Father, Go Build me a Boat- Mary Smith (NC) 1915 Brown A
[From Brown Collection of NC Folklore Volume 2, Ballads, 1952. Their (Belden and all) notes follow. Stanza two should be 4 lines (combine 4 and 5). Thomas Smith has proven to be an unreliable source and ballads communicated by him are questionable.
R. Mateson 2017]
Brown Collection Notes:
104 The Sailor Boy
This song was printed by Catnach and Such and probably by other ballad printers in England in the last century and is widely known and sung. See BSM 186, and add to the references there given Maine (MWS 56-9), Virginia (FSV 108-11, 118), North Carolina (BMFSB 24-5, SFLQ v 146), Arkansas (OFS I 300), Missouri (OFS I 296-300), Ohio (BSO 97-103), Indiana (BSI 269-70), Illinois (JAFL XL 235-6), and Michigan (BSSM 94, blended with 'The Butcher Boy'). Barry listed it among the ballads in his collection from the North Atlantic States but did not print it. Like other items of the folk song of unhappy love its content is likely to vary; with its central images of the girl bidding her father build her a boat and later demanding of the sailors she meets news of her sailor boy may be combined motives from 'The Butcher Boy,' 'Little Sparrow,' 'The Lass of Roch Royal,' or an elaborate preliminary story may be provided as in version L below.
A. 'Oh, Father, Go Build me a Boat.' Contributed by Thomas Smith of Zionville, Watauga county, in 1915 as "written down by Miss Mae Smith, Sugar Grove, N. C, from the singing of Mrs. Mary Smith. Part of the above song has been sung also by several people living in Watauga." Stanza 4 has been taken over from 'The Butcher Boy.'
1 'Oh, father, go build me a boat,
That over the ocean I may float,'
The father built her a boat
And over the ocean she did float.
2 She halted two captains as they passed by,
She halted each captain
'Say, did you sail with my sailor boy?'
'No, my dear; he was killed at the head
Of Rocky Island as we passed by.'
3 She fell upon the boat
I thought that woman's heart was broke.
4 She called for a stool to sit upon.
Pen and ink to write it down.
At the end of every line she dropped a tear,
At the end of every verse she cried out 'Oh, my dear!'