Awake, You Drowsy Sleeper- Ritchie (KY) 1953 REC
[From Singing Family of the Cumberlands, p. 200 by Jean Ritchie - 1955 (lists copyright as 1953). Also on Singing family of the Cumberlands. Riverside RLP 12-635. You can hear the first verse here: http://dla.acaweb.org/cdm/ref/collection/Warren/id/1167 The age of this version is unknown but it is older than 1953 I'm sure.
According to Jean, "My sister Una and her cousin Sabrina were there, and they were best friends. Sabrina was Dad's first cousin's daughter. We called him "Uncle" even though he wasn't really our uncle, but he was Uncle Jason Ritchie." Jean's father Balis and Uncle Jason had the same grandfather, John Ritchie.
Jean said it was known as a "Rafting song." She said, "Uncle Jason heard men singing this over the river as they moved timber downstream." Uncle Jason, who knew the local ballad singers and collectors, died in 1959 at the age of 99 by some accounts (Ancestry.com). It's likely the "rafting song" information came Uncle Jason who got it from Elmer Sulzer, who wrote about it in Twenty-Five Kentucky Folk Ballads I (1936) on p. 18. Sulzer's comments were also quoted The Kentucky River by William E. Ellis. Uncle Jason was a lawyer who took an interest in ballads. Around 1914 he was used as a consultant for McGill and later mentioned in her book. He was aware of the local activity by Pettit at the Pine Mountain Settlement School, Wyman and Brockway, Combs and Shearin (earlier Josiah Combs was a local student) and, of course, Cecil Sharp who arrived in the area in 1917. It's not surprising that Uncle Jason missed his appointment to see Sharp. I believe Uncle Jason was an educated man who knew the ballads and ballad singers. He may have picked up a few ballads but he was not an informant- if he was McGill would have collected from him. The point is that most of his ballads would be second hand (outside his family) or from print. Jean, was a very talented singer, and absorbed ballads from all possible sources, including oral and print. Since several of Uncle Jason's ballads have come from print-- I wonder about the authenticity when Uncle Jason is named as the source. In this case the last stanza has yarrow, a corruption of arrow so it's obviously not from print, nor is "yarrow" found in other versions,
R. Matteson 2016]
Jean posted this on Mudcat: "Awake You Drowsy Sleeper" I have recently discussed in another thread (about Ian & Sylvia). The gist of it is that the tune on this one is mine (attempting to extract Uncle Jason's tune from his wavering voice and the differing turns and decorations in every verse). The family liked my tune and so that's how we've been singing it ever since.Ian and Sylvia learned it from me at Newport, I think. Here are our verses:
Awake, awake, you drowsy sleeper,
How can you lay and slumber so?
When your truelove is a-goin' to leave you
Never to return any more?
How can you slumber on your pillow
When your truelove must stand and wait?
And must I go and wear the willow,
In sorrow mourning for your sake?
O Mollie dear, go ask your mother
If you my bride, my bride can be-
And then return and quickly tell me,
And I no more will trouble thee.
O no I cannot ask my mother,
Such stories of love she will not hear;
Go on your way and court some other-
I cannot trouble mother dear.
O Mollie dear, go ask your father
If you my bride, my bride can be-
And then return and quickly tell me,
And I no more will trouble thee.
O no, I cannot ask my father,
He's a-lying on his bed of rest,
And in his hands a silver dagger
To pierce the one that I love the best.
I wish I was in some lonely valley,
Where no one could ever hear-
My food would be of grief and sorrow,
My drink would be the briny tear.
Down in yon valley there grows a green yarrow[1],
I wish that yarrow[1] was shot through my breast--
It would end my grief, it would end my sorrow,
And set my troubled mind at rest.
1. arrow; usually it would be "lies a green arrow"