Home Came The Old Man- Rohrbaugh (WV) 1940
[My title, from "Singa Hipsy Doodle. . ." by Marie Boette.]
HOME CAME THE OLD MAN (OUR GOODMAN) Autoharp in F
In the given version a variant occurs in the second stanza, "O woman, O woman," replacing, "My wife, my beloued wife." It is a common custom for a farmer to refer to his wife as "woman" in this section of West Virginia. The ending of stanza two, "where I orter be," in place of, "where I ought to be," uses the colloquialism "orter" for "ought to," The variant in stanza three, "It, fool, can't you see, is nothing," separates the verb from its subject. Another version has "Oh, can you not but see, 'tis nothing but a baby, which is an unusual sequence, the first "but" being superfluous.
This ballad, Child 274, was sung for recording by Mrs. John Rohrbaugh in 1940. She stated it had been handed down from her grandparents and she enjoyed singing it because it was "funny." There are many versions with any number of verses. One has a "Cabbagehead" on the pillow- and although this ballad is over one hundred years old, a singer mentioned the "zipper" on the trousers! [1]
The given ballad is so short in structure it seems to gain momentum as verse after verse is sung- one cannot imagine this song as not being sung. It is in the pentatonic scale, Ionian Mode 3, which is the same as the first five tones of any major scale, containing the same steps, in this instance, E, F sharp, G sharp, A, B.
Home Came The Old Man (Our Goodman)- sung for recording by Mrs. John Rohrbaugh in 1940 from Harrison County, West Virginia. Collected by Marie Boette.
1- Home came the old man, home came he.
He went into the bedroom, a strange face did see.
2- "Oh woman, Oh woman, what means all this
A strange man there where I orter be?"
3- "You old fool, you blind fool, it [2], fool, can't you see,
It's [3]nothing but a baby your mother sent to me?"
4-"Miles have I travelled, ten thousand miles or more
But whiskers on a baby's face I never seen before!"
Footnotes:
1. The joke is that zippers were not even intented then.
2. I believe "it" is a mis-hearing or singing. Botte says, "The variant in stanza three, 'It, fool, can't you see, is nothing,' separates the verb from its subject.
3. Originally "Is"