AFS L 1: ANGLO-AMERICAN BALLADS
Recorded in various parts of U.S. by John and Alan Lomax and others, 1934-41. Edited by Alan Lomax.
1."The House Carpenter", sung by Mrs. Texas Gladden
2."The Farmer's Curst Wife", sung by Horton Barker
3."The Gypsy Davy", sung with guitar by Woody Guthrie
4."Barbara Allen", sung by Rebecca Tarwater
5."Pretty Polly", sung with guitar by E. C. Ball
6."The Rich Old Farmer", sung by Mrs. Pearl Borusky
7."The Devil's Nine Questions", "Old Kimball", and "One Morning in May", sung by Mrs. Texas Gladden
8."The Little Brown Bulls", sung by Emery DeNoyer
9."The Sioux Indians", sung by Alex Moore
10."The Lady of Carlisle", sung with guitar by Basil May
11."Pretty Polly", sung with five-string banjo by Pete Steele
12."It Makes a Long Time Man Feel Bad", sung by group of Negro prisoners
13."O Lord Don't 'Low Me to Beat 'Em", sung by Willie Williams
Liner Notes:
FOLK MUSIC OF THE UNITED STATES Recording Laboralory AFS L1 WASHINGTON
ANGLO-AMERICAN BALLADS
From Ih., Archive of Folk Song: Edited by Alan Lomax
[Image of a log cabin]
AI-THE HOUSE CARPENTER
Sung by Mrs. Texas Gladden at Salem, Virginia, 1941. Recorded by Alan and Elizabeth Lomax. At the time the first British settlers came to the United States, the singing of old-time ballads was evidently still very common in Great Britain. This is indicated by the survival of more than a hundred of the so-called classic popular ballads in the folk tradition of the United States along with scores of ballads of other types. These ballads took on renewed importance in the wilderness of the thirteen colonies where the people were completely dependent for amusement on the sources of their memories and imaginations; and they are still known in every pan of the country, although most commonly in isolated rural areas. Not only wefe these ballads an impurtant form of recreation for the pioneers, but they gave a sense of history and they expressed certain deep-running patterns of ideas and feeling, important to the structure of the American community. The ballad of "The House Carpenter" (sometimes called "The Daemon Lover") is one of the most widely distributed British ballads in this country. With other ballads of its kind, it has furnished amusement for lovers, for family groups and for children in every part of Our land. Child No. 243. For a note giving other versions of this ballad, see pages 79-81, of H. M. Belden, Ballads and Songs Collected by tile Missouri Folk-Lore Society, University of Missouri Studies, xv, no. I, 1940.
1. "Well met, well met, you old true-love'
Well met, well met!" said she [i.e., he].
''I've just returned from the seashore sea,
From the land where the grass grows green.
2. "Well, I could have married a king's daughter there,
And she would have married me;
But I refused the golden crown
All for the sake of thee.
3. "If you'll forsake your house carpenter,
And come and go with me,
I'll take you where the grass grows green,
To the lands on the banks of the sea."
4. She went 'n' picked up her sweet little babe
And kisscd it one, two, three,
Saying, "Stay at home with your papa dear,
And keep him good company."
5. She went and dressed in her very best,
As everyone could see.
She glistened and glittered and proudly she walked
The streets on the banks of the sea.
6. They hadn't been sailing but aboul three weeks
I'm sure it was not four-
Till this young lady began to weep,
And her weeping never ceased any more.
7. "Are you mourning for your house carpenter?
Are you mourning for your store?"
"No. I'm mourning for my sweet little babe
That I never will see any more."
8. They hadn't been sailing but about four wccks
I'm sure it was not more-
Till the ship sprang a leak from the bottom of the sea,
And it sank to rise no more.
A2-THE FARMER'S CURST WIFE
Sung by Horton· Barker at Chilhowie, Virginia, 1939. Recorded by Herbert Halpert. One of the best known of all the British ballads found in the United States. this tale of a scolding wife evidences its popularity by the number of melodies and the number of nonsense refrains it has acquired in its long travels across the centuries. It still delights any audience with its broadly comic version of the Orpheus legend. I was told by a mountain singer that husbands actually have used it to silence their shrewish wives; the superstitious women believed that what happened to One woman might well happen to anolher. The story is always the same. The devil appears to a farmer in his field; the farmer gives him his scolding wife; the devil carries her off to hell where she proceeds to murder as many of Satan's imps as come within her reach; Satan, realizing that the old woman is "about to clean out Hell," carries her back to her husband, proving the old folk adage that "nothing is meaner than a mean woman." Child No. 278. For reference material on this ballad see pages 94 If. of Belden, Ballads and Songs.
I. There was an old man at the foot of the hill,
If he ain't moved away he's livin' there still.
Sing heigh, diddle-eye, diddle-eye, fie!
Diddle-eye, diddle-eye, day!
2. He hitched up his horse and he went out to plow,
But how to get around he didn't know how.
Sing heigh, etc.
3. The Devil came to his house one day,
Says, "One of your family I'm a-gonna take away."
Sing heigh, etc.
4. "Take her on, take her on, with the joy of my heart;
I hope by gollies you'll never part!"
Sing heigh, etc.
5. The Devil put her in a sack,
And the old man says, "Don't you bring her back."
Sing heigh, etc.
6. When the Devil got her to the forks of the road,
He says, "Old lady. you're a terrible load."
Sing heigh, etc.
7. When the Devil got her to the gates of Hell,
He says, "Punch up the fire, we want to scorch her well."
Sing heigh, etc.
8. In come a little devil a-draggin' a chain;
She upped with the hatchet, and split out his brains.
Sing heigh, etc.
9. Another little devil went climbin' the wall,
An' says. "Take her back, Daddy, she's a-murderin' us all."
