My Boy Willie- Maggie McPhee (Aber) 1977 MacColl
[From: Travellers' Songs from England and Scotland by Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger, 1977. Their bio notes follow.
R. Matteson 2017]
Maggie (Stewart) McPhee was born in 1899 in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire. James Stewart, her father, was a cousin to the Stewarts of Kinlochrannoch and her mother Betty McPhee was from a large family of travellers.
My Boy Willie- sung by Maggie McPhee, published in 1977, MacColl/Seeger
1. Father, father build me a boat
And it's on the ocean that I maun float,
And every sailor that I pass by
I'll make enquiry for my Billy Boy.
2. She hadn't been long sailin' on the sea
When a homeward vessel she chanced to see,
O captain, captain tell me true,
Is my Willie boy on board with you?
3. Oh, what is the color of your Willie's hair?
Or, what kind o' clothes does your Willie wear?
His hair is auburn and his eyes is blue,
and he wears a suit of the navy blue.
4. I doot, I doot your Willie's no' here,
For he was drownded in yonder pier
Do you mind thon night when the wind blew high,
It parted us and our cabin boy.
5. O mother, mother come make my bed,
Come make it long and come make it wide
And on my breast put a turtle dove
T'let all world know that I died for love.