Loveless Love- W.C. Handy (KY) 1921
[From recording/music Loveless Love; copyrighted by WC Handy in 1921. An account of the song's creation from Handy's 1941 autobiography, follows. Handy's text is a recreation and not traditional.
The 1922 recording of Loveless Love by his daughter Katherine Handy, includes two "traditional" stanzas one of which is from Handy's folk lyrics published in 1926.
R. Matteson 2017]
Handy: Having created a vogue for Careless Love, which John Niles calls Kelly's Love in his book of folk songs, I proposed to incorporate it in a new song with the verse in the three-line blues form. That week I went to Chicago, and while there I sat in Brownlee's barber shop and wrote Loveless Love, beginning with "Love is like a gold brick in a bunko game." There I wrote the music and made an orchestration which I took next door to Erskin Tate in the Vendome Theatre. His orchestra played it over, and it sounded all right. A copy was immediately sent to the printers.
Without waiting to receive a printed copy, however, I taught Loveless Love to Alberta Hunter, and she sang it at the Dreamland caberet. It made a bull's-eye. Before Alberta reached my table on the night she introduced the song, her tips amounted to sixty-seven dollars. A moment later I saw another lady give her twelve dollars for "just one more chorus." I knew then and there that we had something on our hands and the later history of the song bore this out."
LOVELESS LOVE- Sung by W.C. Handy
Listen: W.C. Handy- Loveless Love on youtube
Love is like a gold brick, in a bunko game,
Just like some bank notes, with a bogus name;
Both have caused many a downfall, love has done the same.
Love has like its emblem Cupid with his bow
Loveless love has bags and bags of dough,
So carry 'em with a jack and pick 'em as you go.
CHORUS: Love, oh love oh loveless love,
Has set our hearts on goal-less goals.
From milk-less milk to silk-less
We are growing used to soul-less souls.
Such grafting times we never saw
That's why we have a Pure Food Law.
In everything we find a flaw,
Even love, oh love, oh loveless love.
[solo]
CHORUS: Oh love, oh love, oh loveless love,
We set our hearts on goal-less goals.
With dreamless dreams and schemeless schemes,
How we wreck our boats on the shoals.
Yes, oh yes, the water's wide
And yes the rest it was in sight
We try for wings like Noah's dove[1]
Just to fly away from loveless love.
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LOVELESS LOVE- Katherine Handy
YOUTUBE: listen
Love is like a hydrant turns off and on,
Like some friendships when your money's gone.
Love stands in with the loan sharks,
When your heart's in throngs.
It I had some strong wings like an aeroplane,
Had some broad wings like an aeroplane.
I would fly away forever,
Never to return again.
Oh love, oh love, oh loveless love
Has set our hearts on goalless goals.
From dreamless dreams and schemeless schemes
How we wreck our love boats on the shoals.
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We'd try on wings like Noah's dove[1],
And fly away from Loveless Love.
If I were a little bird,
I'd fly from tree to tree.
I'd build my nest way up in the air,
Where the bad boys wouldn't bother me.
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1. This is derived from the folk verse: "If I had wings like Nora's faithful dove," also found in "Dink's song."