Sing heigh, etc.
10. The old man was a-peepin' out of the crack,
And saw the old Devil come draggin' her back.
Sing heigh, etc.
11. She found the old man sick in the bed,
And upped with the butterstick and paddled his head.
Sing heigh, etc.
12. The old woman went whistlin' over the hill.
"The Devil wouldn't have me, so I wonder who will?"
Sing heigh, etc.
13. This is what a woman can do:
She can outdo the Devil and her old man, too.
Sing heigh, etc.
14. There's one advantage women have over men:
They can go to Hell and come back again.
Sing heigh, etc.
A3-THE GYPSY DAVY
Sung with guitar by Woody Guthrie of Okemah, Oklahoma. Recorded in Washington, D.C., 1940, by Alan Lomax.
Reed Smith says that one of the best American versions of this romantic ballad was collected in Ohio from a Russian Jew who learned it in Salt Lake City, Utah, from the Mormons. The tale has had an enormous appeal for the common people, since it depicts the defeat of the aristocrat; for women it has mennt romantic escape from the slavery of frontier marriage. The original ballad comes out of seventeenthcentury England where it was called "Johnny Fa" or "The Raggle Taggle Gypsies." Tn America in the early part of the nineteenth century it was sufficiently well known to everyone to be parodied on the stage. Woody Guthrie, our best contemporary ballad composer, has edited this version to fit his Oklahoma upbringing. The "milk white steed" of the earlier ballad has become the "buckskin horse"; the "lily white gloves" have turned "buckskin," too. Then Woody has put in a stanza of his own, number 3, which makes the story over into a western ballad, "big guitar" and all. The melody has been completely Americanized, and the guitar accompaniment is a recent development. Woody, learned his guitar style from listening to records of the famous Carter family of "hill-billy" fame. Child No. 200. For a note on other versions of this ballad see pages 73 ff. of Belden, Ballads and Songs.
1. It was late last night when my lord come home,
Inquirin' 'bout his lady.
'N' the only answer he received:
"She's gone with the Gypsy Davy,
Gone with the Gypsy Dave."
2. "Go saddle for me my buckskin horse
And a hundred-dollar saddle.
Point out to me their wagon tracks,
And after them I'll travel, After them I'll ride."
3. Well, he had not rode till the midnight moon
Till he saw the campfire gleamin',
And he heard the gypsy's big guitar,
And the voice of the lady singin'
The song of the Gypsy Dave.
4. "Well, have you forsaken your house and home?
Have you forsaken your baby?
Have you forsaken your husband dear
To go with the Gypsy Davy,
And sing with the Gypsy Dave?"
5. "Yes, I've forsaken my house and home
To go with the Gypsy Davy,
And I'll forsake my husband dear
But not my blue-eyed baby,
Not my blue-eyed babe."
6. She laughed to leave her husband dear,
And her butlers and her ladies,
But the tears come a-trickelin' down her cheeks
When she thought about her blue-eyed baby,
And thought of her blue-eyed babe.
7. "Take off, take off your buckskin boots,
Made of Spanish leather,
And give to me your lily-white hand,
'N' we'll go back home together,
Go back home again.
8. "Take off, take off your buckskin gloves,
Made of Spanish leather,
And give to me your lily-white hand,
'N' we'll go back home together,
Go back home again."
(Aside) How ya, Sue? Hello, Sue.*
9. "No, I won't take off my buckskin gloves,
Made of Spanish leather;
I'll go my way from day to day,
And sing with the Gypsy Davy,
'N' sing with the Gypsy Dave."
* The singer saw his lillte daughter in the studio and spoke to her.
A4-BARBARA ALLEN
Sung by Rebecca Tarwater 01 Rockwood, Tennessee. Recorded in Washington, D.C., 1936, by Charles Seeger. For two hundred years "Barbara Allen" has been the best loved of all English ballads. It encompasses both of the ideas which are commonest in British and American ballads of love, i.e., that love leads to death, and that a proud lover always destroys himself and his loved one. The air of the ballad always seems fresh and tender, no matter how often one hears it, and the verses paint a picture that has all the soft cruelty of spring. Only last summer a Georgia mountain farmer to!d me, "Every time I hear 'Barbara Allen' it makes the hair rise on my head." Rebecca Tarwater, the singer, although she has had some voice training, gives us the melody as it was sung to her by her mother. The text is extremely short-six stanzas in place of the usual ten to fifteen. Child No. 84. For reference material on this ballad see pages 60 ff. of Belden, Ballads and Songs.
I. 'Twas in the lovely month of May,
The flowers all were bloomin';
Sweet William on his death-bed lay
For the love of Barbry Allen.
2. He sent his servant to her door,
He sent him to her dwellin':
"My master's sick and he calls for you,
If your name be Harbry Allen."
3. Then slowlye, slowlye, got she up,
And to his bedside goin':
"My master's sick and he called for you,
If your name be Barbry Allen."
4. He turned his pale face to the wall,
And bursted out a-cryin':
"Adieu, adieu to all below,
And adieu to Barbry Allen!"
5. Sweet William died on a Saturday night,
And Barbry died a Sunday.
Their parents died for the love of the two;
They was buried on a Easter Monday.
6. A white rose grew on William's grave,
A red rose grew on Barbry's;
They twined and they twined in a true-lover's knot,
A-warnin' young people to marry.
"The singer mistakenly repeats lhese lines from Stanza 2. They usually are sung:
"No better. no better, you will ever be,
For you can't have Barbry Allen."'
