The Shooting of Dan McGrew
A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.
When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and the glare,
There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty, and loaded for bear.
He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength
of a louse,
Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks
for the house.
There was none could place the stranger's face, though we searched ourselves
for a clue;
But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.
There's men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell;
And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell;
With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done,
As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one.
Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he'd do,
And I turned my head -- and there watching him was the lady that's
known as Lou.
His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze,
Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze.
The rag-time kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool,
So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool.
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands -- my God! but that man
could play.
Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,
And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear;
With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,
A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;
While high overhead, green, yellow and red, the North Lights swept in bars? --
Then you've a hunch what the music meant. . . hunger and night and the stars.
And hunger not of the belly kind, that's banished with bacon and beans,
But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means;
For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above;
But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowned with a woman's love --
A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true --
(God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge, -- the lady that's
known as Lou.)
Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear;
But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once
held dear;
That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil's lie;
That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die.
'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair, and it thrilled you through
and through --
"I guess I'll make it a spread misere", said Dangerous Dan McGrew.
The music almost died away ... then it burst like a pent-up flood;
And it seemed to say, "Repay, repay," and my eyes were blind with blood.
The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash,
And the lust awoke to kill, to kill ... then the music stopped with a crash,
And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way;
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
Then his lips went in in a kind of grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm,
And "Boys," says he, "you don't know me, and none of you care a damn;
But I want to state, and my words are straight, and I'll bet my poke
they're true,
That one of you is a hound of hell. . .and that one is Dan McGrew."
Then I ducked my head, and the lights went out, and two guns blazed
in the dark,
And a woman screamed, and the lights went up, and two men lay stiff and stark.
Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew,
While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast of the lady that's
known as Lou.
These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know.
They say that the stranger was crazed with "hooch," and I'm not denying
it's so.
I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two --
The woman that kissed him and -- pinched his poke -- was the lady that's
known as Lou.
Commentary
Note: ‘Spread misere’: also ‘open misere’, a bid in some whist derivatives
involving the bidding player playing for no tricks (misere) and placing his cards face up on the table (spread).
As I mentioned a couple of poems ago, frontiers tend to produce some highly vivid and colourful stories and narrative poems, and Service’s tales of the Yukon are surely among the best of the breed. An often overlooked ‘character’ in these tales is the land itself - Kipling’s India, Paterson’s Australia, Twain’s Mississippi all have an unmistakable presence that permeates the tales and moulds and shapes their characters. Service, perhaps more so than any of them, makes this explicit in his poems:
Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear, And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear; With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold, A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold; While high overhead, green, yellow and red, the North Lights swept in bars?
–
Then you’ve a hunch what the music meant. . . hunger and night and the stars.
and it is this, more than anything else, that draws me to reread them time and again, seldom without a shiver.
Today’s tale of mysterious strangers, calculating women, and sudden violence seems perfectly natural in its setting, and Service’s verse hews and shapes it without robbing it of any of its raw intensity. Definitely an immortal poem - perhaps even more so than the haunting “Cremation of Sam McGee”.
— Martin
Links
See Poem #781 for a collection of Service-related sites - I couldn’t find anything interesting specifically related to today’s poem.
The current theme:
[broken link] http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/collections/58.html
Show 15 commentsHide comments
From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
foshea · 12 December 2002
Thank you for the recitation week.
My uncle in Ireland had a prologue to this poem. I could never find out whether it was his own composition or whether it was Service’s or had been added by some music hall reciter. I can’t recall the words but it went something like this, in a kind of blank verse:
“Imagine a busy saloon in a seaside town somewhere in the south of America. The bar is kept by a beautiful woman, helped by her husband, who also plays music on the barroom piano.
One evening, a whaling ship docks at the port and the crew with their burly captain spend the evening drinking at the bar. The ship leaves with first tide the next morning; the beautiful woman who kept the bar also disappears.
What follows is a sequel
A bunch of the boys were whooping it up …”
Anyone help with this?
Incidentally, talking about this uncle. He had a lifelong stammer, but once he started on a recitation, he went through it without a sign of stammering.
