DANA@50 Old Maid in the Garret 1974 (FoD#81)

What would have become of DANA had she not won Eurovision in 1970? Rosemary Brown would've become a music teacher, entertaining her classes with singalongs like this. With Miss Brown as your teacher you'd never want to skip a lesson. This rendition of Old Maid in the Garret is surely one of the best. Ten out of ten and a gold star for DANA and the enthusiastic pupils of 73 Clarendon Street in Derry, the location of the ballet school where she was once a pupil. There's even a picture of her on the mantelpiece, next to the snowdrops (not) and daffodils.

I have often heard it said by me father and me mother
That going to a wedding was the makings of another
Now if this be so, sure I'd go without a bidding
Oh kind providence, won't you send me to a wedding

For it's oh dear me, how would it be
If I die an old maid in the garret

Well now there's me sister Jean, she's not handsome or good-looking
Scarcely sixteen and this fellow she was courting
Now she's twenty-four with a son and a daughter
Here am I forty-five and I've never had an offer

And it's oh dear me, how would it be
If I die an old maid in the garret

Well I cook and I can sew, I can make the house right tidy
Rise up in the morning and get the breakfast ready
But nothing in this wide world would make me half so cheery
As a wee fat man that would call me his own deary

And it's oh dear me, how would it be
If I die an old maid in the garret

Oh, but I'm away home, sure there's nobody heeding
There's nobody heeding to poor DANA's pleading
I'm away home to me own wee bit garret
If I can't get a man then I'll surely get a parrot

For it's oh dear me, how would it be
If I die an old maid in the garret

Yes it's oh dear me, how would it be
If I die an old maid in the garret

Trivia 1: This traditional Irish folk song dates back to the 17th century. What is a garret? "A garret is a habitable attic, a living space at the top of a house or larger residential building, often small, dismal, and cramped, with sloping ceilings. In the days before elevators this was the least prestigious position in a building." (Wikipedia)

Trivia 2: This film dates back to the 20th century. It comes from a DANA documentary made in 1974 by Canadian Jim Swackhammer, called Who is Rosemary Brown?