A5-PRETTY POLLY
Sung with guitar hy E. C. Ball at Rugby, Virgiuia, 1941. Recorded by Alan and Elizaheth Lomax. There is a general belief among certain American folklorists that ballads generally grow feeble in the process of communal transmission and fe-creation. "Pretty Polly" is one of the many examples one could cite in refutation of this generality, for the broadside ballad from which it is probably derived ("The Wexford Murder") is as clumsy and dull and unpalatable a piece as the poets of Grub Street ever penned. In the mountains of the South all the circumstantial trappings of the original ballad have been cut <lway until the lines are as clear, direct and poignant as the best of classic balladry. The product of this process of folk cditing"Pretty Polly"-is the "American Tragedy" in six brilliant stanzas (the same subject that occupies a ponderous volume in Theodore Dreiser\ work of that name). The singer learned this tunc and accompaniment frolll an excellent commercial phonograph record issued by Victor in 1925, now out of print. He has cleverly adapted the original banjo accompaniment of that record to his guitar. Here we have the phonograph record taking the place formerly held by the wandering ballad singer. Nowadays the radio performs a similar function. Folk singing has more than nine lives. For reference purposes see page 308 of John Harrington Cox, Folk-Songs of the South (Harvard University Press, 1925).
1. "Pretty Polly, pretty Polly, come go 'long with me,
Pretty Polly, pretty Polly, come go 'long with me,
Before we git married, some pleasure to see."
2. She got up behind him and away they did go,
She got up behind him and away they did go,
Over the hills to the valley so low.
3. They went up a little farther and what did they spy?
They went up a little farther and what did they spy?
A new-dug grave and a spade lying by.
4. He stobbed her to the heart, her heart blood it did now,
He stobbed her to the heart, her heart blood it did flow,
And into the grave pretty Polly did go.
5. He threw somethin' over her and turned to go home,
He threw somethin' over her and turned to go home,
Leaving nothing behind him but the girl left to mourn.
6. Gentlemen and ladies, I'll bid you farewell,
Gentlemen and ladies, I'll bid you farewell,
For killin' pretty Polly will send my soul to Hell.
A6-THE RICH OLD FARMER
Sung by Mrs. Pearl Borusky at Antigo, Wisconsin, 1941. Recorded by Charles Draves. "The girl I left behind me"-would she prove faithful or false? This question was terribly important for the men who came to America and for the men who went out alone into the American wilderness. The pattern expresses itself in two types of ballad themes: Lhe ballad in whieh the young lady remains faithful through long years, and the ballad in which the adventurer receives a Ictter telling him that his love has married another man. For western singers this latter theme has been dominant. There are many versions of this tale in the repertories of western singers, and one somehow has the impression that the male protagonist feels rather sorrier for himself than for losing his true love to another man. The ballad is an adaptation of an eighleenthcentury British broadside piece, known as "The Girl I Left Behind Me." The singer came originally from Kentucky. For a note giving other versions of this ballad, see pages 198 ff. of Belden, Ballads and Songs.
1. There was a rich old farmer
Lived in the country nigh.
He had an only daughter
On whom I cast my eye.
She was so tall and slender,
So delicate and so fair;
No other girl in the country
With her I could compare.
2. I asked her if it made any difference
If I crossed over the plains.
She said it made no difference
If I'd come back again.
She promised she'd be true to me
Until death's parting time;
So we kissed, shook hands, and parted,
And I left my girl behind.
3. Straightway to old Missouri,
To Pikesville I did go,
Where work and money were plentiful
And the whiskey it did flow,
Where work and money was plentiful
And the girls all treated me kind;
But the girl I left behind me
Was always on my mind.
4. One day while I was out walking
Down by the public square,
The mail-boat had arrived
And the postman met me there.
He handed me a letter
Which gave me to understand
That the girl I left behind me
Was married to another man.
5. I advanced a few steps forward,
Full knowing these words to be true.
My mind being bent on rambling,
I didn't know what to do,
My mind being bent on rambling.
This wide world to see o'er-
I left my dear old parents,
Perhaps to see no more.
A7-THE DEVIL'S NINE QUESTIONS, A8-OLD KIMBALL.
Sung by Mrs, Texas Gladden :11 Salem, Virginia, 1941. Recorded by Alan and Elizabeth Lomax through the courtesy
of Miss Alfreda Peel.
Pioneers everywhere have the advantage of a fresh start. They may cherish their cultural past. revise it, or reject it. Part of their heritage of song is left aside and forgotten. Other songs get a fresh start, just as the people themselves do, while still others are recast to fit the needs of a new environment. In remOlding their old songs or making new ones, the people choose the handiest and hardiest material availablc. These two songs provide a contrast which aptly illustrates these points.
The first song is an ancient riddling ballad, sung with great purity of style, the text being in a fine state of preservation; it is undoubtcdly one of the most ancient ballads in the entire British ballad tradition. It was discovered far back in the Virginia mountains in the possession of a mountain woman whose ideas and langunge were colored by her heritage from Elizabethan England.
The second song represents a type of cultural intermingling out of which has come much of what is distinctive and beautiful in the cultures of both Americas. When Negroes and whites encountered each other in the American wilderness and worked side by side, they had 10 share ideas, no matter what barriers of prejudice may have existed. This song is the result of such a process of pioneer swapping.
lts point of origin is a long English broadside ballad about a famous racehorse named Skew Bald. That ballad must have been very popular among the whitcs at one time, because collectors have found a cgro work song version of it in every part of the South. This work song, in which the horsc's name has become Stewball, might be said to be one of the two or three best known of Negro work songs. Mrs. Gladden's version, in which the hero horse appears as Old Kimball, was learned as a Negro work song: her pause after each of the short lines allows time for a pick to be driven home. Yet of the scores of versions 1 have recorded, Mrs. Gladden's has much the loveliest air. For other versions of A7 (Child No.1), see Arthur Kyle Davis, Jr., Traditional Ballads of Virginia (Harvard University Press, 1929). For references and background material on AS, see pages 61 ft. of Dorothy Scarborough, On the Trail of Negro Folk-Songs (Harvard University Press, 1925); also, John A. and Alan Lomax, American Ballads and Folk Songs, (New York: Macmillan Company, 1934).
