Barbara Allen- Hubbard (UT) 1872 Hubbard B
[From Hubbard's, Ballads and Songs from Utah, 1961. An excerpt of his notes follows.
R. Mateson 2015]
BARBARA ALLEN
This ballad, which has been widely current in Great Britain and America was published in Ramsay's Tea Table Miscellany 1740, Percy's Reliques, 1765. Child, No. 84, includes several versions and references.
B. Barbara Allen. Obtained from Mrs. Salley A. Hubbard of Salt Lake City, Feb. 6, 1946. She learned it from the singing of her mother about 1872.
"Do you remember in yonder town
When you were in the tavern drinking,
You drank a health to all maidens 'round
And slighted Barbara Allen?"
"Very well I remember the time
That I was in the tavern drinking,
I drank a health to all pretty girls 'round
And slighted Barbara Allen?"
Very slowly she got up and went,
And slowly she went from him,
She hadn't got but a mile or two
Till she heard the death bell tolling.
"Come set you down your cold corpse of clay
That I may look upon you,
The handsomest man in all New York
Has died for Barbara Allen."
"Oh mother, mother, make my bed,
And make it straight and narrow,
For that bell that tolled for him today
Will toll for me tomorrow."