IT'S A LONG, LONG WAY TO TIPPERARY
Created on 04/01/2006Latest update on 05/04/2024
Artist: Cecilian Quartette
Author: Jack Judge/Harry Williams
Label: HMV
Year: 1913
Author Jack Judge, a music hall performer from Oldbury in the English Midlands, never set foot on Irish soil, let alone in Tipperary. Wrote it in less than a day and introduced it that same evening in the Grand Theatre in Stalybridge. Became the hit of WW I. In the opening weeks of that conflict, a Daily Mail reporter witnessed troops of the British Expeditionary Force singing it while they disembarked on French soil. Within days every newspaper had printed the lyrics and the record industry experienced its biggest hit to date. No wonder: this is pure homesickness coupled with an optimistic march pace.
Covers:
- 1913:
Harry Fay [for Zonophone]
- 1913:
Florrie Forde [Australian music hall star in England]
- 1914:
John McCormack [winning him his worldwide reputation as chief Irish tenor]
- 1914:
American Quintet [in Broadway musical Chin Chin]
- 1914:
Al Jolson [in revue Dancing Around]
- 1914:
7th Bn of the Connaught Rangers Regt of the British Army [counting many soldiers from Co. Tipperary in its ranks]
- 1942:
- 1943:
Bing Crosby & Dinah Shore [on V-Disc]
- 1958:
- 1960:
- 1962:
- 1964:
- 1968:
- 1972:
- 1983:
- 1993:
Wild Billy Childish & The Black Hands [ska version]
- 1999:
June Tabor [in medley with Bill Caddick's The Writing Of Tipperary, telling the story behind the song and its historical significance]
- 2001:
