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It's of Sir Walter Raleigh, I think that was his name,
He first brought over tobacco, from Americay he came;
He might have been a jinker it's plainly to be seen,
And if it weren't for him I wouldn't be smoking my old dudeen.
My dudeen, my dudeen, you are so dear to me,
I love to sit and smoke 'er up when I am through my tea;
In dry or rainy weather my friend you'll always be,
But 'pon me word l'll never never part with my old dudeen.
My wife she starts to grumble I takes it all in fun,
For that's the only way to stop a woman's tongue;
There's never a word I'll ever speak, I lets her have her fling,
And up in the corner I will sit and smoke my old dudeen.
My dudeen, my dudeen, you are so dear to me,
I love to sit and smoke 'er up when I am through my tea;
In dry or rainy weather my friend you'll always be,
But 'pon me word l'll never never part with my old dudeen.
Some men they will go courting every girl that does go by,
They go and see their own sweethearts and swing them rather high;
When l was young and courting ofttimes I might be seen,
With Bridgett all caught up in my arms, in me gob me old dudeen.
My dudeen, my dudeen, you are so dear to me,
I love to sit and smoke 'er up when I am through my tea;
In dry or rainy weather my friend you'll always be,
But 'pon me word l'll never never part with my old dudeen.
The rich man smokes tobacco, the Spaniard cigarettes,
And the German smokes big long cigars and chews them whilst he frets;
When there's whisky, rum, and porter, and lots of the old poteen,
The only thing that I do like is a drop from my old dudeen.
My dudeen, my dudeen, you are so dear to me,
I love to sit and smoke 'er up when I am through my tea;
In dry or rainy weather my friend you'll always be,
But 'pon me word l'll never never part with my old dudeen.
Now when l'm dead, come to me wake, there'll be lots of the old poteen,
And into me gob, so help me bob, you'll find my old dudeen.
My dudeen, my dudeen, you are so dear to me,
I love to sit and smoke 'er up when I am through my tea;
In dry or rainy weather my friend you'll always be,
But 'pon me word l'll never never part with my old dudeen.
Collected in 1951 from Mike Kent of Cape Broyle, NL, by Kenneth Peacock and published in Songs Of The Newfoundland Outports, Volume 2, pp.377-378, by the National Museum of Canada (1965) Crown Copyrights Reserved.
Kenneth Peacock noted that the text was somewhat confused on this recording, and certain lines have been rearranged to make more sense. Peacock also noted that a 'dudeen' is the short variety of the famous Irish clay pipes; and 'poteen' (little pot) comes from the Irish 'uisge poitin' meaning 'whisky distilled in a little pot'; or, in modern parlance, 'moonshine'.
Mike Kent [b.1904] also sang a different variant which was also published as My Old Dudeen in MacEdward Leach And The Songs Of Atlantic Canada © 2004 Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive (MUNFLA).
From the Dictionary of Newfoundland English:
Dudeen - short-stemmed tobacco pipe, similar to an Irish dudee made of clay.
According to The History Of Tobacco Part I by Gene Borio, in 1535 Jacques Cartier encountered natives on the island of Montreal who used tobacco. Tobacco wasn't introduced to England until 1564 or 1565 by Sir John Hawkin and/or his crew. For the next twenty years in England tobacco was used chiefly by sailors, including those employed by Sir Francis Drake, who introduced smoking to Sir Walter Raleigh in 1585. In 1586 Ralph Lane, first governor of Virginia, taught Sir Walter Raleigh to smoke the long-stemmed clay pipe Lane is credited with inventing. In July of that same year tobacco arrived in English society when some of the Virginia colonists returned to England and disembarked at Plymouth smoking tobacco from pipes, which caused a sensation.
