Omigod. I just learned the meaning of "Oh my darling Clementine."

[Baitball Blogger]

It's about a father who has an incestuous relationship with his daughter, who has incredibly big feet, which isn't really relevant to the song. Then one day she takes the horses to the water and trips and falls in and begins to drown. But he can't do anything but watch from the bank, because he can't swim. The end.

Creepy song.

On Edit: Maybe she fell in because of her big feet.

Oh my darling, oh my darling
Oh my darling, Clementine
You are lost and gone forever
Dreadful sorrow, Clementine

In a cavern, in a canyon
Excavating for a mine
Dwelt a miner forty-niner
And his daughter, Clementine
Yes I loved her, how I loved her
Though her shoes were number nine
Herring boxes, without topses
Sandals were for Clementine

Oh my darling, oh my darling
Oh my darling, Clementine
You are lost and gone forever
Dreadful sorrow, Clementine

Drove the horses to the water
Every morning just at nine
Hit her foot against a splinter
Fell into the foaming brine
Ruby lips above the water
Blowing bubbles soft and fine
But alas, I was no swimmer
So I lost my Clementine

Oh my darling, oh my darling
Oh my darling, Clementine
You are lost and gone forever
Dreadful sorrow, Clementine
You are lost and gone forever
Dreadful sorrow, Clementine

[MontanaMama]

1. What?

[Easterncedar]

2. Why do you say it was In the voice of the father?

Not saying you are wrong, just that it’s not obvious to me.

[Marthe48]

34. Dwelt a miner 49er

and his daughter Clementine

Although next line is Yes, I loved her, how I loved her

So maybe she had a boyfriend who was the voice of the lyric.

[Easterncedar]

35. It was a nonsense song of my childhood

Can’t agree with the odd interpretation. I’m sticking to it as I knew it. Thanks.

[Marthe48]

37. I am too

I learned it in grade school. I liked Down in the Valley better

[Bev54]

3. Not sure how you came to that conclusion, there is nothing in this song that

projects that meaning at all. It does not even project that it is the father singing about his daughter but rather someone else.

[Baitball Blogger]

4. Look it up on google.

The song is about Clementine, the daughter of a “miner forty-niner” who is also the singer's lover. One day while doing household chores, Clementine drowned after she stubbed her toe and fell into a raging torrent of brine, as her lover is unable to swim and unwilling to try to save her.Aug 17, 2022

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh_My_Darling,_Clementine

[Bev54]

7. So I looked it up and does not say anything nor projects incest.

[Baitball Blogger]

8. This is from wiki:

It's right there:

"The song is about Clementine, the daughter of a “miner forty-niner” who is also the singer's lover."

[Bev54]

11. Yes but it does not say the singer is the father, and it actually projects he is not.

[Baitball Blogger]

14. It is being projected as he has an unnaturally close love to his daughter.

It's a major theme in the K-drama "It's Okay to not be okay." Which deals with dark interpretations of fairy tales that we take for granted.

[Bev54]

15. No read my post below

It does not say what you said, it says she was a daughter of a 49er miner AND the singer's lover

[Bev54]

13. This is what it says

Multiple variations of the song exist, but all center on Clementine, the daughter of a "miner forty-niner" and the singer's lover

[Scrivener7]

20. Clementine is the daughter of a miner, and she is also the lover of the singer.

There is nothing in wiki or in the song to say the father and the lover are the same person.

If we are to read it the way you are trying to, the miner would be the singer's lover. Which isn't the case either.

[wnylib]

28. It is saying that the daughter is the singer's lover.

So to spell it out for people unable to follow the phrasing, the singer had a lover named Clementine. Clementine was the daughter of a miner. When she tripped and fell to her drowning death, the singer (who was her lover) could not save her because he could not swim.

The father is only mentioned in the song as a way of identifying Clementine. Nothing more.

BTW, at the time that the song was created, the word "lover" simply meant "sweetheart."

[intheflow]

31. OP's interpretation came from watching a Korean drama.

Obviously their interpretation of an almost 200 year old American folk song is beyond question. Koreans know everything about American history and the American Folk tradition, English is their native language, and fictional tv shows are all unquestionably factual.

[TheBlackAdder]

5. Same here.

.

I'm not seeing family stuff. It seems her dad is a miner.

.

[sl8]

6. It sounds to me like the singer's girlfriend lived with her father.

I'm not seeing anything to suggest that the singer is her father.

[Baitball Blogger]

9. The person singing the chorus is the father.

[Bev54]

12. Nope

[sl8]

17. I understand that's what you think, but I believe you are mistaken. nt

[Walleye]

10. I like Bobby Darin's version

I’m no swimmer
but were she slimmer
I could’ve saved poor Clementine

[HardPort]

16. Well, if you read it on the internet, it must be true. Abe Lincoln said so.

[Baitball Blogger]

18. Also in an Internationally acclaimed K-Drama.

It's Okay to not feel okay.

