Sheet Music HAS FATHER BEEN HERE? drunkenness 1870

Antique piano sheet music with vocal line - key of E flat maj in 6/8 - HAS FATHER BEEN HERE? Words and music by E. W. Locke. Boston: G. D. Russell & Co., 1870. Measures 13-1/4 x 10-3/8", 3 leaves, 6 pp. Back page with publisher's ads, back of first leaf blank. Four-verse song with chorus in four parts.

This interesting song tells the story of a boy's dealing with his father's drunkenness with great emotion. In the first verse, he addresses the bartender asking about the whereabouts of father, who has made mother fearful because he didn't come home. In the second verse, he addresses a policeman and discovers that Father has been arrested - and the boy knows "it was drinking that made him do wrong". In the third verse, he implores the jailer to let him see Father, but it is not allowed. In the fourth verse, he keeps a vigil outside the jail long into the night, but finally departs exhausted "thro' darkness to home sad as death". On the way he makes a solemn vow never to drink. The the chorus expresses his hope for his father and family: "Oh! 'twas not my father who did the bad deed, 'Twas drinking that maddened brain....Oh! let him go home to dear mother, I plead. I'm sure he;'kll not touch it again, I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure he'll not touch it again." Song represents the late Victorian sentiment for prohibition that culminated in the early 20th century with Prohibition.

CONDITION: Once bound in a personal music folio - extreme left edge has residue and pocking from that; leaves still bound together. Crisp with minor yellowing but little sign of wear.

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