Bluegrass Messengers

Adieu- Shirley Hunt (MO) 1911 Hamilton/Belden C

[From Belden, "Ballads and Songs," 1940. Notice this too has the "Adieu Adieu" Chorus as in several other songs including Radoo and There is a Tavern. This is Belden's version C of My Blue-eyed Boy.

R. Matteson 2017]

C. 'Adieu.' Communicated to Miss Hamilton in 1911 by Shirley Hunt of the Kirksville Teachers College. Note the 'eavesdropping' introductory stanza, a favorite opening for the pastourelle type of street ballad.


As I walked out one evening fair
To view the plains and take the air
I overheard a young man say
He loved a girl that was going away.

Chorus: Adieu, adieu, my friends, adieu,
I can no longer stay with you.
I'll hang my harp upon the willow
And bid this lonesome world adieu.

Go bring me back that blue-eyed. boy,
Go bring my darling back to me,
Go bring me back the one I love
And happy I shall always be.

Must I be bound and you go free?
Must I love one that don't love me?
Or must I act a childish part
And stay with one that broke my heart?

Sometimes you think you have a friend
And one you always can depend;
But when you think that you have got,
'When tried will prove that you will not.