C Instrument - Level 1 - Digital Download
SKU: A0.1511772
By The Wolfe Tones. By Fred Fisher, Jesse Lasky, and Sam Stern. Arranged by Thomas Degan. 20th Century,Celtic,Comedy,Folk,Irish,Traditional. Lead Sheet / Fake Book. 2 pages. Thomas Degan #1086922. Published by Thomas Degan (A0.1511772).
My Brother Sylvest' also known as Big Strong Man, is an American song, but often performed by English folk singers and Irish bands.
My Brudda Sylvest' was written in 1908, words by Jesse Lasky and Sam Stern, music by Fred Fisher.
The song is written in an Italian-American dialect about the singer's eponymous brother, described in hyperbolic terms as a man of legendary strength capable of extraordinary feats. The original lyric has him blowing out a house fire, pushing the ocean away to allow him to walk to Italy, killing fifty thousand [native American] Indians, and drinking the ocean dry.
Subsequent versions changed the references from the boxer John L. Sullivan to the Jeffries-Johnson fight of 1910, to American boxer Jack Dempsey, who started boxing in 1914, and even to John Conteh of Great Britain, who fought in the 1970s. Other changes have included the saving of the RMS Lusitania, sunk during the first World War, and swimming from New York to Italy, drinking all the water in the sea, playing every instrument in a brass band in a visit to Japan.
