Captain, Captain, Tell me True- Mrs. Glasscock (NC) 1943 Brown D
[From Brown Collection of NC Folklore Volume 2, Ballads, 1952. Their (Belden and all) notes follow.
R. Matteson 2017]
Brown Collection Notes:
104 The Sailor Boy
This song was printed by Catnach and Such and probably by other ballad printers in England in the last century and is widely known and sung. See BSM 186, and add to the references there given Maine (MWS 56-9), Virginia (FSV 108-11, 118), North Carolina (BMFSB 24-5, SFLQ v 146), Arkansas (OFS I 300), Missouri (OFS I 296-300), Ohio (BSO 97-103), Indiana (BSI 269-70), Illinois (JAFL XL 235-6), and Michigan (BSSM 94, blended with 'The Butcher Boy'). Barry listed it among the ballads in his collection from the North Atlantic States but did not print it. Like other items of the folk song of unhappy love its content is likely to vary; with its central images of the girl bidding her father build her a boat and later demanding of the sailors she meets news of her sailor boy may be combined motives from 'The Butcher Boy,' 'Little Sparrow,' 'The Lass of Roch Royal,' or an elaborate preliminary story may be provided as in version L below.
D. 'Captain, Oh Captain, Tell me True.' From the manuscript notebook of Mrs. Harold Glasscock of Raleigh, lent to Dr. White in 1943. The songs in this book Mrs. Glasscock learned from her parents. Her text of our song is like C a composite of 'The Sailor Boy' and "The Butcher Boy.' The first and the last of its three stanzas are as in C; the intervening six lines use a different element from 'The Butcher Boy':
She wrung her hands and tore her hair
Like a maiden in despair;
She called for a chair to sit upon.
Pen and ink to write it down.
At the end of every line she dropped a tear,
At the end of every verse cried 'Oh, my dear!'