[NoSheep]

21. this

[LakeArenal]

22. On wiki no less.

[Ptah]

19. You're thinking Chinatown.

[Floyd R. Turbo]

23. Forget it Jake!

[Ptah]

26. She's my daughter and my sister, dreadful sorrow, Chinatown.

[intheflow]

24. There is nothing to suggest incest in this song.

Last edited Fri Jun 30, 2023, 12:56 PM - Edit history (1)

I think you're reading something into it, perhaps based on your own life experience, but it 100% does not point to incest. The fact that the father and the daughter are spoken of as other than the speaker, who then goes on to speak of themselves in the first person would seem to make this clear.

[Baitball Blogger]

25. Passive aggressive zinger.

The song and the perspective came from watching a K-drama called It's Okay not to be Okay.

[intheflow]

29. Well then, it came from someone else's life experience.

Also, you are citing a fictional source that is produced in a country completely divorced from the song's cultural and historical context, as well as a general unfamiliarity with American musical folk tradition from which the song arose. Please explain to me how this is any different from, say, a Trump Humper swearing what they heard on Fox News is true, as both are fictional sources based on hearsay and little else.

[Baitball Blogger]

30. Now we're getting into an argument on originalism?

I bet the song isn't based on a real person called Clementineor nor a Miner forty-niner. Whether it's a fairy tale or a song, interpretations are always open. Which makes source material worth analyzing. If we go back to the source of many a fairy tale, we often are talking about very dark material. Which is what makes this K-Drama intriguing. It's the only real thing about the fictional story.

[intheflow]

32. No, I'm saying quoting a tv drama as fact is bullshit. n/t

[Baitball Blogger]

33. I don't introduce it as a fact. Just someone else's perspective.

Like answering the question, "What do you get out of this? What is the message of the story?" And what I truly enjoy about watching international movies, is their perspective. Especially their perspective about our literature. They see something different, than what we may collectively have learned to see.

[Donkees]

45. 'In contemporary South Korea, for example, there is a peculiar prevalence of incest dramas ... '

In contemporary South Korea, for example, there is a peculiar prevalence of incest dramas
in popular culture. More than twenty South Korean television dramas and films in the past fifteen
years alone involve the possibility of an incestuous relationship as a subtext. Autumn Tale (2000)
and Winter Sonata (2002), the television serials that ostensibly launched the “Korean Wave” in
broader Asia, as well the cult classic and critically acclaimed film Oldboy (2003), are among the
numerous productions in which key characters who at one point or another are thought to be biologically related fall in love.

An Internet search of the term “Korean incest drama” yields numerous K-drama (Korean drama) discussion boards and blog posts devoted to the topic. A Google search yields results such as “K-dramas in Which the Lovers Might Be Siblings,” “I love my oppa/ge ge: the charm of incest dramas,” “Fauxcest Is the Best!” “Tree of Heaven: Tears, heartbreak,yakuza, doom, incestuous siblings. All in a day’s work for Korea.” Fans repeatedly ask, “Incest scares are very, very common in Korean drama—why?”

In this essay I will attempt to answer this question from a historical point of view that takes into account how tropes originate, circulate, and evolve. I will show how the now-familiar incest trope in South Korean cultural productions
has roots in the historical material conditions created by war and national division. ...

https://arcade.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/article_pdfs/Occasion_v12_kim_final.pdf

[Baitball Blogger]

46. An amazing article!

Glad I read it completely. I did not know the disruption of families in Korea was a common experience. It does explain quite a few things I see recurring in these K-Dramas. In Dr. Cha, there was the Korean-American who returned to Korea, thinking he had been denied a proper upbringing with his biological family, only to find his family through a DNA search. And discover that his biological family had started the DNA search because they were looking for a kidney match for their aging father, who was an asshole. They didn't see the Korean-American as anything more than a vessel for an organ, that they had the money to buy.

Thank you for the article! It really does provide quite a bit of background.

[Donkees]

47. Plus, it seems the melody Clementine came to Korea about 1885 and was changed to 'Simcheongga'

It was based on a Korean folktale of a dutiful daughter, Sim Cheong, who sacrificed her life and was finally reunited with her father:

She offered herself as a sacrifice to the Dragon King. The seamen agreed and put out into the sea of Indangsu, where Cheong threw herself into the sea and drown. The Dragon King summoned this brave girl who sacrificed herself for her father, and he had her resurrected in a lotus flower. When Emperor Chenghua heard of her he sent for her and then married her. She was now an Empress.

