INTRODUCTION
The Victorians brought in the mass-produced upright piano and the harmonium, the popular hymn and the sentimental ballad. And from the fairgrounds, the pubs and the music halls there came that other tradition, the popular sing-along of the Victorian working class.

Victorian – what does that word conjure up today? To some people it means puritanical, prejudiced, stuffy, respectable; whereas mention Victorian music hall to those same people and they think of rude songs and Marie Lloyd. The patriot will think longingly of the glorious age of the British Empire, and the social historian will remember the enormous gap between rich and poor, the rise of the middle classes, the triumph of the factory system, the squalid social conditions as described by Dickens, Thackeray and Henry Mayhew.

The extraordinary diversity of those quick changing times was mirrored in the music, and a book on popular Victorian songs has to spread its net wide in order to create a true picture.


TA-RA-RA-BOOM-DE-AY!
The Nineties certainly came in with a bang – perhaps we should say with a boom! A whole generation of people were bent on kicking over the traces and fighting to escape Victorian restraints and they adopted Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay! as their theme song. The song caused a sensation when Lottie Collins sang it in Dick Whittington at the Grand Theatre, Islington. With the chorus she did an “Abandon” dance “after the French Style” which consisted of a whole series of dramatic high kicks – not easy in a long skirt, tight stays and a large feathered hat. She was encored again and again, sometimes fainting in the wings from sheer exhaustion..