KENTUCKY BLAZING STAR
(Contents)
SOURWOOD MOUNTAIN (Music arr. by Alfred G. Waihall)
THE LOVER'S LAMENT (Music arr. by Alfred G. Waihall)
HELLO, GIRLS (Music arr. by Alfred G. Waihall)
KANSAS BOYS
RED RIVER VALLEY (Music arr. by Henry Francis Parks)
LIZA JANE (Music arr. by Alfred G. Wathall)
MOUNTAIN TOP
NEGRO REEL (Music arr. by Alfred G. Wathall)
ONE MORNING IN MAY (Music arr. by Alfred G. Wathall)
THE TROUBLED SOLDIER
POST-RAIL SONG
HAMMER MAN (Music arr. by Alfred G. Wathall)
LOVE SOMEBODY, YES I DO (Music arr. by Alfred G. Wathall)
AIN'T GONNA RAIN
KENTUCKY MOONSHINER (Music arr. by Alfred G. Wathall)
MR. FROG WENT A-COURT1NG
KIND MISS Alfred G. Wathall)
GOIN* DOWN TO TOWN
THE SHIP THAT NEVER RETURNED (Music arr. by Henry Francis Parka)
DOWN IN THE VALLEY (Music arr. by Alfred G. Wathall)
I DREAMED LAST NIGHT OF MY TRUE LOVE (Music arr. by Alfred G. Wathall)
DRIVIN' STEEL (Music arr. by Alfred G. Wathall)
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When at the University of Kentucky with my talk and recital, I was told of Gilbert Reynolds Combs, minister of the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Lexington. He came from the mountain people and believes in them as having characters of tragedy and comedy, as having temperament, speech, song and original minds. His talk about the mountain people and his singing of their ballads and ditties is quiet and convincing. Born "on the waters of Cow Creek," he saw life amid the log cabins on the ridges of Pine Mountain and the streams named Troublesome, Cutshin, Hell-fer-Sartain and Kingdom Come. His forefathers for three generations were natives of "Bloody Breathitt " county, tracing back to Scotch-Irish settlers in Virginia before the Revolution. When Combs came down from the mountains in his sixteenth year, he was to see for the first time a railroad train, a telephone, typewriter, fountain pen, bath tub, barber chair, and other items of onrushing civilization. He worked his way through Berea College, was the valedictorian at Kentucky Wesleyan, took post-graduate studies, won an oratory medal at Vanderbilt University, at twenty-seven was ordained a minister and in a few years became one of the leaders, at thirty-six was the pastor of what is regarded as the central and leading church of his Conference. In a corner of his church study Mr. Combs has a collection of more than 300 mountaineer songs. He placed at our disposal a number of them appearing in the section called Kentucky Blazing Star which is the name of a "kiverlid" design that originated in some cabin alongside a Troublesome or Kingdom Come Creek.
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SOURWOOD MOUNTAIN
This tune and text of Sourwood Mountain, which has so many versions, is another from the collection of Gilbert R. Combs of Lexington, Kentucky. It is as much a dance tune as a song, and is close to the style of the yodel.
1 Chickens a-crowin' on Sourwood Mountain,
Ho-dee-ing-dong-doodle allay day,
So many pretty girls I can't count 'em,
Ho-dee-ing-dong-doodle allay day.
2. My true love, she's a blue-eyed dandy,
Ho-dee-ing-dong-doodle allay day,
A kiss from her is sweeter than candy,
Ho-dee-ing-dong-doodle allay day.
3 My true love lives over the river,
Ho-dee-ing-dong-doodle allay day,
A hop and a skip and I'll be with her,
Ho-dee-ing-dong-doodle allay day.
4 My true love is a blue-eyed daisy,
Ho-dee-ing-dong-doodle allay day,
If she don't marry me I'll go crazy,
Ho-dee-ing-dong-doodle allay day.