A7 THE DEVIL'S NINE QUESTIONS
1. "Oh, you must answer'my questions nine,
Sing ninety-nine and ninety,
Or you're not God's, you're one of mine,
And you are the weaver's bonny.
2. "What is whiter than the milk?
Sing ninety-nine and ninety,
And what is softer than the silk?
And you are the weaver's bonny."
3. "Snow is whiter than the milk,
Sing ninety-nine and ninety,
And down is softer than the silk,
And I am the weaver's bonny."
4. "O what is higher than a tree?
And what is deeper than the sea?"
5. "Heaven's higher than a tree,
And Hell is deeper than the sea."
6. "What is louder than a horn?
And what is sharper than a thorn?"
7. "Thunder's louder than a horn,
And death is sharper than a thorn."
8. "What's more innocent than a lamb?
And what is meaner than womankind?"
9. "A babe's more innocent than a lamb,
And the devil is meaner than womankind."
10. "O you have answered my questions nine,
And you are God's, you're none of mine."
A8-OLD KIMBALL
1. Old Kimball Was a gray nag,
Old Nellie Was a brown;
Old Kimball Beat Old Nellie
On the very First go-round.
CHORUS: And I see,
And I sec,
And I see on the fourth day
Of July.
2. His bridle Made of silver,
His saddle Made of gold;
And the value
Of his harness
It has never Yet been told.
CHORUS
3. I'II get up In my buggy
With my lines In my hand.
"Good morning, Young lady."
"Good morning, Young man."
4. I often have wondered
What makes women Love men,
Then looked back And wondered
What makes men Love them.
CHORUS
5. They'll cause you Hard labor
They'll cause you Downfall
They'll cause you Hard labor
All behind the Old jail wall.
CHORUS
A9-0NE MORNING IN MAY.
Sung by Mrs. Texas Gladden at Salem, Virginia, 1941. Recorded by Alan and Elizabeth Lomax. The Irish ballad of the bacchanalian funeral of the unfortunate soldier who died from the effects of his riotous life has been a popular, if censored, theme among American singers. Out of it the cowboys developed "The Cowboy's Lament" and the Negroes made "St. James' Infirmary Blues." Eastern singers in New England and the South, however, for reasons of their own have changed the sex of the central character and moralize about an unfortunate mahlen. The cause for her demise usually remains obscure, the theme being the general one of "sin is death." For further material on this ballad see pages 392 ff. of Belden, Ballads and Songs.
1. "When I was a young girl, I used to see pleasure,
When I was a young girl, I used to drink ale;
Out of an alehouse and into a jailhouse,
Right out of a barroom and down to my grave.
2. "Come, papa, come, mama, and sit you down by me,
Come sit you down by me and pity my case;
My poor head is aching, my sad heart is breaking,
My body's salivated and I'm bound to die.
3. "Oh, send for the preacher to come and pray for me,
And send for the doctor to heal up my wounds;
My poor head is aching, my sad heart is breaking,
My body's salivated and Hell is my doom.
4. "I want three young ladies to bear up my coffin,
I want four young ladies to carry me on;
And each of them carry a bunch of wild roses
To lay on my coffin as I pass along."
5. One morning, one morning, one morning in May
I spied this young lady all wrapped in white linen,
All wrapped in while linen and cold as the clay.
BI-THE LITTLE BROWN BULLS
Sung by Emery DeNoyer at Rhineland,er, Wisconsin, 1941. Recorded by Charles Draves.
The American lumber industry began in the north woods of Maine, followed the spruce and pine forests across the northern part of the United States into Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and, finally, into the great sky-reaching forests of the Northwest. It was a wasteful industry, stripping the land, destroying millions of dollars of natural resources as it produced millions of feet of timber-lumber for an expanding American economy. The man who did the work in the woods was a heroic pioneer type-the old-time lumberjack, the shanly boy. His dress, his habits, his ballads, and his profanity were all equally distinctive. He spent his winters isolated in the forest, chopping down the trees and hauling them on sleds to the edge of the frozen rivers. When the spring thaw came, the woods' crew sent their winter's accumulation of logs down the foaming rivers to the sawmill. The lumberjacks were then paid off and often spent their winter's pay in a huge spree of drinking and carousing. The men, living together all winter in the same cabin far from towns and outside contacts, were dependent on themselves for amusement. Like other men in the same situation, they made ballads and told stories about their work ancl their way of life. The lumberjack ballads, tragic or comic, arc always literal and factual. They were honest workmen, and their highest praise for a song was "that song is as true as steel."
Most of their ballads were constructed along the lines and with the melodies of the eighteenth and nineteenth-century British broadside ballads. "The Little Brown Bulls" tells the story of a contest between two teams of oxen in hauling (skidding) logs out of the woods to the riverbank. The singer's interest is in the slory, not the melody. His style is, I believe, fairly representative of the way the old-time lumberjacks liked to sing. For further material on this ballad, sec pages 92 IT. of E. C. Beck, Songs Of the Michigan Lumberjacks (University of Michigan Press, 1941 ).
1. Not a thing on the river McCluskey did fear
As he swung his gored stick o'er his big spotted steers;
They were round, plump, and handsome, girdin' eight foot and three;
Said McCluskcy, the Scotchman. "They're the laddies for mc."
2. Then along came Bold Gordon, whose skidding was full.
As he hollercd "Whoa, hush'" to his little brown bulls,
Short-legged and shaggy, girdin' six foot and nine;
"Too light," said McCluskey, "to handle our pine.
