Click on arrow to hear the song performed by Derek B. Scott, Professor of Critical Musicology, University of Leeds, to his own piano accompaniment.
This British minstrel song comes the 1870s, when the shows at St James’s Hall had taken on a highly respectable tone and thus encouraged visits from families and the clergy. This song is of a mildly religious nature unlikely to offend loyal followers of any denomination. The mention of a"gold and amber gate" might, however, be Swedenborgian.
Bibliography
Scott, Derek B. The Singing Bourgeois: Songs of the Victorian Drawing Room and Parlour. 2nd ed. Aldershot, Hampshire; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2001.
Created 20 May 2018