Frank O’Shea
KassieB · 12 December 2002
My grandfather was one of the hopefuls at the Yukon gold rush. Although I was only about nine years old when he died, I remember quite well his tales of his life there. He could recite many of Robert Service’s poems. Once, after reciting The Shooting of Dan McGrew, he told me that incidents of sudden violence weren’t all that rare during the time he spent in the Yukon. “There were a lot of strange people up there,” he said. “If the lights went out, everyone hit the floor.”
By the time I was ten years old, I could recite most of The Cremation of Sam McGee. Yet that poem seemed rather tame to me compared to the story of the funeral of one of my grandfather’s fellow miners. It seems that the gentleman died and his body froze solid in the Yukon cold. My grandfather and his buddies, while digging the grave and passing around the whiskey bottle, decided that lining the grave with pine boughs would be a nice gesture. In their zeal, they filled almost the entire grave with branches. When they lowered the frozen body of their friend into his grave, there wasn’t quite enough room for it. With a little discussion and a lot more whiskey, they arrived at the obvious solution: They took turns jumping up and down on the frozen corpse in an attempt to fine tune the fit. I remember, after hearing my grandfather tell this story, asking him, “Did it work?” My serious, hard-working, non-drinking grandfather answered, “Who knows?” and burst out laughing.
Kathy
Fiona Thomson · 15 December 2002
Just wanted to say that this was perfect timing as BBC Radio 4 dedicated a half hour programme to Robert Service and this poem on Sunday! Fiona
Gwbjeb1954 · 9 April 2005
My Father was a great admirer of Robert Service’s poems and I gave him the book of poems on his retirement date, 1968. Dad memorized this poem as one of his favorites and used to recite it to us, his family of three boys, and anyone else that wanted to listen. As we grew older, Dad became the “Patriarch” of an annual fishing trip to Flaming Gorge Reservoir by himself, his three sons, three cousins and three family friends. The highlight of the trip was, after a few drinks, Dad would recite this poem do the delight of us and anyone else in the motel area that heard it. I will say that he would recite it with meaning–wit, seriousness, and matter-of-factly, where needed. Dad died in 1984 at the age of 85 but our memories of his rendition remain firmly fixed in our memories.
There was a parody written to this poem that was quite bawdy, risque, however you want to put it. Suffice it to say it was meant for men’s ears only (my mother knew of it, of course) so it also fit in well with a bunch of guys acting like children again! Dad also knew this by heart and followed the Service poem with the parody. We don’t know for sure but we believe Dad wrote the parody himself as he was good at writing the poetry for us kids for school and a poem to each of us three sons covering the main events of our lives. We all cherish these poems!
After our fishing trip last May (2003) when one of our friends recited from memory another poem of Robert Service, The Cremation of Sam McGee, I returned to home in California and thought I would do something of the same this year. Within a week I had written a poem that more or less ended the saga of Dan McGrew and the parody. This was done mostly at night and then putting it on the computer either at night or the next morning. Everything seemed to flow without much effort and I know it is not of the quality of Service’s or my Dad’s effort but I think it will bring a chuckle to the “gang” while at Flaming Gorge. Sadly, two of my cousins have died in recent years but I have added a comment on them in my poem.
To me, Robert Service’s poems bring to life the good times of the century when things were perhaps more hard, but less stressful and fast paced than life is today. I believe our younger generation can learn a lot from these poems.
Thanks for ‘listening’,
Gordon Brown
P.S. I just read the comments by Frank O’Shea. The parody of which I spoke begins exactly as he said: “ A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in one of the Malumute Halls while the man at the music box stealthily scratched his
- - - - -“. Contact with Mr. O’Shea might help to solve our mystery of who wrote the parody and I could send him a copy. It is barnyard humor but good!
ceisenhart · 23 August 2005
I learned Sam McGee back in scout camp in 1955 or so–one of the coujnselors recited it, and my buddy and became sold, so we went home and memorized. I also know Dan McGrew, by the bye. I’ve since recited one or the other of them about 30 times over the years, most recently on a cruise ship passenger talent night on the way to Alaska–brought down the house. As a retired English teacher, I have to admit that RWS’s poetry is not tecnically meritorious, but it sure tells a great story and keeps the audience on tenterhooks. Those who like this sort of literature should read ‘The Highwayman’ (which I also can recite if you wish LOL. Interesting site–just found it while surfing.
