn't remember the exact lyrics, but it did conjure up the image I always envisioned when I heard it sung, of a tattered and dirty little barefoot orphan girl pushing a wheelbarrow filled with cockles and mussels down a cobblestone street and then dying in a doorway alone, hungry, and sick.
Yeah. Happy song. It is a pretty melody though. Aren't they all? You gotta listen to the words to get thoroughly depressed. Of course, I had to then go and look up the lyrics on the interwebs. The song goes like this:
In Dublin's fair city,
Where girls are so pretty,
I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone,
As she pushed her wheelbarrow
Through streets broad and narrow,
Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh"!
Chorus:
Alive, alive oh! alive, alive oh!
Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh"!
Now she was a fishmonger,
And sure 'twas no wonder,
For so were her mother and father before.
And they each wheeled their barrow,
Through streets broad and narrow,
Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh"!
Chorus:
Alive, alive oh! alive, alive oh!
Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh"!
She died of a fever,
And no one could save her,
And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone.
Now her ghost wheels her barrow,
Through streets broad and narrow,
Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh"!
Chorus:
Alive, alive oh! alive, alive oh!
Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh"!
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