5 Back my jenny up the Sourwood Mountain,
Ho-dee-ing-dong-doodle allay day,
So many pretty girls I can't count 'em,
Ho-dee-ing-dong-doodle allay day.
6 My true love is a sun-burnt daisy,
Ho-dee-ing-dong-doodle allay day,
She won't work and I'm too lazy,
Ho-dee-ing-dong-doodle allay day.
THE LOVER'S LAMENT
Blendings from five or six old ballads are in this song of parting lovers. "Her lips was like some musical instrument," and other lines, are extraordinary. The pangs of separation find voice in an upward sliding wail. It is communicated by Neeta Marquis of Los Angeles, who says it is too finely sweet a song to be among the lost and forgotten things of melodic art.
A. THE LOVER'S LAMENT
1 My dearest dear, the time draws near
When you and I must part ;
But little do you know the grief or woe
Of my poor troubled heart,
Refrain:
Oh hush, my love, you will break my heart,
Nor let me hear you cry;
For the best of friends will have to part,
And so must you and I.
2 As I walked out one clear summer night,
A-drinking of sweet wine,
It was then I saw that pretty little girl
That stole this heart of mine.
Refrain:
3 Her cheeks was like some pink or rose
That blooms in the month of June,
Her lips was like some musical instrument,
That sung this doleful tune.
Refrain:
4 Ah, who will shoe your feet, my love,
And who will glove your hands,
And who will kiss your red, rosy lips
When I am gone to the foreign land?
Refrain:
5 My father, he will shoe my feet,
My mother will glove my hands,
And you may kiss my rod, rosy lips,
When you come from the foreign land.
Refrain:
6 You are like unto some turtle dove,
That flies from tree to tree,
A-mourning for its own true love
Just as I mourn for thcc.
Refrain;
1 You are like unto some sailing ship
That sails the raging main,
If I prove false to you, my love,
The raging seas will burn.
Refrain:
B. THE LOVER'S LAMENT
1 I wish your breast was made of glass,
All in it I might behold;
Your name in secret I would write
In letters of bright gold.
Refrain.
Your name in secret I would write,
Pray believe in what I say;
You are the man that I love best
Unto my dying day.
Refrain.
HELLO, GIRLS
Girls who are thinking about getting married find advice here. The third verse carries a laugh, with a slight mourning border of sober second thought. Movers from Kentucky, probably, took the tune to Kansas, and gave it new verses as in text B, the song of Kansas Boys. "Puncheon floor" and "milk in the gourd" are clearly Kentucky inventions or importations. Planting corn in February "with a Texas pony and a grasshopper plow," however, is a farming trick the Kentuckians first heard of after they left "the Gascony of America" and took up claims in the Sunflower state. The verses traveled up into Nebraska districts where they pitch horseshoes and hold championship corn-husking contests, for Edwin Ford Piper, who lived on a farm near Auburn, wrote of Kansas Boys, "This ballad I found in my sister's note book. The older brothers and sisters used to sing it."
1 Hello girls, listen to my voice,
Don't you never marry no good-for-nothing boys.
If you do your doom shall be
Hoe-cake, hominy, and sassafras tea.
Young boys walking down the street,
Young girls think they look mighty sweet.
Hands in their pockets not a dime can they find,
Oh, how tickled, poor girls mine.
3 When a young man falls in love,
First it's honey and then turtle dove.
After he's married no such thing,
"Get up and get my breakfast, you good-for-nothing thing!
B. KANSAS BOYS
1 Come, all young girls, pay attention to my noise,
Don't fall in love with the Kansas boys,
For if you do your portion it will be,
Johnny cake and antelope is all you'll see.
2 They'll take you out on the jet black hill,
Take you there so much against your will,
Leave you there to perish on the plains,
For that is the way with the Kansas range.'
8 Some live in a cabin with a huge log wall,
Nary a window in it at all,
Sand stone chimney and a puncheon floor,
Clapboard roof and a button door.