Cleveland W. Gibson · 3 September 2005
I loved the poem. It gripped me when I first read it. Just recently I went to a friend’s place and an old man who’d said nothing all evening came out with the poem. We listened and enjoyed the dramatic way he told it. And the old man knew every word.Every expression. Cleveland W. Gibson
writer
Sietse Brouwer · 6 December 2006
Service’s description of the cold clear night is strikingly similar to Banjo Paterson’s in “The Man from Snowy River”.
Paterson’s:
And down by Kosciusko, where the pine-clad ridges raise Their torn and rugged battlements on high, Where the air is clear as crystal, and the white stars fairly blaze At midnight in the cold and frosty sky,
Compare that to the way Service uses clear light and mountains to evoke loneliness:
Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear, And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear; With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold, A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;
While high overhead, green, yellow and red, the North Lights swept in bars? –
Then you’ve a hunch what the music meant. . . hunger and night and the stars.
I suppose the link between clear skies and cold nights is common to all non-tropical climates.
Regards,
Sietse
Sietse Brouwer
MarvinPeixoto · 11 December 2006
I once had a copy of the McGrew parody, Which I think was circulated among the then all-male student body in the College of Law at the Jesuit-run University of Santa Clara, circa 1954. Most of us were veterans of either WW II or Korea, and such verse was quite popular among ourselves.
I can only remember these fifty years later the segment “. . .And out of the night, which was black as a bitch, and in to the din and the smoke . . ., et seq.”. As a retired lawyer, amateur American literature buff, and sometimes bar-room poet, I consider the part I elide above to be one of the most poetic descriptive passages in all of English poetry. It includes the line “His face was red as a baboon’s ass while the passion within him burned., , ,” Than which no finer simile exists, in my opinion, in English literature.
There was also a bawdy version of “Sam Mc Gee” but not up to the quality of “McGrew”.
As I remember, we first got into this after using a first-year property law casebook by Professors Cassner and Leach of the Harvard College of Law, which recounted “The Ballad of the Ladies of the Chorus of the Wut-tut-tut Review”and one about a cow named Rose of Alberlone (sp.?). The good Professor’s selections were almost as witty, but of much more delicate language.
If you have access to a copy of “McGrew” I would be extremely grateful, and my postal address would be available, if you prefer. I can assure you of my discretion in further promulgation of the material.
Thank you very much.
Marvin Peixoto, ESQ.
Blubird1926 · 6 February 2007
Hi
Any chance of getting a copy of the Mc Grew parady? Dick Jensen
Corvallis Or.
LEndress99 · 27 March 2007
I HAD A BUDDY IN THE U.S. AIR FORCE MANY YEARS AGO WHO COULD RECITE THIS WHOLE POEM BY HEART…BUT AT THE END HE RECITED…“AND THERE ON THE FLOOR WITH HIS ASS-HOLE ALL TORE LAY DANGEROUS DAN MCGREW”
Robert Miller · 6 May 2007
I wonder how I would go about getting a copy of the parody on The shooting of Dangerous Dan McGrew. I do not know that much about the working of a computer, but would love to have a copy. I would be willing to buy it. Thanks for any help.
Bob Miller
Cleveland W. Gibson · 10 June 2007
I half remember seeing Service read out his poem ‘The shooting of Dan McGrew’ and always wondered if it might turn up somewhere for us all to see. Has anybody ever done a dramatic version of this same poem? I wondered…
Best wishes
Cleveland W. Gibson
George · 10 June 2007
The bawdy version was frequently recited to us by an army friend in the early fifties. He had enlisted in the horse cavalry in the late thirties and knew lots of bawdy stuff.
George
Liam Smith · 10 August 2007
I think you’ll have to edit the text of the poem if that was, indeed, Service reciting.
Don Bryan · 13 November 2007
Does anybody know what the “green stuff” was and “watering” it means?
Don Bryan