He's Growing- Mrs. Glover (Som) 1904 Sharp B
[From: Journal of the Folk-Song Society, Volume 2 by Folk-Song Society (Great Britain)- 1905. Kidson's and Sharp's notes follow. This is the second version given by Sharp in this edition. The first two lines of the first stanza are taken from another source, possibly from Binnorie-- the point of the stanza is that he wears a ribbon to let the girls at the college know he's married. The third stanza is a floater found in a song collected by Sharp in 1921 titled "T for Thomas." A similar stanza (the first two lines) is found in some versions of the Drowsy Sleeper. It appears this version has been mixed with "T for Thomas" and another ballad (Binnorie?).
R. Matteson 2016]
21.—THE TREES THEY DO GROW HIGH.
SECOND VERSION.
Compare the beautiful Phrygian tune in Songs of the West, No. 4, and exhaustive note thereto. Mr. Richards varied the concluding strain of each verse in such a remarkably interesting and instructive way that I think it worth while to print them here. They show the freedom with which the genuine folk-singer will interpret a melody and the skill with which, while preserving a rhythm, he will adapt lines of irregular length to the same strain of melody. Mr. Richards, though an old man, has a bass voice of wonderful resonance, and I shall not easily forget his singing of this ballad. He sang me many other songs, mostly in the Dorian mode, to which scale he is evidently partial. The ballad is fairly well known in the neighbourhood of Langport, Somerset, but with the exception of Mrs. Glover's version I have only heard Mr. Richards's tune or variants of it.
Mrs. Glover's words are clearly corrupt and apparently do not all belong to this ballad.
For other versions see Johnson's Museum and Maidment's North Countrie Garland. Compare also Folk-Song Journal, vol. i, p. 214.—C. J. S.
I have taken down a version of this from a Knaresboro' singer (Yorkshire) with a tune which has some rather extraordinary characteristics and in a certain degree resembling the first version here given.
One of the Scottish versions is called "The Young Laird of Craigstoun " and is printed in Maidment's North Countrie Garland (1824), reprinted in 1891 by E. Goldsmid.—F. K.
He's Growing- Sung By Mrs. Glover at Huish Episcopi, Aug. 20th, 1904[1].
I will buy my love a hat, the finest in the town,
I'll make her[2] look so proud, I will march her up and down.
Besides I'll buy you ribbon to tie up in your hair
For to let the ladies know
You'm got married.
With the age of sixteen he was a married man;
At the age of seventeen he was the father of a son;
At the age of eighteen his grave was growing green
And that soon put an end
To his journey.
Well I will climb up some brave old oaken tree[3]
And rob some pretty bird of its nest,
If I should get down without ever a fall
I'll marry the girl
I love well.
When I was going over high castle wall,
I see a pretty gentleman playing at ball;
He says, "Where is your own true love, the finest of them all?
Your bonny love is young
But he's growing."
The grass it do look green, sir, the trees is all in bloom,
The times is gone and past, what you and I have seen.
Footnotes:
1. This text inexplicably follows the music, but it is not included in the text:
T. do stand for Thomas, J. do stand for John,
And W. do stand for sweet William boy;
But my Johnny is
The handsomest man.
The only conclusion I can make is that the singer mixed "T. for Thomas" with "Trees they do grow" and that the text represents the first stanza.
2. "his" throughout? (the first two lines may have been borrowed from or are vaguely similar to the 'beaver hat" stanza in Binnorie- they are not usually text in "He'd Growing")
3. This stanza is found in "T for Thomas" and some offshoots of the Drowsy Sleeper, such as Sweet Bann Water, were one stanza begins:
For I can climb the high, high tree,
And I can rob the wild bird's nest;