3. "For it's three to the thousand our contract doth call;
Our skidding is good and our timber is tall"
McCluskey he swore that he'd make the day full,
And he'd skid three to one of the little brown bulls.
4. "O no," says Bold Gordon, "that you cannot do,
Although your big steers are the pets of the crew.
I tell you, McCluskey, you will have your hands full,
When you skid one more log than my little brown bulls."
5. So the day was appointcd and soon did draw night.'
For twcnty-flve dollars their fortune to try,
All eager and anxious nexl morning was found,
The judge and the scaler appeared on the ground.
6. With a 'hoop and a yell came McCluskey in view
As with his big spotted steers, the pets of the crew,
He says, "Chew your cud, boys, and keep your mouth full,
For we easily can bellt them, the little brown bulls."
7. Then along came Bold Gordon with his pipe in his jaw;
To his little brown bulls he hollers, "Whoa,haw!"
He says, "Chew your cud, boys, you'd need never fear,
For we will not be beat by the big spotted steers."
8. Says McCluskey to Sandy, "We'll take off their skins,
We'll dig them a hole and we'll tumble them in.
We'll mix up a dish and we'll feed it to them hot,
We will learn them damn Yankees to face the bold Scot."
9. After supper was over McCluskey appeared
With a belt ready made for his big spotted steers;
To make it he tore up his best mackinaw,
He was bound to conduct it according to law.
10. When up stepped the scaler saying, "Hold ye a while,
Your big spotted steers are behind just onc mile;
You skidded one hundred and ten and no more
Whilst Bold Gordon ha' beat you by ten and a score."
11. All the boys then all laughed and McCluskey did swear,
As he tore out by hands full his long yellow hair.
He says to Bold Gordon, "My dollars I'll pull
And you take the belt for your little brown bulls."
12. O it's here's to *Bold Gordon and Sandberry John,
For the biggest day's work on the river is done.
It's fill up your glass, boys, and fill them up full
And we'll drink to the health of the little brown bulls.
[*Surely that is Bull Gordon?]
B2-THE SIOUX INDIANS
Sung by Alex Moore at Austin, Texas, 1940. Recorded by John A. and Bess Lomax.
The cowboys inherited the folk song stocks of both the onh and the South, adapting them and blending them in a new environment to produce the songs that arc peculiarly western. They sang on horseback, usually about their work, its hardships, accidents and pleasures. They were never, according to their own testimony, very sweet singers; any sort of a voice would do to quiet callIe or to amuse a bunch of bored and weary men after months on the trail. Alex Moore's performance of "The Sioux Indians" with its pauses, its irregularities and its strident nasality can be considered fairly typical o[ their singing. In the prententious style of the 18th century broadside, it tells the story of an attack by the Sioux Indians on an emigrant train crossing the plains to the West. Nevertheless the ballad effectively evokes the tough and heroic character or the white adventurers who sallied out across the vast desert of the plains in their clumsy, white-covered wagons. Alex Moore has retired from cowpunching and is now riding herd on an ice-cream wagon in Austin, Texas. He knows a hundred or more folk songs. all the way from "Lord Randall" to "The Battleship Maine." For a version of this among other cowboy songs, see pages 344 ff. of John A. and Alan Lomax, Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads, New York: Macmillan Company, 1938).
1. I'll sing you a song and it'll bc a sad one
Of our trials and our trouble and how they begun.
We left our dear kindred. our friends and our home,
And we crossed the wide districts and mountains to roam.
2. We crossed the Missouri and joined a large train,
Which carried us over mountains, through valleys and plains,
And often on a evening, a-huntin' we'd go
To shoot the neat antelope and the wild buffalo.
3. I've heard of Sioux Indians all out on the plains,
A-killing poor drivers and burning their trains,
A-killing poor drivers with arrows and bows:
When captured by Indians no mercy they'd show.
4. We travelled three weeks till we come to the Platte,
A-pitching our tents at the head of the nat~
Wc spread down our blankets on a green shady ground;
Where the mules and the horses were grazing around.
5. While we're taking our refreshment we hyeard a loud yell:
The 'hoop of Sioux Indians come up from the *drill;
Wc sprang to our rifles with a flash in each eye,
And says our brave leader, "Boys, we'll fight till we die."
6. They made a bold dash and they came near our train;
The arrows fell around us like showers of rain,
But with our long rifles we kd 'em hot lead
Till a many a brave warrior around us lie dead.
7. We shot the bold chief at the head of their band;
He died like a warrior with a bow in his hand.
And when they saw the brave chief lie dead in his gore,
They 'hooped and they yelled and we saw them no more.
8. In our little band there were just twenty-four,
And of the Sioux Indians five hundred or more.
We fought them with courage, we spoke not a word;
The 'hoop of Sioux Indians was all could be heard.
9. We hooked up our horses, we started our train:
Three more bloody battles, this trip on the plain.
And in our last battle three of the brave boys fell,
And we left them to rest in the green shady *drill.
*Heard.
* Dell
* Ibid.
B3-THE LADY OF CARLISLE (Ballad)
Sung with guitar by Basil May at Salyersville, Keutucky, 1937. Recorded by Alan and Elizabeth Lomax.
