Songs of Ulysses Online
All recordings are on YouTube. Click the link to go to the YouTube page, which will open in a new browser window, or use the viewers on this page. F.F. Simulations has made no determination whether any of the following videos were posted in violation of copyright law. See, Copyright on YouTube which will open in a new browser window.
For a list of 353 songs that are referenced or alluded to in Ulysses, click here. The link is to the blog Ulysses Pages, which is part of the "Joyce project," an effort "to annotate all James Joyce's published works." The blog page will open in a new browser window.
Readily recognizable tune that could serve as the novel's signature song. Mentioned in the "Calypso, Sirens, Circe, and Ithaca" episodes. Music by James Lynam Molloy, lyrics by G. Clifton Bingham (1884). Patricia Hammond accompanied by Michael Brough.
This is Molly's song. She was singing it when Bloom arrived at Matt Dillon's and probably first met his bride-to-be.* Noted in "Sirens and Penelope." Music by Harrison Millard, lyrics by Ellen H. Flagg (1867). Sung by Edith Chapman.
* Their first meeting might also had been at the home of Luke Doyle. Luca Crispi, "Some Textual and Factual Discrepancies in James Joyce's Ulysses: The Blooms' Several 'First Nights'," Variants 12-13 (2016): 104-24.
Molly's follow-up tune to "Waiting" at Matt Dillon's. Mentioned in "Sirens, Eumaeus, and Penelope." Music by Henry Tortere, lyrics by Clifton Bingham (1890). Sung by Robert Howe.
Sung by Ben Dollard at the Ormond Hotel bar; "Sirens." Poem by an unknown Irish author set to a traditional Irish folk tune. An 1845 poem by Carroll Malone, "Croppy Boy," is also sung to the same tune. Sung by Anthony Kearns.
Popular aria from Martha sung by Simon Dedalus at the Ormond Hotel bar; "Sirens." Also mentioned in "Eumaeus." Frederich von Flotow, composer and Friedrich Wilhelm Riese, librettist (1847). Sung by Luciano Pavorotti accompanied by James Levine.
Heard in "Wandering Rocks and Circe." Music by Charles William Murphy, lyrics by Dan Lipton (1908). Note that Bloomsday preceded the song by four years. Performed by The Shannon Colleens (Sinead Murphy and Darina Gallagher).
This tune by Arthur Sullivan, with a poem by Rudyard Kipling as lyrics, was the most popular, pro-British song of the Boer War period. It's referenced six times in Ulysses over four episodes ("Scylla & Charybdis, Circe, Ithaca, and Penelope"). Molly, ever the soldier's daughter, out of either ignorance or contempt, sang it at a Dublin concert in 1903, about one year after hostilities concluded. Irish Catholics overwhelmingly opposed Britain's war aims in South Africa and most openly sided with the Boers. The war effectively caused a surge in Irish nationalism.
n/ For Irish opposition to the Boer War see Donal P. McCracken, Forgotten Protest (Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation, 2003).
Molly, by singing this song in public, in Dublin, while wearing a brooch to honor Lord Roberts (British Commander-in-Chief, South Africa), effectively put an end to her career in the south of Ireland. She went without a singing engagement for over a year until Blazes Boylan offered her a spot on a concert tour in the loyalist parts of Ulster. For more on the song and its relationship to Ulysses, see "Absentminded beggar" by John Hunt on The Joyce Project. Click on the link and that page will open in a new browser window.
The performance in this YouTube video is preceded by a 1.5 minute description of the song's relationship to the Boer War. Note that Kipling and Sullivan donated all performance royalties for this song to charities that aided soldiers' families. "The Absent-Minded Beggar" is performed by Malcolm Stewart who posted this audio recording.
Sung by the one-legged sailor who wanders through Dublin begging. The line "for England home and beauty" appears in "Wandering Rocks, Circe, Eumaeus, and Penelope." Anonymous composer; varying lyrics (c. 1805). Performed by Granny's Attic (Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne, George Sansome, Lewis Wood).