The Organ-Blower ~
version 1
By Oliver Wendell Holmes 1872

DEVOUTEST of my Sunday friends,
The patient Organ-blower bends;
I see his figure sink and rise,
(Forgive me, Heaven, my wandering eyes!)
A moment lost, the next half seen,
His head above the scanty screen,
Still measuring out his deep salaams
Through quavering hymns and panting psalms.
No priest that prays in gilded stole,
To save a rich man's mortgaged soul;
No sister, fresh from holy vows,
So humbly stoops, so meekly bows;
His large obeisance puts to shame
The proudest genuflecting dame,
Whose Easter bonnet low descends
With all the grace devotion lends.
O brother with the supple spine,
How much we owe those bows of thine!
Without thine arm to lend the breeze,
How vain the finger on the keys!
Though all unmatched the player's skill,
Those thousand throats were dumb and still:
Another's art may shape the tone,
The breath that fills it is thine own.
Six days the silent Memnon waits
Behind his temple's folded gates;
But when the seventh day's sunshine falls
Through rainbowed windows on the walls,
He breathes, he sings, he shouts, he fills
The quivering air with rapturous thrills;
The roof resounds, the pillars shake,
And all the slumbering echoes wake!
The Preacher from the Bible-text
With weary words my soul has vexed
(Some stranger, fumbling far astray
To find the lesson for the day);
He tells us truths too plainly true,
And reads the service all askew,--
Why, why the-- mischief-- can't he look
Beforehand in the service-book?
But thou, with decent mien and face,
Art always ready in thy place;
Thy strenuous blast, whate'er the tune,
As steady as the strong monsoon;
Thy only dread a leathery creak,
Or small residual extra squeak,
To send along the shadowy aisles
A sunlit wave of dimpled smiles.
Not all the preaching, O my friend,
Comes from the church's pulpit end!
Not all that bend the knee and bow
Yield service half so true as thou!
One simple task performed aright,
With slender skill, but all thy might,
Where honest labor does its best,
And leaves the player all the rest.
This many-diapasoned maze,
Through which the breath of being strays,
Whose music makes our earth divine,
Has work for mortal hands like mine.
My duty lies before me. Lo,
The lever there! Take hold and blow!
And He whose hand is on the keys
Will play the tune as He shall please.

---

NEW!
"The Old Organ Blower"

(words by George Vickers, music by Adam Geibel)

The score for one of the songs about organ blowers, tracked down by tenacious searcher Shirley Way. She writes:

"The Old Organ Blower" is a different song (but in similar vein) to the one on your website, and was sourced for me by the State Library of Queensland. They located it at Bowling Green University in the USA."

Click on each of the three thumbnails to access the 3 pages of music.

Page 1


Page 2


Page 3

"The Organ Blower" ~ version 2
pressed by the Columbia label about 1936 ,and sung by an Australian named Harold Williams with organ accompaniment.

The music written by George Barker, Lyrics by Alex Mc Gill and published by Reynolds and Co. of Berner's St. London.

THE ORGAN BLOWER

Now I am a fellow of great versatility
I do odd jobs for the poor and nobility
Everyone calls me old General utility
Though to say what that means I have not the ability
One day I'm out with the Squire shooting hare
Next I'm shoeing the Parson's old mare,
Cos first I do one thing and then do another
But there is one job I likes better than tother

REFRAIN
When I blows the organ for our mister Morgan
Who plays at our church every Sunday so grand
The wind in the bellows makes music like cellos
And fiddles and trumpets, it's just like a band.
At weddings I pumps, While the other chap thumps
And the choir sings a hymn if they knows it
The organ's a treat but without me it's beat
Cos I am the fellow what blows it !

Last week in our village we had great hilarity
Round came a fair that won great popularity
They had an organ but without disparity
If you listened at all it was just out of charity
Still on the green every Jack with his Jill
Danced up and down with the most wonderful skill
But I thought it all looked a terrible tangle
And as for the music, twas naught but a jangle.

REFRAIN
When I blows the organ for our mister Morgan
Who plays at our church every Sunday so grand
The wind in the bellows makes music like cellos
And fiddles and trumpets it's just like a band
All hours of the day I'm a pumping away
It's a back-aching job and I know's it
But if I ever shirk, The old organ won't work
For I am the fellow what blows it.

 

Now times are changing, least that's what they say,
For things are all done in a new fangled way
And yesterday Vicar, he says to me Joe,
At the end of the year I'm a- feared you must go
I asked him what for, and he said with a sigh
Cos the new organ's blowed by electricity
But pr'aps when I'm gone the folks will say NO
It don't sound the same now without poor old Joe

REFRAIN

But when I blows the organ for our mister Morgan
Who plays in our church every Sunday so grand
The wind in the bellows Makes music like cellos
And fiddles and trumpets it's just like a band
But if there's a hitch in their switches and sich
Then the organ won't play and they knows it
So they'll say Come on Joe, Now just you have a go
Cos I am the fellow ,the stout hearted fellow
The long winded fellow , what blows it !


Thanks to who would dearly like any lead, whatsoever, to more information or a recording of the above.