The traditional ballad of our southern mountains was sung, until fairly recently, without accompaniments. This song, and the one following, illustrate how mountain ballad airs have been adapted to two accompanying instruments, the banjo and guitar. The guitar accompaniment of The Lady of Carlisle is modern; the antiquity of its theme is revealed in the following account: "I have heard the story told, of the court of olden times, of one of the ladies of the court, who was mistress of the late M. de Lorge (Francois de Montgommery), a man who, in his youth, was one of the bravest and most renowned infantry captains of his day. Many stories had been told her about his great bravery, and one day, when King Francois ler, surrounded by his court, was amusing himself by watching a lion fight, she, to prove the truth of the stories she had heard, dropped one of her gloves into the lion's den, at a moment when the beasts were greatly enraged. She then begged M. de Lorge to fetch it for her, if he really loved her as much as he said. He, without betraying any astonishment, wrapped his cape round his arm and, sword in hand, strode with confident air towards the lions. In this, fortune favoured him; for, bearing himself with the utmost
coolness, and pomtmg his sword towards the lions, they did not dare to attack him. Having recovered the glove, he returned to his mistress and gave it to her. She and all who were present accounted this well done; but it is related that M. de Lorge scornfully turned his back upon her, because of the way she had sought to make a pastime of him and of his valour. It is even said that he tossed the glove in her face; for that he would rather a hundred times she ordered him to attack a battalion of infanry-a thing that he well understood-than fight wild beasts, a combat out of which but little glory was to be gained." ,
This incident, recounted as a fact by Brantome in his Memoires de Messire Pierre de Bourdeille, Seigneur de Bran/ome (1666), was used by Schiller for his poem Der Handschuh and by Robert Browning for The Glove; but in all three the theme is of the brave knight who despises the careless conceit of the lady who has thrust him into needless danger. Our singer's version, however, rollows the pattern of the folk as opposed to the literary tradition. In the folk ballad the lover straightforwardly proves his devotion by braving the lions for his lady's glove and immediately receives his reward. As Mr. May's version has it:
She threw herself upon his bosom
Saying, "Here is the prize that you have won.."
This folk ballad is apparently derived from an eighteenth-century broadside entitled, The Distressed Lady, or A Trial of True Love. In Five Parts. The trial in five parts lasts for fiftyfive verses and it describes the condition of the two suitors as follows:
One brought a captain's commission,
Under the brave Colonel Carr,
The other was a first lieutenant In the Tyger man of war."
A later British version makes them brothers and transforms the Lieutenant into a naval officer:
The oldest brother he was a captain, on board with the honored Captain Ker; The youngest brother he was a lieutenant, on board the Tyger-Man-of-War."
A Kentucky version, collected in 1911, loses the rhymc and the Tyger, names the man of war after the Colonel:
One he was a bold lieutenant
A man of honor and of high degree;
The other was a brave sea-captain,
Belonging to a ship called Kamel Call."
The following version of The Lady of Carlisle was recorded by Basil May, of Salyersville, Kentucky, a young man in his twenties, and the style of performance represents a contemporary development. The guitar has invaded the mountains in the last twenty years and has become the dominant instrument. The tonic, dominant, subdominant chord pattern of rudimentary guitar playing has strongly affected the old melodies, forcing their conformity to the conventional major-minor patterns; the strict two-four and three-four rhythms of the accompanimcnts sometimes distort a ballad's cavalier form. Both these effects are evident in The Lady of Carlisle. Nevertheless, native folk styles of guitar playing and ballad singing have developed out of this apparent conflict; these styles, lumped uncritically under the invidious term hill-billy, are contributing greatly to our present-day folk music.
Down in Carlisle there lived a lady,
Being most beautiful and gay;
She was determined to live a lady,
No man on earth could her betray,
Unless it was a man of honor,
Man of honor and high degree;
Then up rose two loving soldiers,
This fair lady for to see;
One being a brave lieutenant,
Brave lieutenant and a man of war,
The other being a brave sea-captain,
Captain on the ship that was Kong Kong Kar.
Up spoke this fair young lady,
Saying, "I can't be but one man's bride;
You two come back tomorrow morning
And on this case we will decide."
She ordered her a span of horses
Span of horses at her command,
Down the road these three did travel
Till they come to a lion's den.
There she stopped and there she halted,
These two soldiers stood gazing around,
And in the space of a half an hour
This young lady lies speechless on the grnund.
And when she did recover,
Threw her fan down in the lion's den,
Saying, "Which of you to gain a lady
Will return my fan again?"
Then up stepped this brave lieutenant,
Raised his voice both loud and elear,
"I know 1 am a dear lover of women
But I will not give my life for love."
Then up stepped this brave sea captain,
Raised his voice both loud and high,
"1 know I am a dear lover of women,
1 will return her fan or die."
Down in the lion's den he boldly entered,
Lions being both wild and fierce;
He marched around and in among them,
Safely returned her fan again.
And when she saw her true lover coming,
Seeing no harm had been done to him,
She threw herself against his bosom
Saying, "Here is the prize that you have won."
~ The body of this discussion is derived from H. G. Shearin, "The Glove and the Lions in Kentucky Folk Song," pp. J 13-14; and G. L. Kittredge, "The Ballad of The Den of Lions," Modern Language Note.\", XXVI: 167-69. "From Cecil Sharp's Folk Songs tram SomUSt", 3rd ser. (London, 1906), pp. 71·72. lu Kittredge, ''The Ballad," p. 168. lL Ibid. ': Shearin, "The Glol'c," p. 114.
B4-PRETIY POLLY (Ballad)
Sung with five-string banjo by Pete Steele at Hamilton, Ohio, 1938. Recorded by Alan and Elizabeth Lomax.
During the eighteenth century Pretty Polly was by all odds the most popular name for the English ballad heroine. Pretty Polly Oliver dressed herself in soldier's clothes to follow her true love to the wars. Pretty Polly, the king's daughter, hurled her false lover over a cliff into the sea when he sought to rob and murder her. Most often, however, Pretty Polly was a maiden betrayed and then heartlessly murdered by her lover; and such is the story of the young lady with whom our Kentucky mountain ballad singer is concerned. Ballad scholars point out that the American "Pretty Polly" is derived from an English broadside ballad of "The Gosport Tragedy" whercin a sailor stabs his true love, nees on shipboard to be gruesomely confronted by her ghost. In one American version poor William, otherwise known as "the perjured ship's carpenter," sank to lhe bottom and paid his debt to the devil. Ordinarily, however, the American singer tends to censor his ballads of references to unmarried mothers and of the ghostly themes so popular in the old country. So in Pete Steele's version "Poor" Willie kills Pretty Polly to escape marrying her, kills her brutally. buries her quickly and leaves "nothing behind [but] the birds lo mourn."
