Lady Gay- Carrigan (TN) 1949 Boswell
[From Folk songs of Middle Tennessee: Boswell Collection. Notes by Charles Wolfe follow.
R. Matteson 2015]
Tennessee has yielded numerous variants, collected from Bird's Creek, Cades Cove, Cocke County, Flat Top, Harrogate, Maryville, Nashville, and Sale Creek. This version was collected on October 14, 1949, from the prolific Myrtle Carrigan, then living in Nashville; she had learned the song from Sidney Proffitt in Wilson County, Tennessee.
Unlike the Scottish versions, this one minimizes the supernatural elements of the ghostly return by emphasizing "our sweet Savior dear." Such gospel over tones are found in many Appalachian versions, too. (American versions of the
old English and Scottish songs often omit or minimize such supernatural references.) The term gremmaree (stanza 1) is an obsolete word that can mean either general knowledge or magic. An influential 1928 commercial recording by Buell Kazee appears in The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Country Music, and there have been numerous more recent recordings.
Lady Gay - As sung by Myrtle Carrigan, 1949
1. There was a lady and a lady gay,
Of children she had three,
She sent them away to the north college school
To learn their grammaree.
2. They had been gone but a very short time,
Scarce three months and a day,
When death. sweet death, came over all the land,
And rook those three babes away.
3. Oh what will their dear mother say
'When she doth hear of this?
She'll wring her hands and scream and cry,
"When shall I see my babes?"
4. But Christmas time was drawing nigh,
The nights grew long and cold,
Saying, "A-send to me my three little babes
Tonight or in the morning soon."
5. Her table she fixed and then prepared,
It was set of bread and wine.
"Sit down, sir down, my little three babes,
And eat and drink of mine."
6. "Oh mother, we cannot eat your bread,
Neither can we drink your wine,
For yonder stands our sweet Savior dear,
To Him we are resigned."
7. She fixed her beds in a far back room,
A golden sheet spread on.
"Lie down, lie down, my three little babes,
And sleep til in the morning soon."
8. The youngest said to the oldest one,
"It is time that we were gone,
For yonder stands our sweet Savior dear,
To Him we must return."