Villikins and his Dinah

"Villikins and his Dinah" (Laws M31A/B, Roud 271) is a stage song which emerged in England in 1853 as a burlesque version of a traditional ballad called "William and Dinah". Its great popularity led to the tune being later adopted for many other songs, of which the best known today is "Sweet Betsy from Pike".

Background
"Villikins and his Dinah" is based on "William and Dinah", a folk ballad extant from at least the early 19th century which was still being sung and collected in the early 20th. The theme of the ballad is the traditional one of lovers parted by parental interference who then commit suicide and are buried in one grave. "Villikins and his Dinah" was a parody of this. It became a major hit in 1853 when sung by actor Frederick Robson at London's Olympic Theatre in a revived one-act farce, The Wandering Minstrel. The comic version follows the traditional ballad closely, but exaggerates its naivety and subverts its pathos by telling the lovers' story in urban slang.

Burlesques of serious works were in great vogue on the London stage at the time and the tragi-comic song became a sensation. The song was published in London by music sellers Campbell, Ransford and Co. on 11 November 1853, and quickly followed by other editions with variants of words or music. Other theatres cashed in on the song's huge success by staging productions based on it - a farce, Villikins and his Dinah opened at the Surrey theatre in February 1854 and a travestie by E.L.Blanchard and Sterling Coyne ran for two and a half months at the Haymarket. Its popularity grew when it was adopted by the Anglo-American entertainer Sam Cowell, who took it into a broader range of venues. From the theatres it made its way to music-halls and saloon bars, and by 1855 it was among the most popular songs of the day, played repeatedly on barrel organs in the streets. By then the song had already spread to Australia and North America.

Melody
Musically, variations of the "Villikins and his Dinah" tune can be identified by the characteristics of their first few measures. They begin with an introductory tonic, which rises into an outline of the tonic's major triad and ends by repeating the fifth.

Although the tune of "Villikins" has been said to have given rise to more borrowings, imitations and re-uses than almost any other in Anglo-American folk music, its origins are unclear. It may be the traditional melody to which "William and Dinah" was usually sung, or a derivation of it, or it may have been specially composed for Robson's stage performance in 1853. In America, it was sometimes attributed to 'John Parry', presumably either John Parry or his son John Orlando Parry. An early edition of "Villikins and his Dinah" published in Scotland in May 1854 gives the air it should be sung to as, "They Died As They Lived".

In 1853, Robson entered a contract with a music publisher to whom he assigned sole rights to the lyrics and music; however, although the company threatened legal action against anyone infringing their copyright, both the tune and words were rapidly circulating in numerous editions.

Lyrics
The lyrics are said to have been written by playwright E. L. Blanchard. Comparison with "William and Dinah" shows they are largely adapted from the traditional, but the song was performed by Robson with a series of comments and asides.

Although "Villikins and his Dinah" kept many of the original lyrics of "William and Dinah", it parodied its conventional phrasing and generally exploited its naivety for comic effect. It also put the words into Cockney dialect, a lower-class London form of speech. In Cockney at the time the letter 'w' was pronounced as a 'v': the name 'William' therefore would become 'Villiam', and for added bathos the diminutive 'Villikins' ('Willikins') is used. The new lyrics emphasised other characteristics of uneducated speech such as double negatives, mispronunciations and malapropisms.

Other changes to the traditional lyrics included increasing the heroine's age from fourteen to sixteen, dropping the reference to her father as a 'liquor' merchant, and replacing the abusive phrase 'boldest strumpet' with 'boldest daughter'. An added final 'moral' verse inverts the sympathies of the original by warning girls not to defy their fathers, and young men to be cautious when falling in love. For stage performances, two added verses describe how Villikins and Dinah re-appear as ghosts and haunt her father.

America
By March 1855, the song was already highly popular in New York.

Stephen Foster's version was used during the 1856 presidential election when three parties adopted the tune for their campaign songs, one being Foster's "The Great Baby Show".

It was also used for "Ballad of John Dean", a comic ballad based on a real-life event in New York, when the youngest daughter of wealthy liquor merchant John G. Boker eloped with her father's Irish coachman, John Dean, and was disinherited.

In 1860, "Sweet Betsy from Pike", using the "Villikins" tune but with fresh lyrics, was written by John A. Stone, a California-based songwriter. It was revived in the 1940s by the singer Burl Ives.

A song extolling American Civil War generals Sherman and Sheridan was also composed to the "Villikins" tune.

Helen Hartness Flanders collected a version of the song titled "Dinah's Lovers" in Rutland, Vermont in 1930. It was sung by a seventh-generation Vermonter who had learned it from her grandmother, suggesting that either song or its source ballad had a longstanding tradition in the region.

Australia
George Selth Coppin, the 'father of Australian theatre', had an early hit with the song and the farce.

"Dinky di", a ballad sung by Australian soldiers in World War I, used the tune with new lyrics satirising non-combatant army staff.

Newfoundland
In 1869, it was used in Newfoundland's "The Anti-Confederation Song", a political protest song against the country joining Canada.

England
The song's great popularity was further boosted after it was adopted by Sam Cowell, an Anglo-American music hall artist who performed it with such success it became his signature piece. At least two farces were written to exploit the popularity of the song, one by J. Stirling Coyne, Willikind and hys Dinah (1854), and one by Francis C. Burnand.

An illustrated book, The Pathetic Legend of Vilikins and Dinah, was published in April 1854.

At a state ball given by Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace in June 1854, the band played a waltz version of "Villikins and his Dinah".

It was also played by the Guards band during the Siege of Sebastopol.

In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Alice's fictional cat Dinah is based on one of two real kittens, Willikins and Dinah, owned by Alice's namesake Alice Liddell and her brother Henry.

Ireland
In Ireland, the tune was used for two songs: The Old Orange Flute and Six Miles from Bangor to Donaghadee.

Scotland
In Scotland, the tune was used for the song The Wee Magic Stane, which parodied the 1950 removal of the Stone of Scone.

Recorded performances
Alfie Bass, the Cockney actor and comedian, made a 1960 recording of "Villikins and his Dinah", which includes much of the music hall patter that traditionally accompanied the performance.

Owen Brannigan and Ernest Lush cut the song for Songs You Know & Love, issued by EMI (MFP 1014). In addition, Kenneth McKellar recorded the song with slightly altered wording from the above.

Richard Dyer-Bennet performs the song on Volume 3 of his private label records, re-released by Smithsonian Folkways