4 When they get hungry and go to make bread,
They kindle a fire as high as your head,
Rake around the ashes and in they throw,
The name they give it is "doughboys' dough/'
5 When they go to milk they milk in a gourd,
Heave it in the corner and cover with a board,
Some get plenty and some get none,
That is the way with the Kansas run.
6 When they go to meeting the clothes that they wear
Is an old brown coat all picked and bare,
An old white hat more rim than crown,
A pair of cotton socks they wore the week around.
7 When they go to farming you needn't be alarmed,
In February they plant their corn,
The way they tend it I'll tell you now,
With a Texas pony and a grasshopper plow.
8 When they go a-fishing they take along a worm,
Put it on the hook just to see it squirm,
The first thing they say when they get a bite
Is "I caught a fish as big as Johnny White."
9 When they go courting they take along a chair,
The first thing they say is, "Has your daddy killed a bear,'*
The second thing they say when they sit down
Is "Madam, your Johnny cake is baking brown."
RED RIVER VALLEY
The popular song In the Bright Mohawk Valley went through changes in the seaboard and mountain states of the South. It became The Red River Valley; it went west and became a "cowboy love song,*' the end line speaking of "the cowboy that's waiting for you" or "the half breed that's waiting for you." The version here is from Gilbert R. Combs as he heard it on Pine Mountain. Three final stanzas arc added from the R. W. Gordon collection. I have heard it sung as if bells might be calling across a mist in a gloaming.
RED RIVER VALLEY
1 From this valley they say you are going,
We will miss your bright eyes and sweet smile,
For they say you are taking the sunshine
That brightens our pathway awhile.
Refrain:
Come and sit by my side if you love me,
Do not hasten to bid me adieu,
But remember the Red River Valley
And the girl that has loved you so true.
fc For a long time I have been waiting
For those dear words you never would say,
But at last all my fond hopes have vanished,
For they say you are going aawy.
Refrain:
3 Won't you think of the valley you're leaving?
Oh how lonely, how sad it will be.
Oh think of the fond heart you're breaking,
And the grief you are causing me to see?
Refrain:
4 From this valley they say you are going;
When you go, may your darling go too?
Would you leave her behind unprotected
When she loves no other but you?
Refrain:
5 I have promised you, darling, that never
Will a word from my lips cause you pain;
And my life, it will be yours forever
If you only will love me again.
Refrain:
6 Must the past with its joys be blighted
By the future of sorrow and pain,
And the vows that was spoken be slighted?
Don't you think you can love me again?
Refrain:
7 As you go to your home by the ocean,
May you never forget those sweet hours,
That we spent in Red River Valley,
And the love we exchanged 'mid the flowers.
Refrain:
8 There never could be such a longing
In the heart of a pure maiden's breast,
That dwells in the heart you are breaking
As I wait in my home in the West.
Refrain:
9 And the dark maiden's prayer for her lover
To the Spirit that rules over the world;
May his pathway be ever in sunshine,
Is the prayer of the lied River girl.
Refrain:
LIZA JANE
The mountains are friendly and homelike to many who live there. Gilbert R. Combs tells of men leaving for a year or two of " ranching it " on the western plains, and then straggling back saying of the flat prairies and level horizons, "It was too lonesome, too l-o-n-e-s-o-m-e." They have their own ways. Some are told of in these lines from men who are a law unto themselves. There are as many Liza songs in the Appalachian mountains as there are species of trees on the slopes of that range. The one in text A is called Liza Jane and the one in text B is known as Mountain Top.
1 I'll go up on the mountain top,
And plant me a patch of cane,
I'll make me a jug of molasses,
For to sweeten little Liza Jane.
Refrain: O po' Liza, po' gal,
O po' Liza Jane,
O po' Liza, po' gal,
She died on the train.
2 I'll go up on the mountain top,
Put up my moonshine still,
I'll make you a quart of old moonshine,
For just one dollar bill.
