Where skies are always blue ...
Where broken dreams come true.
The great advantage of the music-hall over the church is that the uplifting moments do not last too long.
Finally, there is the great Home motif. “I want to be,” these lyrics always begin, “I want to be almost anywhere that is not the place where I happen at the moment to be.” M. Louis Estève has called this longing “Le Mal de la Province,” which in its turn is closely related to “Le Mal de l’au-delà.” It is one of the worst symptoms of romanticism.
Steamer, balançant ta mâture,
Lève l’ancre vers une exotique nature,
exclaims Mallarmé, and the Folk, whom that most exquisite of poets loathed and despised, echo his words in a hundred different keys. There is not a State in America where they don’t want to go. In McGlennon we find yearnings expressed for California, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia. Some sigh for Ireland, Devon, and the East. “Egypt! I am calling you; oh, life is sweet and joys complete when at your feet I lay [sic].” But the Southern States, the East, Devon, and Killarney are not enough. The Mal de l’au-delà succeeds the Mal de la Province. The Folk yearn for extra-mundane worlds. Here, for example, is an expression of nostalgia for a mystical “Kingdom within your Eyes”:
Somewhere in somebody’s eyes
Is a place just divine,
Bounded by roses that kiss the dew