Awake! Awake!- Flora McDowell (Drowsy Sleeper)
Painting by Richard Matteson
Richard Matteson, as performed on Youtube C 2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rx0WNYh_2Vc.
[Awake! Awake! is known by a variety of names and is classified under "Drowsy Sleeper." Some names include "Katie Dear" "Silver Dagger," “Oh Molly Dear (Go Ask Your Mother)” “I Will Put My Ship in Order” “Awake, Awake;” “Who's That Knocking?;” “Peggy Dear;” “Kentucky Mountain;” “Julianne;” “Willie Darling;” and “Little Willie.”
The chronology of the “Drowsy Sleeper” Songs can be seen below. Traced from a broadside from Chrome, Sheffield, 1817 entitled the “Drowsy Fleeper” in the Bodelian Library, England, to “Katie Dear” in the 1930’s in the US.
1) “The Drowsy Sleeper " [Laws M4];” 1817 Bodelian Library- England
2) “Arise! Arise!” Late 1800’s early 1900’s England
3) “Awake! Awake! (Sharp No. 57 see: Version 4)” US versions- 1916
4) “Silver Dagger” 1918 Sharp- US version
5) “Oh Molly Dear (Go Ask Your Mother)” 1926 Kelly Harrell
6) “Katie Dear” 1934 Callahan Brothers
R. Matteson 2014]
AWAKE! AWAKE!
1. Awake! Awake! You drowsy sleeper,
Awake! Awake! For it's almost day,
Why do you lie there in your slumber,
When your true-love is going away?
2. "Oh, who is this beneath my window,
That speaks my name so speedily?"
It ls your own and dear true lover,
Who wants to speak a word with you."
3. "Hush, Oh hush! you'll wake my father,
Who lies on yonder bed so near
All in his hand he holds a weapon,
To kill the one that I love dear."
4. I thought I had but one true lover,
Indeed, I thought he was my own,
But now hers going away off yonder,
And leave me hero to weep and moan,
5. "You'll have to go and court, some other
Or whisper softly in my ear
You'll wake my mother where she lies sleeping,
With the word, of love she hates to hear.
6. "I won't go off and court, another
What I say: I mean no harm
I mean to wean you from your mother,
And rest you in your true lover's arm."
The tune and a few of the words were remembered by Mrs. L. L. McDowell. Other words were supplied by Mrs. Otis Miller and Miss Cora Womack. The failure of the rhyme ln the second stanza was found in all three versions, therefore left to stand.
If anyone objects to writing the music with the signature as given, he is welcome to the pleasure of erasing the flat in the signature and considering the tune in the key of C ; where it seems at first sight to belong. However, the gapped scale is very queer with the third and seventh tone omitted; as it would be if the tune be considered a major in the key of G. It seems better to let the unused flat stand and think if the old tune as in the mixolydian mode.