Barb'ra Allen- Buchanan (NC) 1939 Brown GG
[Single stanza of text given with music from the Brown Collection; Volume 4, 1957. The Brown editors' notes follow.
R. Matteson 2015]
27. Bonny Barbara Allan (Child 84)
Of all the ballads in the Child collection this is easily the most widely known and sung, both in the old country and in America. Scarcely a single regional gathering of ballads but has it, and it has been published in unnumbered popular songbooks. See BSM 60-1. Mrs. Eckstorm in a letter written in 1940 informed me that she and Barry had satisfied themselves, before Barry's death, that as sung by Mrs. Knipp to the delight of Samuel Pepys in 1666 it was not a stage song at all but a libel on Barbara Villiers and her relations with Charles II; but so far as I know the details of their argument have never been published. The numerous texts in the North Carolina collection may conveniently be grouped according to the setting in three divisions: (1) those that begin in the first person of Barbara's lover (or at least of the narrator), (2) those that begin with a springtime setting, and (3) those that begin with an autumnal setting. Of course those in group 1 may also have either the springtime or the autumnal setting. The rose-and-brier ending is likely to be attached to any of the texts. The lover's bequests to Barbara, a feature not infrequent in modern British versions but unusual in America, appears once in the North Carolina texts, in F. The first person of the lover commonly is dropped after the opening stanza, but in F it holds through four stanzas. Not all of the texts are given in full.
GG. 'Barbara Allen.' Sung by H. R. Buchanan. Recorded at Minneapolis, Avery county, September 7, 1939. This tune is the basic melody underlying the lovely variation given in the following version by Becky Tarwater (27HH). There is likewise only little difference between this version and that of Wiseman (27II). There is only partial but considerable resemblance with 27FF, measures 3-5 and 7-8, and 27A(4).
For melodic relationship cf. ***JAFL 820; FSF 285, No. 161B; **SCSM, 387, version C and 388, version H; FSOA 8; OFS i 127, No. 21 A; SCB 132, version B; BSM 62, version G; TBV 577, No. 24H ; SFSEA 150, No. 131. SharpK i 185, No. 27C, basic melodic line. Scale: Mode III, plagal. Tonal Center: f. Structure: abcb1 (2,2,2,2) = ab (4,4)