"Prelly Polly, pretty Polly, come and go wilh me,
Prelly Polly, pretty Polly, come and go with me,
Pretty Polly, pretty Polly, come and go with me,
Before we get married, some pleasure to see,"
"Pretly Willie. pretly Willie, I fear yo' way,
Prelly Willie. pretty Willie. I fear yo' way,
Prelly Willie. pretty \Villie, I fear yo' way,
You have taken my body all oul astray."
He led her over the hills and the valleys so deep,
He led her over the hills and the valleys so deep,
He led her over the hills and the valleys so deep,
And at last prelly Polly began to weep.
She threw her arms around him, she suffered no fear,
She threw her arms around him, she suffered no fear,
She threw her arms around him. she suffered no fear,
"How can you kill a poor girl thal loves you so dear.'
He sLlbbed her to the hearl ;md the blood it did !low,
He stabbed her to the heart and the blood il did now,
He stabbed her to the heart and lhe blood it did !low.
And intn the grave Prelly Polly did go.
He threw some dirt o'er her and turned to go home,
He threw some dirt o'er her and turned to go home,
He threw some dirt o'er her and turned to go home,
Left nothing behind but the birds to mourn.
First listen to Pete Steele as he adapts the modal melody of Pretty Polly to the racing tempo of his banjo. This performance represenls a period in southern white folksong which began after the Civil War when the Negro banjo became widely popular among the rural whiles in the South. The Negroes and the blackface imitators had used it to accompany fast-stepping hoedowns and reels, and this tempo was not changed when the banjo was introduced into the mountains and used to accompany other modal ballad tunes. Mr. Steele. in traditional style, plays the melody over between each stanza. 'The singing is so true, so when adapted to Ihe banjo accompaniment that the beginning of the melody seems to mount the swifl accompanimenl like a trick rider leaping smoothly to the back of a galloping horse.
Pete Steele learned to play the banjo in Laurel County when he was a small boy when his father made one for him using a ground-hog skin for the banjo head and cat gut for the strings. When I met him. he and his family had just moved across the Ohio River to Hamilton, Ohio, and were living right across the road from the paper mill when: he and his daughter both worked. Mrs. Steele shyly prllved to be as good a singer as her husband: a towheaded son "picked" the guitar and live olher children sat and admired their father as he played.
B5-IT MAKES A LONG TIME MAN FEEL BAD (Negro Work Song)
Sung by group at Cumins State Farm, Gould, Arkansas, 1934. Recordcd by John A. Lomax.
This song and the one following represent two phases of lhe Negro work song-the freely rhythmic "holler" from the levec camp and the rhythmic gang song from the wood yard. "As he made his work songs, the Negro clc;lreu the land of lhe South, worked its plantations, built its railroads, raised its Icvees, anel cut its roads. When he worked with a group of his fellows in a situation where a regular work rhythm was possible, he sang simple, highly rhythmic songs. and every axe pick, or hoe fell
on the same beat. When he picked cotton or did some other form of work in which it was not possible to adhere to a regular rhythm, his songs rose anu fell with rhe free and swinging movement of his breathing. The words of these
songs were not designed for the cal' of the Lord, nor for the e;lr of the white boss. In them the Negro was likely to speak his free and open mind.
Songs like these were formerly sung all over the South, whenever a gang of Negroes was at work. With the c(lIning of machinl..:s, however, the work gangs welT broken up. The songs then followed group !:lbor into its last retreat, the ro,ld gang and the penitentiary. For the state, the Illost prol'itabk way of handling cOlwicls in the South is to lise them for road repair and constructioll, or to have thclll pay for their own keep by farming large plantations. These men
ClHlh,' together from every sL'Ction of the state,
hringing sOl1g~-both the "sinful songs" and the spirituals--<:urrent in their comlllunities. Some of them have been singers, migratory workers, w;lJldering guitar pickers in the free world. They make ready recfuits for the men who work in groups. and their work goes more easily by adapting its rhythm to the rhythm of ;l song.
In Ihe pcnilclltiilry, therefore. Negro "sinful" music (the term often applied to ,lny seeulJr song) has bccn I.:onccntrated ;lnd preserved as nowhere else. The men <Ire lonely and dependent on themselves for ;lI11llSCll1ent and consolation. 'fhese conditions in themselves arc enoll£!b to
produce and nurture soni!s. In our visit:--to all rhe large prison cilmps in rhe South. my father and I found songs in ablindancc~blllcs, hallads, g"lOg songs, hollers~colorcd by the melancholy ~()litllde of prison life.
The movement of these songs varies seemingly morc in accord with the fast or slow rhythm of the work than with the moods of the singers. In driving a lazy mule team the song is likely to be mournfuL while wood-cutting evokes spirited and gay tUlles. And the Negro sings, even under the hard regime of penitentiary life. In fact some of the most notable of his folk songs seem to have grown there.
'If you don' sing:, you sho' git worried.' 1:1
This recorel was cut in the woodyard of an Arkansas prison farm where a dozen men lifted their axt.::s and brought lhem down together. The swift tempo of thL' song indicates that it is a "double-cu''" aXL' snng: that is, two groups alternatt.:: strokes of the axe on the log. The tn:menelous life-giving energy of the group joined
ill comlllunal labor bursts up through thc bitter and somber lines of the song. Such songs arc a part of the Afro-Amcric<lll musical pattern wherever one encounters them.
