The House Carpenter- Michael (NC) 1937; recorded 1939 Brown 4E
[Designated 4E. From The Brown Collection Volume 4, 1957, version E. Notes from Volume 2 follow.
The recording, needed to fix the poor transcription by Brown editors below, is housed somewhere and may not exist anymore or be accessible. Brown E is also found in Vol. 2 but it's a different version from Thomas Smith; having, as far as I know positively, only the first stanza in common.
This version appears to be the one sung by her father, D. C. Michael, who learned it from a schoolmate about 1900. It was sung by his daughter Cloe Michael in 1939 and appears in Brown, Volume 4 as the E version (4E).
The text was sent to Abrams and was listed as Abrams No. 9 (which has changed). I have the MS as "Sung by David C. Michael, 1889-1964 around 1900; Sent in to Abrams by Chloe Michael of North Fork Township (Boone), Watauga County, North Carolina on 10-24, 1937." The opening stanza is from False Young Man.
Her MS with a page missing appears here: http://omeka.library.appstate.edu/items/show/14939
R. Matteson 2013, 2016]
40. James Harris (The Daemon Lover) Brown Collection (Vol. 2)
(Child 243)
If the various traditional versions of this ballad all go back, as Child believed, to the long-winded, pedestrian seventeenth-century broadside of 'James Harris,' they constitute something of an argument for Barry's doctrine of communal re-creation. For its range as traditional song, see BSM 79, and add New Hampshire (NGMS 95-7), Tennessee (SFLQ xi 127-8), North Carolina (FSRA 38-40), Florida (SFLQ viii 160-1), the Ozarks (OFS I 166-76), Ohio (BSO 70-7), Indiana (BSI 136-48, JAFL lvii 14-15), Illinois (JAFL LX 131-2), Michigan (BSSM 54-8), and Wisconsin (JAFL LIT 46-7, originally from Kentucky). Few regional collections made in this country fail to record it ; [1] it is therefore surprising that Child knew, apparently, only one American text and that a fragment. It is almost always called in America 'The House Carpenter.' The notion that the lover from the sea is a revenant or a demon, present in the original broadside and less definitely in some of the other versions in Child, has faded from most American texts; with us it is a merely domestic tragedy. And perhaps for that very reason it is one of the favorites of American ballad singers. There are some fourteen texts in the North Carolina collection, most of them holding pretty closely to one version. A full text of this version is given first and most of the others described by reference to this.
Footnote for above:
1. There are traces of it in our K and M versions.
E. 'The House Carpenter.' Sung by Miss Chloe Michael. Recorded at Boone, Watauga county, July 29, 1939. For almost the identical stanza, textually, see n 425, No. 162, 'The One Forsaken.'
For melodic relationship cf. *SharpK i 244, No. 35 A, (B), H, J, L, P. Scale: Hexatonic (6), plagal. Tonal Center: d. Structure: aa1bc (2,2,2,2) = ab (4,4). [The text supplied by Brown editor(s). See correct text below.]
2 Where man, where man may I long to love,
Where may. . . . .
I just returned from the South, South Sea
All for the love of thee.
3 Were you. . . . house carpenter
And . . . . coming of me ?
I take you where the grass grows. . .
On the banks of the green . .
4 You find for . . . house carpenter
And . . . of thee.
What have you to maintain me on
And keep me from slavery?
5 I have three ships . . .
A-sailing . . . are on the sea,
. . . . . gentlemen
That will be at your command.
6 And (taking?) up her three little babes
. . . . . three,
They stay at home, my three little babes
And keep your papa company.
7 There hadn't been a soul . . . to reach,
I'm sure that it was . . . through (three?)
. . . about a week and then her true lover's arms
And she wept most bitterly.
8 Are you weeping for my silver or gold,
Or is it for my cargo. . . ?
Or are you a-weeping for my three little babes
Whose face you have seen no more?
-----------------------------
The House Carpenter- As sung by Chloe Michael in 1939 from 1937 MS. Abrams, "Given to me by Chloe Michael in October, 1937." Chloe Michael, "Sung by my father, D. C. Michael, who learned it from a schoolmate about 1900."
I will come in but I won't sit down
I have but a moment of time
I heard you're engaged to another young man
Your heart is no longer mine.
"Well met, well met my old true love
Well met, well met" said he;
"I have just returned from the soft, soft sea
Just for the love of thee. "
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"I have lately been wed to a house carpenter
And I think he's a nice young man. "
"Would you forsake your house carpenter
And come along and go with me?
I'll take you where the grass grows green
On the banks of the deep blue sea. "
"If I forsake my house carpenter
And come along and go with thee,
What have you got to maintain me on
And to keep me from slavery?"
"I have three ships all on the sea
A-sailing for dry land
Four and twenty jolly gentlemen
That will be at your command."
Then picking up her sweet little babe
And kisses give it three
Says, "Stay at home, my sweet little babe
And keep your papa company. "
They hadn't been sailing but about two weeks
I'm sure that it was not three
'Till poor Emma fell a weeping in her true lover's arms
And she wept most bitterly.
"Are you weeping for my silver and gold,
Weeping for my cargo in store,
Are you a weeping for your sweet little babe
Whose face you'll see no more?"
"I'm not weeping for your silver nor gold,
Neither for your cargo in store;
I'm just a weeping for my sweet little babe
Whose face I'll see no more. "
They hadn't been a sailing but about three weeks
I'm sure that it was not four,
'Till in sprang a leak in the bottom of the ship
And she sank for to rise no more.
"O, don't you see them dark black clouds?
They're black as any crow,
They are shining like the pits of hell
Where you and I must go."
MS from: I. G. Greer/W. Amos Abrams Manuscript Files Series, Folksong Files Subseries, W. L. Eury Appalachian Collection, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC)