Oh My Darling, Clementine by Traditional

Album: Songs & Games For The Road (1884)

lyrics

Songfacts®:

"Oh My Darling, Clementine" is a popular American Western folk ballad that is most often attributed to performers like Percy Montrose and Barker Bradford. Its origins however, lie in an 1863 tune by H.S. Thompson called "Down By the River Liv'd a Maiden." Like "Clementine," the song is a mock-serious ode to the narrator's deceased lover, who drowned after she stubbed her toe and fell in the river. Thompson used some pretty clever imagery to conjure an image of our heroine:

Her lips were like two luscious beefsteaks
Dipp'd in tomato sauce and brine
And like the cashmere goatess covering
Was the fine wool of Clementine
In 2012, Neil Young and Crazy Horse recorded a hard rock version of the song for their Americana album. Other memorable covers include Jan and Dean's "Clementine" in 1959, Connie Francis' rendition on her Folk Song Favorites in 1961, Tom Lehrer's multi-styled version from his live album An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer and Westlife's from their Rat Pack tribute album Allow Us to Be Frank.

Bobby Darin took some "hefty" liberties with the tune in 1960 when he incorporated a fat joke at the end, warning a sailor to look out for a whale because "it just may be chunky Clementine."
The cast of the TV show M*A*S*H performed "Oh My Darling, Clementine" in the season five episode "Movie Tonight" in 1977. The episode also prominently featured the 1946 film My Darling Clementine. Directed by John Ford, the movie starred Henry Fonda, Linda Darnell and Cathy Downs (who played Clementine Carter).

The song also inspired the 1943 musical O, My Darling Clementine, starring Roy Acuff, Isabel Randolph, Harry Cheshire and Lorna Gray in the role of Clementine.

Comments: 8

Mia from UsaI hope Wayne from in a Cavern's post is a joke, and given the silly statement about the imperialists stealing a flu virus from the Chinese, how could Wayne be serious? Nevertheless, if he is not joking, 'Oh My Darling, Clementine' is not “clearly of Chinese origin”—not by a long shot. Saying the old western folk ballad came from the Chinese is ridiculous.

First of all, California was never “New China.” It may have been sold to the Chinese as such in order to get them to emigrate, but if so, it was a lie. No one else, anywhere, thought of any part of this continent as a “new China.” Mexico, Spain, and Americans fought over the territory all the way to Texas, until the U. S. government purchased the territory. China had no connection to this continent, let alone California. Chinese laborers were working for the railroads because they were lured to this continent by Chinese men hired by railroad and mining tycoons to find Chinese laborers and bring them here as work gangs.

Chinese laborers were not slaves, but what was waiting for them on this continent had been misrepresented to them so most of them never earned enough money to go home again nor to ever send for their families. They were stuck here working for very low wages and faced discrimination in all parts of their lives because they were so different and because they were resented by American laborers for providing such cheap labor that American laborers could not organize and demand better pay or treatment; Americans who did not accept the same ill-treatment were replaced by Chinese laborers. That division between segments of the working poor is a story as old as time.

The railroads were not “stolen” from the Chinese laborers because the Chinese never owned them in the first place, not ever. Railroad tycoons using money from investors, and free land and subsidies from the U. S. federal government, owned the railroads. The Chinese laborers worked for those tycoons, as did poor Irish, freed-Blacks, and Mormon work gangs. None of them had the railroads stolen from them either. They were all laborers working for someone else.

Multiple western countries claim similar melodies and similar themes. However, unlike European countries, Chinese music is not similar in tone or melodies to music originating in the West.
AnonymousThere was another verse that said:
Now the miner 49er soon began to peek and pine. Thought he ought to join his daughter...now he's with his Clementine.
Barbara J Tafe from Pompey, New YourI could remember part of the words but not all of them after hearing into on an add to stop smock.
Add is really bad and Clementine as no real connect to add.
Wayne from In A CavernClearly this is of Chinese origin. Cle Men Tine was a Sichuan princes, a real hotty according to the tabloids of the time. Cle Men Tine was dearly loved by her people who sang of her beauty as they built the railroad in New China (now called California). Once completed the RR was stolen from them as was this song. With no work for the millions of Chinese slaves who had been forced by their Anglo masters to come to New China, and they all died of the SARS 49er flu after completing the RR. Interesting factoid - SARS 49er flu was originally from China and was called Chu Chu Flu. But it was stolen by Anglos, who had no flu of their own, and subsequently renamed SARS 49er. Once again the imperialist Anglos abuse an under-privileged people and profit from it.
Marc from ItalyThe melody is originally from the south of France. Its a song from the middle ages called "se canto." You can search the song on YouTube and you will see it is the same melody.
Peyton Gregory from Houston, TexasThe song I heard is Ma Chérie, Oh Madeline! which sounds like the same beat and tempo of the song
Chineseloveporkypies from SpainThe melody is not Chinese. Impossible.It doesn't use Asian musical scales. Ridiculous.
The Rose from OregonThe Chinese use the melody and have Chinese words to the song. Perhaps the song has a Chinese origin and the melody lifted by Americans when the Chinese were building the railroad in California. The dates would help corroborate this theory.