., she won't write [0 po' me. Alberta, she won't write to po' IllC. She won', write me no letter. She won'( ~C"nd me no word. It mak.:s a long, oh, long-a time man, Oh Llwdy. feel had.
Capt;lin Gcorge.11 he gOI the rccord and gone,
Captain George. he got thc record and gone,
Captain George, hc got the rccord and gonc,
Oh L"wdy. Lawdy.
Captain Georgc, Oh Gcorgl.'. he got the record,
Oh, Lawdy, and gone.
Law", hi! II/(' with a hrick!
II makes ;.l long timc man feel bad,
It makes ~l long time man fcel bad.
An' it's 'hc worst old fccHn'
That I eyer had,
When I can't, oh can't-a gd ~I kiter.
Oh Lawdy, from home.
I kHow Illy hahy dOll'! kllml' II'here I"m 1l1!
My mother. she won'l wrile to po' mc.
My mother, she won't write to po' mc.
She won't writc mc no kiter.
She won't send me no word.
It makes a long, oh long-a til11l.' man,
Oh Lawdy. feel bad.
Alberta, would you cry aboul a dimc?
Alberta, would you cry about a dime?
If you cry about a nickel.
You will die about a dime,
Alberta, oil 'Berta, would you cry,
Oh Lawdy, 'bout a dime?
Lawd, have lIIercy!
19
It makes a long time man feel bad,
It makes a long time man feel bad,
An' it's the worst old feelin'
That J ever had,
When I can't, oh can't-3 get a letter,
Oh Lawdy, from home.
My uncle, he won't write to po' me,
My uncle, he won't write to po' me,
He won't write me no letter,
He won't send me no word,
It makes a long, oh long-a time man,
Oh Lawdy, feel bad.
My aunty, she won't write to po' me,
My aunty. she won't write to po' me,
She won't write me no letter,
She won't send me no word,
It makes a long oh long-a time man,
Oh Lawdy, feel bad.
It makes a long time man feel bad,
It makes a long time man feel bad,
An' it's the worst old feelin'
That I ever had,
When you can't, oh can't-a get a letter,
Oh Lawdy, from home.
I" From "Our Singing Country," John A. and Alan Lomax. I_I This also sounds like Doclor Jones.
B6-0 LORD DON'T 'LOW ME TO BEAT
'EM (Negro Holler). Sung by Willie Williams at State Penitentiary, Richmond, Virginia, 1936. Recorded by John A. Lomax.
"Hollering songs" are a distinct type of Negro folk singing. Usually they consist of a two-line stanza in which the singer sometimes repeats the first verse two or three times and the last verse once-the whole introduced and followed by long drawn-out moaning or "yodling" or shouting in the tempo and mood of the tune he has been singing. They are sung with an open throat-shouted, howled, growled, or moaned in such a fashion that they will fill a stretch of country, satisfy the wild and lonely and brooding spirit of the worker. The holler is a musical platform from which the singer can freely state his individual woes, satirize enemies, and talk about his woman.
The country Negro worker lightens the tedium of his labor by these musical cries: a plowman, turning sandy furrows in the long cotton rows of a lonely swamp field; the mule skinner, driving his team, with trace chains clanking, up and down in the dust of a levee bank; a roustabout, shouting the beat for the feet of his companions as, like an endless chain, they stagger under a load up the gangplank, or, in double-time hurry down on the other side. The melodies are so free that it is impossible to give an adequate picture of them even by transcribing entire songs in musical notation. ]n mood they run the gamut of the worker's emotional life-his loves and sorrows, his hope and despair, his weariness, his resentment.1;>
Willie Williams of Richmond, Virginia, stood before the microphone in a bare room to record "0 Lawd, they don't 'low me to beat 'em." We asked him to sing it just as he would out on the job. He closed his eyes, and, as he sang, he shouted at the two mules, Rhoady and Dempsey, imitating the popping of the Whip, until the whole work scene was suggested in sound. The words reflect a chain gang atmosphere, in the reference to the captain and his pistol and in the bilter remark about the way things had gone at home in his absence-"f don't need no tellin', already know." The final stanza is pervaded with the feeling of the heroic common to all laborers.
Oh, Lawd, they don' 'low me to beat 'em; Got-a beg along.
Cit up, Rhoady! Cee back there, Dempsey, I don't want to kill you this mornin' ...
Oh, Lawd, they don' 'low me to beat 'em; Got-a beg along.
Tighten up a little bit!
Oh, Lawd, if my good woman had-a been here, good pardncr• I wouldn't a-been here stumblin' and fallin', tryin' to make it back home.
Git up out that mud there! Look out there;· I'll knock you to your knees torectly!
Oh, Lawd, I'm gain' back, good pardner, one day 'fa' long, I don't need no tellin', already know.
Look out there, Dempsey!
20
I got a whole heap to tell you, good pardner, Oh Lawd, when I get home, Lawd, I been stumblin' and fallin', tryin' to get away.
Look out, mute! Gel up there!
Lawd, if my woman had-a-been here, good pardner, Lawd, I'd a-done been gone, She'd a-brought my shooter, good pardner, and a box of balls.
Look out, Rhoady, Get up, Jerry, Look out there Peart. I don't want to kilt one of you this mornin'.
Oh Lawd, cap'n got a pistol and he want to
be bad,
Must-a been the first one he ever had.
Look out there, Jerry!
Oh Lawd, got a high ball wheeler, good pardner,
and a western tongue,
Gonna stick it in the bottom, boys, if it breaks myarm.
,:. From "Our Singing Country," John A. and Alan Lomax.