As I Roved Out- Sarah Makem (Armagh) 1952 REC
[Sarah Makem: As I Roved Out (MTCD353-5). The original two stanza version with chorus of "As I Roved Out" was recorded by Jean Ritchie, November 1952, then recorded by Diane Hamilton, 1956. It was also sung by cousin Annie Jane Kelly and recorded by Peter Kennedy and Seán O'Boyle in 1952.
I assume the additional text was supplied from friends(Clancy's) and family members. In the Clancy's book the full arrangement was "adapted by Sarah & Tommy Makem and Pat, Tom, and Liam Clancy". The complete text has stanzas from "Maid and Soldier" with one stanza from "Waukrife" and was recorded by Tommy Makem, Clancy Brothers and later arranged by Joe Heaney and other Irish recording artists. See text at bottom of this page.
One influential traditional Irish recording titled "As I Roved out" was Jean Ritchie's recording of Sara Makem in 1951. Irish traditional singer Sarah Makem was born October 18, 1900 and died 20 April 1983. She was a native of Keady, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Sarah was the wife of fiddler Peter Makem, mother of musicians Tommy Makem and Jack Makem, and grandmother of musicians Shane Makem, Conor Makem and Rory Makem. Sarah Makem and her cousin, Annie Jane Kelly, were members of the Singing Greenes of Keady. Below is the two stanza version which has the corruption in the first stanza of "early" rhyming with "early" instead of the Scot, "saucy."
R. Matteson 2018]
"As I Roved Out" sung by Sarah Makem as recorded by Jean Ritchie[1], November 1952
As I roved out on a May morning
On a May morning right early
I met my love upon the way
Oh, Lord but she was early.
Chorus:
And she sang lilt-a-doodle, lilt-a-doodle, lilt-a-doodle-dee,
And she hi-di-lan-di-dee, and she hi-di-lan-di-dee and she lan--day.
Her boots were black and her stockings white
Her buckles shone like silver
She had a dark and a rollin' eye
And her ear-rings tipped her shoulder.
Chorus:
And she sang lilt-a-doodle, lilt-a-doodle, lilt-a-doodle-dee,
And she hi-di-lan-di-dee, and she hi-di-lan-di-dee and she lan--day.
1. Jean Ritchie (Mudcat post): I had this from Sarah Maken (Tommy's mother)in her Keady kitchen in 1952. It has only two verses, it probably a fragment of a ballad- but maybe not. At the time I felt as you do, that it should be longer, so I wrote another verse. Nowadays I love the little song as it is and no longer sing the written verse. Ironically, it was recorded some years ago (can't recall- I believe it may have been Bobby Clancy, and perhaps for Folk-Legacy?), and he used my verse, thinking it was traditional! So, maybe by now it is, but originally Sarah's version had but two verses- all it needs, really.
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As I Roved Out - Makem family long version
As I roved out on a May morning
On a May morning right early
I met my love upon the way
Oh, Lord but she was early.
Chorus:
And she sang lilt-a-doodle, lilt-a-doodle, lilt-a-doodle-dee,
And she hi-di-lan-di-dee, and she hi-di-lan-di-dee and she lan-day.
2. Her boots were black and her stockings white
Her buckles shone like silver
She had a dark and a rolling eye
And her ear-rings tipped her shoulder.
3. "What age are you my bonny wee lass
What age are you my honey?"
Right modestly she answered me
"I'll be seventeen on Sunday."
4. "Where do you live my bonny wee lass
Where do you live my honey?"
"In a wee house up on the top of the hill
And I live there with my mammy."
5. "If I went to the house on the top of the hill
When the moon was shining clearly
Would you arise and let me in
And your mammy not to hear you?"
6. I went to the house on the top of the hill
When the moon was shining dearly
She arose to let me in
But her mammy chanced to hear her.
7. She caught her by the hair of the head
And down to the room she brought her
And with the butt of a hazel twig
She was the well-beat daughter
8. "Will you marry me now my soldier lad
Will you marry me now or never?
Will you marry me now my soldier lad
For you see I'm done forever"
9. "I can't marry you my bonny wee lass
I can't marry you my honey
For I have got a wife at home
And how could I disown her?"
An additional ending stanza was added by Tommy Makem to the family version.
10. A pint at night is my delight
And a gallon in the morning
The old women are my heart break
But the young ones is my darling.
Tommy's last stanza is a reworking of the popular broadside ending of Seventeen come Sunday. The "hazel twig" stanza (7th) is from the Waukrife tradition while stanzas 3-6 and 7-8 are from the Maid and Soldier revision. Dozens of cover's have been made of the Makem version. David Hammond (on "I Am The Wee Falorie Man," 1958) recorded a cover version of the two stanza fragment of Sarah Makem. The great Northern Irish singer Len Graham, and a singer from the border, County Louth, Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin recorded a version as well as The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem and The Woods Band. Joe Heaney's arrangement of the Makem family's "As I Roved Out" became one of his signature songs in concert.