Drunkard's Courtship- Horton Barker (VA) 1962 REC
[From FOLKWAYS RECORDS Album No. FA 2362; dated 1962 Folkways Records & Service Corp., 701 Seventh Ave., N.Y.C., U.S.A. From the recording HORTON BARKER, TRADITIONAL SINGER. Recorded in Beech Creek, North Carolina, by SANDY PATON. Horton Barker was born in Laurel Bloomery, TN in 1889.
Paton's notes follow.
R. Matteson 2017]
THE BRUNKARD'S COURTSHIP (The Courting Case): When Horton was a boy, his mother, who was born in Allegheny County,
North Carolina, in 1861, used to sing this song to him. Perhaps, however, Horton is deliberately forgetting the final verse in which the woman, as usual, has the last word. Brown, in his North Carolina collection, prints two texts, one of which ends where Horton's does, but the other follows that with; "When I get cold and pinched with cold, it won't be you to keep me warm; I'll get somebody I love much better and lie closer in his arms." Sharp prints two texts, one of which suggests that another man
will keep her warm, while the other leaves her with only her clothes to provide such comfort.
"Kind sir, I see you've come again,
Pray tell me what it's for;
I told you plain on yonder hill
That you needn't come here anymore, anymore,
That you needn't come here anymore."
"Kind miss, I have a very fine house
And also a mighty fine yard."
"Who would stay all night with ma
When you were out playing cards,
When you were out playing cards?"
"Now, miss, I never did the like,
For I never thought it right.
Now, if you'll promise to be my wife,
I'll never stay out one night,
I'll never stay out one night."
''Kind sir, why do you tell me that,
To try to take me in?
As soon as I'd become your bride
You'd gamble and drink again,
You'd gamble and drink again."
"Kind miss, I'm a very fine man,
I also dress mighty fine;
How I'd like some pretty little miss
To kiss these lips of mine,
To kiss these lips of mine."
"Kind sir, you may be a very fine man
And also dress mighty fine,
But you are the last young man
That'll kiss these lips of mine,
That'll kiss these lips of mine."
"NOW, madam, you're a hard old case,
And just a little too hard to please;
And when you're old some of these cold nights
I hope to the Lord you'll freeze,
I hope to the Lord you'll freeze."