Long a-Growing: May Bradley (Shrop) c.1959 Hamer
[From: May Bradley's "Sweet Swansea" Musical Traditions Records MTCD349, 2010. Some liner notes follow.
Gipsy singer, May Bradley of Ludlow in Shropshire was born January 19, 1902 to Romany parents , Robert and Esther Smith. Bradley died June 1, 1974.
R. Matteson 2016]
May Bradley's skill is amply displayed in her penultimate verse, where the extra-long text 'When me and you was sitting all alone' are effortlessly fitted into a modified melody. Beautiful!
Roud shows this song to be widely known, with 181 entries from right across the Anglophone world, and with the majority from England. It is most usually titled The Trees they do Grow High, but examples along the lines of Long a-Growing are also very frequent. Clearly its popularity endured until recently, since about one third of the entries are sound recordings.
Although the sad tale of such failed arranged marriages was universal, Aberdeenshire claims it firmly for the marriage and death three years later of the young Laird of Craigston in 1634, as attested by James Maidment in A North Country Garland (1824).
Other available CD versions include Mary Ann Haynes (MTCD320), Harry Brazil (MTCD345-7), Lizzie Higgins (MTCD337-8), Ellen Mitchell (MTCD315-6), George Dunn (MTCD317-8), Fred Jordan (VTD148CD), Joe Heaney (TSCD518D), Harry Cox (Rounder CD1839), Walter Pardon (TSCD514), Duncan Williamson (Kyloe 101).
Long a-Growing -sung May Bradley of Ludlow in Shropshire. Recorded about 1959 (but before 1966) by Fred Hamer.
Now the trees they do grow high, my love,
But the leaves they do grow green
The time has gone and past, my love,
That me and you have seen
It's a cold and a frosty night, me love,
When me and you was sitting all alone
And we would let the ladies know
That we are growing.
Now I'll buy my wife a gown
Sure the best of linen brown
And while she is a-wearing it
The tears they will roll down
For she asked me for blue ribbons
To tie around her bonny bonny waist
And then we'll let those ladies know
That we are married.
(But we'll let the ladies know
That me and you is married.)