SONGOoftheDAY: “Bohemian Boys” by John Lilly
By day, John Lilly is editor of Goldenseal magazine on the living history and culture of West Virginia. Outside the office, he is an award-winning touring musician and performing songwriter. Lilly will release his latest CD, “Haunted Honky Tonk,” with a concert and party at the LaBelle Theater in South Charleston on Sunday, October 28, at 7 p.m., along with guest performers Ginny Hawker, Buddy Griffin, Robert Shafer, and others. Admission is $5. For more on the artist (be sure to check out his infamous George Bush song βWβ) visit johnlillymusic.com.
For a taste of the new CD, we asked Lilly if thegazz.com viewers might hear his song, “Bohemian Boys” and have him tell about the story behind the song. Click here to listen and read on below: “Bohemian Boys”
JOHN LILLY says:
I wrote “Bohemian Boys” a couple of years ago after attending the first NewSong Festival at Claymont Court in Charles Town, W.Va. Actually, I started writing it at NewSong and had the chorus written before I left the parking lot. I had been inspired especially by Johnsmith and Darrel Scott and their original songs based on family history. My family history is quite complex, but I decided to make my best effort to put the story of my grandfather’s early life into a song. “Bohemian Boys,” therefore, is a true story.
I have known for many years that the Lilly name came into my family by adoption about 100 years ago. I only began to discover the details, however, a few years back, when my father took an interest in researching in his own family background. He never met his own father — his parents divorced when he was an infant — and had been given only vague and conflicting information about him from my grandmother. One day, while going through some of his late mother’s papers, my father discovered a scrap of paper with the name ‘Jeremiah Rezabek’ written on it, with some other legal-sounding notations about “case numbers” and “first papers” and such. He took the scrap to his elderly aunt, who confirmed that Jeremiah Rezabek was his father’s birth name and that this note referred to his adoption.
The cover of the new John Lilly CD which includes “Bohemian Boys”
My father was intrigued and began a complex process of following this thread to see where it would lead. Knowing my interest in history, he shared his discoveries with me as he went along. It was bittersweet. While we felt excited to uncover the idenities of his father and his family, it was heartbreaking to learn of their hardships, which included poverty, mental illness, and the court-ordered placement of their children in foster care.
I was amazed at the documentation he obtained, which he carefully kept in a file. I kept my own notes and did a little work on the Internet. Eventually, my father’s interest waned, perhaps as a result of his own declining health, or perhaps he simply had learned enough. The story haunted me, though, until I took it in my mind to write the song, “Bohemian Boys.”
Most everything in the song is accurate. Joseph and Mary were, in fact, the parents’ names. They were foreign-speaking Bohemian immigrants who faced poverty in the slums of Chicago at the turn of the last century. I don’t really know the circumstances of them placing their three boys in the orphanage (or convent), so I invented the part of the song about the rat and the fire. As I mentioned earlier, Jeremiah was my grandfather’s actual name; Peter and James were not the names of his siblings, but their stories are true about “hitting the trail” (one ended up in Iowa) and “ending up in jail” (one was last known to be in a juvenile detention center). The family that took Jeremiah in were the Lillys, who took him out of the orphanage in 1909 and officially adopted him and changed his name to George Lilly in 1913. The 1913 event is what my grandmother’s original scrap of paper was all about.
My father passed away before I wrote the song, so he never heard it. I did sing it for some family members once at a gathering, but it wasn’t until the recording that they really began to wrap their minds around what it all meant. My wife has recently begun picking up the research and has already made some progress — she found a photograph and history of the insane asylum where Joseph Rezabek lived out his days. There is still much to learn about this story, but the song seems to be a catalyst for discovery for my family. It also seems to speak to audiences. When I sing it, I often get very emotional responses from people who share snippets of their own stories with me. It’s gratifying.
For more on John Lilly, see johnlillymusic.com
October 25th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
The moment I heard your song, John, I knew that it would evoke plenty of emotional responses. It certainly took me. Congratulations once again on another fine collection of songs. Well done!
October 25th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Chris Stuart mentioned how much he loved this song so I had to check it out! Really a great song. I’m from Wheeling, WVA and living in Freedom, CA, play Bluegrass, guitar and dulcimer and write songs. Thanks for capturing your family’s story!
October 25th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Beautiful song. Takes me in so many directions … sad, thankful, bit of perspective.
I must confess, I always so a little bit of bohemian in Bob.
November 5th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
What a beautifull song! This is a thread that has become woven into the fabric that is America. It is important to remember the texture of all the threads, so as not to forget the humanity of this wonderfull fabric.
February 3rd, 2008 at 10:55 pm
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