Died for Love- Joseph Taylor (Linc) 1906 Grainger
[From Lucy Broadwood Manuscript Collection (LEB/2/65/3) 1906; published in English Traditional Songs and Carols, edited by Lucy Etheldred Broadwood 1908 [first stanza was omitted because, "though beautiful, is too painfully tragic for general use" and replaced by two stanzas from Hammond[1]; also Francis Collinson Manuscript Collection (COL/2/39A) 1908. Also titled, "I Wish My Baby It Was Born." Notes from Norfolk online follow. Percy Granger made two recordings on wax cylinders in July 1906 and again in July, 1908
R. Matteson 2017]
This was published in 1972 on the LP Unto Brigg Fair. It was also sung unaccompanied and with an additional verse by Martin Carthy on his 1969 album with Dave Swarbrick, Prince Heathen. Martin Carthy commented in their record's sleeve notes:
It has been suggested that this is a fragment of a much longer ballad but this is really immaterial when what you have stands perfectly well on its own. Taken from the Grainger collection of Lincolnshire songs, from the singing of Joseph Taylor.
Died for Love- three stanzas sung by Joseph Taylor of Saxby, Lincolnshire for Lucy Broadwood on March 7, 1906. Also sung by Joseph Taylor on a wax cylinder recording made by Percy Grainger in 1905 and 1908- transcribed as two stanzas by Francis Collinson. Additional stanza added, see footnotes.
1. I wish my baby that he[2] was born
Lyin' smilin' on its father's knee
And I was dead and in my grave
And green grass growin' over me.
2. I wish, I wish, but it's all in vain[3]
I wish I was a maid again
But a maid again that never can be
Since that-e-young farmer sat wooing me.
1. Dig me my grave long, wide and deep
Put a marbil stone at my 'ead and feet
But a turtle-white dove put over above
For to let the world know that I died for love.
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1. Broadwood omitted the first stanza and replaced it with:
1. A brisk young lad came courting me,
He stole away my liberty,
He stole my heart with a free good will,
He has it now, and he'll keep it still.
2. There is a flower, Ive heard them say,
Would ease my heart both night and day;
I would, to God, that flower I could find,
That could ease my heart and my troubling mind!
See: http://folkopedia.efdss.org/images/9/9d/1908_34_Died_of_Love.pdf [copy and paste]
2. Collinson MS has "it 'e" which seem to mean "[th]at 'e"
3. I find no evidence of this stanza in MS but assume it was from Grainger's 1906 recording [see: Collecting with the Phonograph; also "Vernacular song from a north Yorkshire hill farm" by D Hillery - 2005]