Adieu- Shirley Hunt (MO) 1911 Belden C
[From Belden; "Ballads and Songs," 1940. His notes follow. This version features the "Adieu" chorus found in "Tavern in the Town." Adieu is found earlier in the African-America creole song "Radoo, Radoo, Radoo" that was heard in the Southern United States in the 1860s by Irish writer and Nationalist Justin McCarthy during a lecturing tour. It seems "Radoo" was also known independently by Texan Bessie O'Connor, who published the music while living in the UK. McCarthy infers that it is an old plantation song from before the Civil War (see: The Right Honourable, 1886).
The first stanza is found in several variants of Died for Love and seems to be aligned with Constant Lady except the man should be going far away. The other stanzas are standard in American versions of Blue-Eyed Boy.
R. Matteson 2017]
The Blue-Eyed Boy
Here divers images or motifs seem to have been gathered around a refrain stanza which gives the name to the song. I have found. it reported from else-where only in Nebraska (ABS 272-3). In A the refrain stanza is not marked as such and the other elements are the hand and lips image (vaguely remembered from The Lass of Roch Royal), the turtle dove, the green willow tree, and 'Must I go bound while he goes free?';[1] in B, the lover going to sea, the value of a true friend., the little bird, and the refrain stanza; in C, the harp hung on the willow tree (which here has thrust the 'blue-eyed boy' stanza from its place as refrain),'Must I go bound and you go free?', the value of a true friend, and the turtle dove. D lacks the 'blue-eyed boy' altogether, but I have included it here because of the 'Must I go bound' stanza; the other stanza belongs to the tradition of 'There is an Alehouse in Yonder Town,' for which see the headnote to The Butcher Boy.
C. 'Adieu.' Communicated to Miss Hamilton in 1911 by Shirley Hunt of the Kirksville Teachers College. Note the 'eavesdropping' introductory stanza, a favorite opening for the pastourelle type of street ballad.
As I walked out one evening fair
To view the plains and take the air
I overheard a young man say
He loved a girl that was going away.
Chorus: Adieu, adieu, my friends, adieu,
I can no longer stay with you.
I'll hang my harp upon the willow
And bid this lonesome world adieu.
Go bring me back that blue-eyed. boy,
Go bring my darling back to me,
Go bring me back the one I love
And happy I shall always be.
Must I be bound and you go free?
Must I love one that don't love me?
Or must I act a childish part
And stay with one that broke my heart?
Sometimes you think you have a friend
And one you always can depend;
But when you think that you have got,
'When tried will prove that you will not.