Barb'ru Allen- Hedy West (GA) 1965 REC
[From Hedy West, Old Times & Hard Times, Topic 12T117, 1965. The basic text is from Uncle Gus Mulkey, with textual and melodic additions from other sources. Folk Legacy notes follow.
R. Matteson 2012]
Notes from Folk Legacy: As often with hill folk, Hedy West has an intense feeling for the family circle, and it's a source of pleasure to her that many of her songs are from the repertory of her family, mostly being passed on from her great-grandmother Talitha Mulkey, who accumulated a store of ballads and lyrics in the course of an unsettled childhood shifting from North Carolina to Tennessee to South Carolina to Georgia. The Mulkeys were among the Scotch-Irish who migrated from Ulster in the eighteenth century and settled in the mountains and intermarried with English, Irish and German immigrants, and sometimes with local Cherokee Indians. Hedy says, "A strong spirit of cooperation was at the heart of these mountain communities where hard labour was a necessity. As late as my parents' childhood, regional music was a vital tradition inside family groups, in local social gatherings, and as accompaniment to cooperative work."
BARB'RU ALLEN- Hedy West
Listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nB2brnG-iBQ
In London City where I was born
And where I got my learnin',
I fell in love with a blue-eyed girl
And her name was Barb'ru Allen
It was in the month of May
When green buds they were swellin'
Young William come from the Western States
And he courted Barb'ru Allen.
Sometime then, a little later on
When the buds was bloomin'
Young William on his death bed lay
For the love of Barb'ru Allen
He sent his servant to the town
To the town where she was dwelling:
My master's sick and he bid you come
If you're name be Barb'ru Allen
Slowly, slowly she got up
And slowly she came nigh him
And all she said when she got there:
Young man, I think you're dying
O yes, I'm sick, and very sick
And death is on me dwelling
No better, no better I ever shall be
If I can't have Barb'ru Allen
Don't you remember the other day
You was in the tavern drinking
You gave a health to the ladies all around
But you slighted Barb'ru Allen
Yes, I remember the other day
I was in the tavern drinking
I made a health to the ladies all around
But gave my love to Barb'ru Allen
He turned his pale face to the wall
For death was drawing nigh him:
Farewell, farewell, my dear friends all
Be kind to Barb'ru Allen
As she was walking o'er the hill
She heard the death-bells knelling
And every stroke, it seemed to say:
Hard-hearted Barb'ru Allen
She looked to the East and looked to the West
She saw his cold corpse coming
The more she looked, the more she wept
She bursted out a-crying
Lay down, lay down that corpse – she said
That I may look upon it
The more she looked, the more she wept
She bursted out a-weeping
O mother, go and make my bed
And make it long and narrow
William died for me today
I'll die for him tomorrow
O father, O father, go dig my grave
And dig it deep and narrow
Young William died for me today
I'll die for him tomorrow
They buried them both in the old church-yard
They buried her beside him
From William's grave grew a red, red rose
From Barb'ru's grew a briar
They grew and grew to the old church top
Till they could grow no higher
They all tied up in a true love's knot
The rose ran round the briar.