Antigonish (poem)

"Antigonish" is an 1899 poem by American educator and poet William Hughes Mearns. It is also known as "The Little Man Who Wasn't There", and was a hit song under that title.

Poem

Inspired by reports of a ghost of a man roaming the stairs of a haunted house in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada,^[1] the poem was originally part of a play called The Psyco-ed which Mearns had written for an English class at Harvard University about 1899.^[2] In 1910, Mearns put on the play with the Plays and Players, an amateur theatrical group and, on 27 March 1922, newspaper columnist FPA printed the poem in "The Conning Tower", his column in the New York World.^[2][3]

Text

Song

In 1939, "Antigonish" was adapted as a popular song titled "The Little Man Who Wasn't There" by Harold Adamson with music by Bernie Hanighen, both of whom received the songwriting credits.^[3] A 12 July 1939 recording of the song by the Glenn Miller Orchestra with vocals by Tex Beneke became an 11-week hit on Your Hit Parade reaching #7. Other versions were recorded by Larry Clinton & His Orchestra with vocals by Ford Leary, Bob Crosby & His Orchestra with vocals by Teddy Grace, Jack Teagarden & His Orchestra with vocals by Teagarden, and Mildred Bailey. In 2005 the heavy metal band Nodes of Ranvier featured the first verse of "Antigonish" in their instrumental song "Novocain For No Reason". The first verse is also used in the Billy Bragg song "Goalhanger" on his 1996 "William Bloke" album.

Appearances in popular culture

Mearns' "Antigonish" has been used numerous times in popular culture, often with slight variations in the lines. Versions are frequently featured in modern entertainment:

Film

• The Detective; (1954) (Also known as Father Brown )
• Hide and Seek
• Death in Paradise TV series.
• Identity (2003 film)
• Velvet Goldmine
• Being Cyrus
• Logan's Run
• The Haunting in Connecticut (2009 Film)
• The Man Who Wasn't There; title was taken directly from this poem
• Knowing
• The Game (UK TV series)
• Momniverse Animated: Fortunado

Literature

• Doctor Who: Falls the Shadow
• Dreamcatcher
• Halting State
• Dead Guilty
• The Damned Utd
• The Ambler Warning
• Major Operation
• Q-Squared
• The Silent Tower
• A Long Hard Look at "Psycho" - Raymond Durgnat
• Shades of Grey
• Being Human
• Night of the Jabberwock by Fredric Brown (in which Brown suggests that the little man's name is Yehudi).
• The Immortal Highlander Karen Marie Moning
• Aristotle and an Aardvark Go to Washington
• Methuselah's Children - Robert A. Heinlein
• The Man Who Folded Himself - David Gerrold
• Lost
• Prometheus Rising
• King of Thorns
• Death is a Lonely Business - Ray Bradbury
• The Taken - Sarah Pinborough
• Kes - Robin McKinley
• I Saw a Man - Owen Sheers
• Tommyknockers - Stephen King
• The King of Thorns - Mark Lawrence
• I Met A Man Who Wasn't There by Mary Rose Callaghan (1996)

Comics

• The Question (DC Comics), written by Dennis O'Neil
• Doom Patrol Volume 2 (DC Comics), written by Grant Morrison
• 52 (DC Comics), written by Greg Rucka, Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison and Mark Waid
• Sin Titulo (self-published), written and illustrated by Cameron Stewart

Television

• Dave Allen At Large, season 1 episode 4
• Strike Back: Legacy season 5 episode 7
• 'Gallipoli (Australian TV series) season 1 episode 1
• 'The Game season 1, episode 1
• Sapphire and Steel
• Midsomer Murders, season 5, episode 5, "A Worm in the Bud"
• La Femme Nikita
• A Touch Of Frost
• Lost
• P.D. James, Cover Her Face (BBC miniseries)
• All My Children
• Red Dwarf
• Death in Paradise - series 4, episode 1
• True Detective - a reference to this poem is made in one draft of the script for the second episode ^[4]

Music

• Intro of Shining's (SWE) song "Yttligare ett steg närmare total jävla utfrysning" (2007)
• Lil Wayne's Free Weezy Album Track 15 "Pick Up Your Heart" (2015)
• The Swedish Depressive Suicidal Black Metal band Shining used the first four sentences as an intro to their song "Ytterligare Ett Steg Närmare Total Jävla Utfrysning" the first track from their 2005 album V: Halmstad.
• In 1971, on their eponymous album, the Danish band "Midnight Sun" (A.K.A. "The Rainbow Band") released the song "Nobody" which has as its lyrics the first verse of the poem.
• In 2005, the U.S. American aggrotech band Psyclon Nine featured a sample of the poem in the song "The Unfortunate" from their album INRI. In 2005, the U.S. Christian metal band Nodes of Ranvier includes lines from this poem in the song, "Novocain For No Reason". The poem is also sampled in the EBM song "Recognition" by The Parallel Project.
• The Canadian hip hop group from Québec Loco Locass used the first four sentences in their song "Occupation double"^[5] the tenth song of their 2012 album Le Québec est mort, Vive le Québec !
• Similar lyrics can be heard in the song "The Man Who Sold the World" by David Bowie:

We passed upon the stair
We spoke of was and when
Although I wasn't there
He said I was his friend…

• Furthermore, in an example of meme, pop band Visage (a legacy of David Bowie) depict in their music video clip "Mind of a Toy" - a nighttime meeting/passing upon a staircase with a little man who fades away.
• The poem is referenced in OTEP's song "Communion" from their 2007 album The Ascension, and Chino XL's song "Skin" from the album Poison Pen. The psy-trance band Xerox and Illumination used an excerpt from the poem in the song "Paranoia" from their album XI.
• Imperial Vengeance's 2011 album Black Heart of Empire featured a song entitled "Upon the Stair", inspired by the poem.
• Nuit quoted the poem in their song "Nobody There" on the 2000 album Mother Night.^[6]

Other media

A version printed in Mad magazine around the time of the Church Committee hearings read:

There was a man upon the stair
When I looked back, he wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I think he's from the CIA.

A version appeared in March 2008 that played on the contrast between UK Prime Ministers Tony Blair (1997–2007) and Gordon Brown (2007-2010). Allegedly it was composed by a minister in the Labour government.^[7]

In Downing Street upon the stair
I met a man who wasn't Blair.
He wasn't Blair again today.
Oh how I wish he'd go away.

A version appeared in issue 33 of the DC Comics title 52. It was spoken by The Question

...Upon the stair,
I met a man who was not there...
He was not there again today,
I wish to gosh he'd go away.

Lines from the poem are used as the only lyrics in a computer demo called Rush by Singular Crew.^[8]

In a dissent in the 2008 United States Supreme Court case Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, Justice David Souter referenced the poem when he noted that, "The State responds to the want of evidence with the assertion that in-person voter impersonation fraud is hard to detect. But this is like saying the 'man who wasn't there' is hard to spot".^[9]

A version appeared in the 24 March 2015 edition of The Canberra Times in a cartoon drawn by David Pope, where Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot (as Scrooge) is reciting the lines while averting his eyes from a ghostly ex-Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, who sits on the stairs reading the report from the Moss Review into abuse in the Australian immigration detention centre on Nauru - a reference to Fraser's reputation as a moral compass and embarrassment to current sitting Liberal Party Members.

Last night I saw upon the stair
A tallish man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
Oh, how I wish he'd go away!

Notes