House Carpenter- Crane (TN) 1950 Karpeles REC; Bronson 109b
[From LC/AAFS, rec. No. 10,010(A1). From Bronson transcription in TTCB III, 1966; no. 109b.
Sharp collected a version from Addy Crane in 1916 (see: Version K, SharpK-1932). This was collected from her in 1950, thirty-four years later. Karpeles talks about her return trip to the mountains in 1950 immediately below.
R. Matteson 2013]
From: A Return Visit to the Appalachian Mountains (excerpt)
by Maud Karpeles
Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, Vol. 6, No. 3 (Dec., 1951), pp. 77
My visit was sponsored by the Library of Congress who lent a tape-recording machine to me and my companion, Mrs. Sidney Robertson Cowell. We spent three and a half weeks in the mountains and we concentrated on seeking out the singers, or members of their families, from whom Cecil Sharp and I had formerly obtained songs. It transpired that some fifty of these singers had died or could not be traced, but I succeeded in finding thirty-one (either former singers or their near relatives). Of these, sixteen no longer remembered the songs, but, to compensate, the remaining fifteen (nine former singers and six relatives) sang to us and we recorded sixty-nine songs from them. In addition, five singers and instrumentalists, whom I had not previously known, gave us, between them, twenty-two pieces, making a total of ninety-one songs and tunes.
"Daemon Lover," or "House Carpenter"- Sung by Mrs. Kiah (Attie) Crane (56) Flag Pond, Tenn., October 3, 1950- Collected by Maud Karpeles and Sidney Robertson Cowell. p M(?inflected VII)
1. Well met, well met, my old true love,
Well met, well met, says she.
I have just married a house carpenter,
A nice young man is he.
2. If you'll forsake your house carpenter
And go along with me,
I'll take you where the grass grows green,
On the banks of Tennessee.
3. She picked up her tender little babe,
And gave it kisses three,
Stay here, stay here, my tender little babe,
While I go sail the sea.
4. They hadn't been gone but about two weeks,
I'm sure it was not three,
Till this fair lady began to weep,
She wept most bitterly.
5. Are you weeping for my gold,
Or is it for my store?
Or is it for your house carpenter,
Whose face You'll see no more?
6. I'm neither weeping for your gold,
Nor either for your store,
It's only weeping for my tender little babe,
Whose face I'll see no more.
7. What banks, what banks before us now,
As white as any snow?
It's the banks of Heaven, my love, she [sic] replied, [1]
Where ail good people go.
8. What banks, what banks before us now,
As black as any crow?
It's the banks of Hell, my love, she replied,
Where You and I must go.
9. They hadn't been gone but about three weeks,
I'm sure it was not four,
Till that fair ship began to sink,
It sank to rise no more.
1. Bronson's [sic], implying that it should be "he replied."