The Bonny Boy- Fred Jordan (Shrop) 1966 Yates
[From: Songs of a Shropshire Farm Worker (Topic 12T150). Online notes follow.
R. Matteson 2016]
Fred Jordan was recorded singing The Bonny Boy by Bill Leader and Mike Yates in a private room in The Bay Malton Hotel, Oldfield Brow, Altringham, Cheshire, in 1966. This was published on his 1966 Topic album Songs of a Shropshire Farm Worker and on the anthology O'er His Grave the Grass Grew Green (The Voice of the People Series Volume 3; Topic 1998). Another, 1982 recording by Sybil Clarke is on his 2003 Veteran anthology A Shropshire Lad. Mike Yates commented in the latter album's notes:
England, Scotland and Ireland share this very favourite ballad, which appeared on several broadsides during the nineteenth century. Burns rewrote it as Lady Mary Ann—Lizzie Higgins can be heard singing this on Topic TSCD667—and some have suggested that the story relates to an actual event, namely the marriage of the boy Laird of Craigton to a girl some years his senior in 1631. Such marriages, often formed to consolidate family alliances, were not uncommon. Fred learned the song from his mother.
The Bonny Boy- sung by Fred Jordan as recorded by Bill Leader and Mike Yates in a private room in The Bay Malton Hotel, Oldfield Brow, Altringham, Cheshire, in 1966.
1. "Ah, the trees are growing high, my love, and the grass is growing green,
It's a cold winter's night that you and I have seen,
It's a cold winter's night that I must lie alone
Oh, the bonny lad is young, but still growing[1]."
2. "Oh father, my dear father, I think you did me wrong,
To go and get me married to who is so young,
He is but sixteen years of age and I am twenty-one,
Oh, the bonny lad is young, but still growing."
3. "O daughter, my dear daughter, I did not do you wrong,
To go and get me married to who is so young,
He will be a good match for you when I am dead and gone,
Oh, the bonny lad is young, but still growing."
4. "Oh father, my dear father, I'll tell you what I'll do,
I 'll send my boy to college for another year or two,
And all around his college cap I'll bind a ribbon blue,
Just to let the ladies know he's married."
5. "Oh a year passed by, and I passed the college wall,
I saw the young collegians playing at the ball;
And there I saw my true love the fairest of them all,
Oh, the bonny lad is young, but still growing."
6. Oh, at sixteen years of age oh, he was a married man,
And at seventeen years of age he was the father of a son,
But at the age of eighteen o'er his grave the grass grew green,
Cruel death had put an end to his growing.
7. Oh, they made my love a shroud of the ornamented brown,
And as they were a-making it, the tears they did run down,
Its, "Once I had a true love, but now he's lying low,
I'll nurse his bonny boy while he's growing."
1. As I imagine it- the bonny lad is his son- she is lying alone remembering.