Golden Willow Tree- Donahue (AR) c1918 Riddle
[These fragments (three verse) are all Granny Riddle could remember of the first version he heard of "The Golden Willow Tree" soon after she was married (1916) and started having children. At least one of the verses were sung by her by accident in her various recordings of the ballad (she learned her version from her Aunt Mable Starks). Donahue's ballad could be recreated using Riddles version minus a verse which she said he didn't sing. See recreation below (at bottom).
R. Matteson 2014]
From: A Singer and her Songs, 1970:
One of the first times I heard it was from this friend of my husband and I, Brother Donohue. He was an Irishman and he could give you that Irish twang. But he sang it that lvhen she sailed off and left the little boy, sure enough in a week, from two to three, she was spotted by another ship, British, and sunk.
Then she sailed around
A week from two to three,
And there she spotted the British Robberie.
They were sailing on that high, low,
Lonesome high, low,
Lonesome lowland sea.
The ship sailed by jumps
And she sailed by spurts,
But the Jolly Roger gave her
Her just desserts,
For they sank her in the high, low,
Lonesome high, low,
Lonesome lowland sea.
Brother Donohue was a Baptist minister and a full-blooded Irishman. And one of the finest men I've ever known. He lived back over here on the mountain. I became acquainted with him after I became a mother. We were close friends, he and his wife and us. He was as old as my father, and their children were grown. He sang that song one night when we were there. Elder Russell and I and my husband were there. I think we were moving away from there and we had taken this loaded wagon up there to spend the night. Elder Russell or I or somebody suggested that we sing some songs. Brother Donohue said, "I'll sing you one. I'll sing you "The Golden Willow Tree." And he sang that version of "The Golden Vanity."
. . . so I began to reconstruct this tune. When I went to write it out, tho', I had it confused with "The Golden Willow Tree" of Brother Donohue's, and this I found out when I got Aunt Mabel's ballet. Mabel did it this way, for instance:
He took his little tool
Just made for that use,
And he bored twelve holes
And he let in the juice.
I don't think I usually do it that way. And here was Brother Donohue's version:
From his box of tools,
He took a little bit,
And he bored twelve holes
In the bottom of the ship.
Now this is Aunt Mabel's here, and Brother Donohue didn't have this in his:
The sailors off with their coats,
Some took off their caps,
All trying for to fill up
Those salt water gaps.
Yet they sank her in the lowland, lonesome low.
And she sank to the bottom of the lowland sea.
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Golden Willow Tree- (3 stanzas) Donahue c1918
From his box of tools,
He took a little bit,
And he bored twelve holes
In the bottom of the ship.
They were sailing on that high, low,
Lonesome high, low,
Lonesome lowland sea.
Then she sailed around
A week from two to three,
And there she spotted the British Robberie.
They were sailing on that high, low,
Lonesome high, low,
Lonesome lowland sea.
The ship sailed by jumps
And she sailed by spurts,
But the Jolly Roger gave her
Her just desserts,
For they sank her in the high, low,
Lonesome high, low,
Lonesome lowland sea.
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THE GOLDEN WILLOW TREE- Donahue version recreated using Riddle's verses from Aunt Mabel Starks who "learned it from her mother or her grandmother."
There was a little ship that sailed upon the sea,
And the name of that ship was the Golden Willow Tree,
They were sailing on that high, low,
Lonesome high, low,
Lonesome lowland sea.
Now she hadn't been out but a week, two or three,
Until she sighted the British Robberie,
They were sailing on that high, low,
Flaunting the Jolly Roger on the lowland sea.
Up stepped the captain, wringing of his hands,
Saying, "Alas, what shall we do?
They were sailing on that high, low,
Lonesome high, low,
Lonesome lowland sea.
A boy then said, "Captain, what will you give me
If I sink this British Robberie?
If you sink 'em on that high, low,
Lonesome high, low,
Lonesome lowland sea.
"I'll give you wealth, I'll give your fee,
My oldest daughter and you shall married, be,
If you sink 'em on that high, low,
Lonesome high, low,
Lonesome lowland sea.
Then he picked up a tool and he jumped overboard.
He said, "I'll be as good as my word."
And he was swimming on that high, low,
Lonesome high, low,
Lonesome lowland sea.
From his box of tools, He took a little bit,
And he bored twelve holes In the bottom of the ship.
They were sailing on that high, low,
Lonesome high, low,
Lonesome lowland sea.
Then he turned around and away swam he
Till he came back to the Golden Willow Tree.
Swimming in that high, low,
Lonesome high, low,
Lonesome lowland sea.
"Oh, captain, are you good as your word?
Then take this poor sailor man aboard.
For I'm drowning in that high, low,
Lonesome high, low,
Lonesome lowland sea.
"I will not give you wealth, nor give you your fee,
Nor my oldest daughter to you shall married, be.
I'll just leave you in that high, low,
Lonesome high, low,
Lonesome lowland sea.
"Well, if it wasn't for your daughter and your men,
I would do unto you what I did to them.
I'd sink you in that high, low,
Lonesome high, low,
Lonesome lowland sea."
Then he turned on his back and away floated he,
Saying, "Fare you well, Golden Willow Tree,
I'm drowning in that high, low,
Lonesome high, low,
Lonesome lowland sea.
Then she sailed around A week from two to three,
And there she spotted the British Robberie.
They were sailing on that high, low,
Lonesome high, low,
Lonesome lowland sea.
The ship sailed by jumps And she sailed by spurts,
But the Jolly Roger gave her Her just desserts,
For they sank her in the high, low,
Lonesome high, low,
Lonesome lowland sea.