Sim Cheong longed to see her father and to know if he had received his sight yet. No one seemed to know what had become of him after Sim Cheong left for the sea. She searched for many weeks and then had the idea of throwing a great feast. She invited all the blind people of the land to this feast. When she came out in her best clothes and jewels, she scanned the crowd of blind people, and there in the midst was her father. Running to him, she threw her arms around him and kissed him. Sim Hyeon was overjoyed to reunite with his daughter and immediately regained his eyesight. Empress Cheong provided for her father for the rest of his life.
https://discover.hubpages.com/literature/The-Tale-of-Sim-Cheong-a-Korean-Fairy-Tale

The 1876 Treaty of Kanghwa opened Korea to foreign influences. People usually trace the birth of K-pop to the American and British folk songs introduced by the U.S. missionary Henry Appenzeller since 1885. Korean used the melodies of these folk songs with Korean lyrics and these adapted form of songs was called “Changga” (which means “song”) in Korean. For example, Korean “Simcheongga” (which is about father-daughter relationship) was adapted from the U.S. folk song “My Darling Clementine” (which is about a dead lover) and Korean “Danny Boy” was adapted from the Northern Irish folk song “Londonderry Air”.

https://koreancultureblog.com/2015/02/27/evolution-of-k-pop-series-birth-of-k-pop-to-1940s/

[Baitball Blogger]

48. Jeez. Great research. Loved to read about all of this.

Especially in this latest K-drama you see a lot of examples of western influences.

[Donkees]

50. I enjoyed the search. Here is a Korean TV 'Clementine' soundtrack

Clementine 클레멘 타인 Yiruma Spring Waltz - Oh my darling, Clementine

From the "Spring Waltz" soundtrack; a Korean TV drama. Composed by Yiruma. Based on the american Traditional "Oh my darling, Clementine".

[Tree-Hugger]

27. He is not her father.

The singer is person A. Clementine is person B. Father forty-niner is person C. The singer is in love with a miner's daughter. The singer is not the miner. It doesn't matter what some K drama is about 150+ years after this song was written, the song is not about incest.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

36. Were any door buzzards involved? NT

[EndlessWire]

38. I have this on my computer!

This is on my Windows Media Player! Found it on Youtube for you:

What a great version he did, and seemed to really be having fun with it!

[gratuitous]

39. People have sung about tragedies for millennia

I have a friend who is a walking encyclopedia and singer of folk songs from all different countries that lament the death by misadventure of a loved one or a story of star-crossed lovers who get killed by angry families or jilted spouses. Even Ring Around the Rosey is traced back to the time of the Black Death in Europe: "Ashes, ashes, we all fall down" is about the victims' sudden death.

Better to stay with peppy contemporary songs like this:

[Baitball Blogger]

40. I'm only on episode 12 of 16, so it will be interesting to see how they tie in the

song to the traumatic experience that is overshadowing the protagonist. I do have a hunch, and it's going to be really dark.

[soldierant]

41. The miner is mentioned once in the third person

Then the singer goes into the first person for the rest of the song (with Clementine, of course still being referred to in the third person.

This strongly suggests to me that the miner and the singer are two different people.

But then, if they lived in a cavern in a canyon, that strongly suggests that the water there would be fresh, not "brine," so I suppose you could extrapolate anything you wanted to out of it.

Also, in some versions it s not horses but ducklings. And in others she had a sister.

I think I'll stick with Tom Lehrer's version (and remarks).
https://tomlehrersongs.com/clementine/

[sl8]

42. Some verses have the father killing himself and the singer taking up with the sister.

[...]

Then the miner, fortyniner soon began to peak and pine
Thought he oughter jine his daughter now he's with his Clementine

In a churchyard near the canon where the myrtle doth entwine
Grow the roses in their posies fertilized by Clementine

In my dreams she still doth haunt me. Robbed in garlands, soaked in brine
Though in life I used to hug her. Now she's dead I draw the line

How I missed her, how I missed her, how I missed my Clementine
But I kissed her little sister and forgot my Clementine

https://lyricstranslate.com

[Baitball Blogger]

44. Never realized how morbid this song was before today.

[ret5hd]

43. Let's see them interpret THIS one:

Violent Femmes, “Country Death Song”

[ARPad95]

49. This verse clearly indicates *the singer* loved Clementine...

and he's simply telling his audience that Clementine's father was an 1849 miner and she and her father lived in a cavern where her father mined for gold:

In a cavern, in a canyon
Excavating for a mine
Dwelt a miner forty-niner
And his daughter, Clementine
Yes I loved her, how I loved her

There isn't anything more to it. Not even that the singer's love for Clementine was anything but chaste.

[LeftishBrit]

51. Don't think it's the father speaking

It's a boyfriend who can't rescue her from drowning, because he can't swim; but manages to find consolation in the final verse:

How I missed her, how I missed her,
How I missed my Clementine,
But I kissed her little sister,
And forgot my Clementine.

Incidentally, in the version I learned, she drove ducklings to the water, not horses,

[Chakaconcarne]

52. Complete nonsense