Click on arrow to hear the song performed by Derek B. Scott, Professor of Critical Musicology, University of Leeds, to his own piano accompaniment 2010.
The most important line in the song is in its chorus – “Daddy knows what he is doing.” Clearly, the little maid who utters this is a model for other children in her unwavering confidence in her father’s knowledge and his ability to act as a guardian not just for her, but for everyone on board the train — Derek B. Scott
Bibliography
Scott, Derek B. The Singing Bourgeois: Songs of the Victorian Drawing Room and Parlour. 2nd ed. Aldershot, Hampshire; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2001.
Scott, Derek B. Sounds of the Metropolis: The 19th-Century Popular Music Revolution in London, New York, Paris, and Vienna. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Last modified 7 February 2020