Felix McGlennon (30 January 1856 – 1 December 1943) was a British songwriter and publisher, whose seriocomic songs were popular in the music halls of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
He emigrated to the United States in the mid-1880s, and began writing vaudeville songs, some of which, such as "His Funeral's Tomorrow", "Comrades" – a patriotic song about the friendship of two old soldiers written with George Horncastle, published in 1887 and popularised by Tom Costello – and "And Her Golden Hair was Hanging Down Her Back" (written with Monroe Rosenfeld, 1894, and popularised by Seymour Hicks), also became successful in British music halls.
Although McGlennon wrote both words and music of some of his songs, he also worked with other lyricists, including Tom Browne, George Bruce, W. A. Archbold and Edgar Bateman.
[2] According to the writer Dave Russell: "If McGlennon's texts were to be taken at face value, they illustrate perplexing ideological inconsistency, not least a sympathy with Irish republicanism mingled with a regard for the very imperialist ethos that shaped Ireland's destiny.
He had no musical training, picked out his tunes on a toy piano, and had a poor opinion of their qualities, saying:Assume, if you like, that what I write is rubbish.