Refrain:
3 Head Is like a coffee pot,
Nose is like a spout,
Her mouth is like an old fire-place,
With the ashes all raked out.
Refrain:
4 I went to see my Liza Jane,
She was standing in the door,
Her shoes and stockings in her hand,
And her feet all over the floor.
Refrain:
5 The hardest work that ever I did,
Was a-brakin* on the train,
The easiest work that ever I did,
Was a-huggin' little Liza Jane.
Refrain:
B. MOUNTAIN TOP
1 I'll go up on the mountain top
And grow me a patch of cane,
I'll make me a jug of molasses too,
For to sweeten up Liza Jane.
2 Come along, sweet Liza Jane,
Just come along with me,
We'll go up on the mountain top,
Some pleasures there to see.
3 I'll go up on this mountain top
Put out me a moonshine still,
I'll sell you a quart of old moonshine
Just for a one dollar bill.
4 I will eat when I am hungry
And drink when I am dry,
If a tree don't fall on me
I'll live until I die.
NEGRO REEL
This mountain piece comes from Neeta Marquis of Los Angeles, California, who recalls the singing of it in her family when she was a girl. It was a traditional tune of Kentucky and Tennessee that her father said went hack to the Eigh teen-forties. Alfred Wathall points out that the tune derives from an old English contra dance air.
1 Laws-a-massey, what have you done?
You've married the old man instead of his son!
His legs are all crooked and wrong put on,
They're all a-laughing at your old man.
2 Now you're married you must obey.
You must prove true to all you say.
And as you have promised, so now you must do,
Kiss him twice and hug him, too.
ONE MORNING IN MAY
This is a mountain dance tune. One can see feet and fiddles, the bowing of lovers looking into each other's eyes, the exchange of glances as they go circling in "all hands around." Such a song was particularly useful when the fiddler failed to show up or went out of commission with a heavy cargo of "corn." This lineal descendant of old British balladry has many variants in America; an instance of certain English folk-songs which have a wider variety of text and tunes in the Appalachian Mountains of the United States than are to be found in the British Isles. The musical design here is cunning, and the skill of it grows on us as we become more familiar with it. This was heard by Gilbert R. Combs in his Pine Mountain years. He gives us two texts, One Morning In May and The Troubled Soldier, both of which can be managed to the one tune.
A. MORNING IN MAY
1 One morning, one morning, one morning in May
I met a fair couple a-making their way,
And one was a maiden so bright and so fair,
And the other was a soldier and a brave volunteer.
2 Good morning, good morning, good morning to thee,
where are you going my pretty lady?
O I am a-going to the banks of the sea,
To see the waters gliding, hear the nightingale sing.
3 We hadn't been a-standing but a minute or two
When out from his knapsack a fiddle he drew,
And the tune that he played made the valleys all ring,
see the waters gliding, hear the nightingale sing.
4 Pretty lady, pretty lady, it's time to give o'er,
no, pretty soldier, please play one tune more,
I'd rather hear your fiddle or the touch of one string
Than to sec the waters gliding, hear the nightingale sing.
5 Pretty .soldier, pretty soldier, will you marry me?
no, pretty lady, that never can be;
I've a wife in old London and children twice three;
Two wives in the army's too many for me.
6 I'll go back to London and stay there one year
And often I'll think of you my little dear,
If ever I return, 'twill be in the spring
To see the waters gliding, hear the nightingale sing.
B. THE TROUBLED SOLDIER
1. It was in the lovely month of May,
I heard a poor soldier lamenting and say,
I heard a poor soldier lamenting and moan,
"I am a troubled soldier, no friend and no home."
2 O Mary, Mary, 'twas for your sake alone
I left my poor father and mother at home,
I left my poor father, my mother to roam,
I am a troubled soldier, no friend and no home*
THE TROUBLED SOLDIER
I'm troubled in trouble, I'm troubled, and why?
If trouble don't kill me I know I'll never die.
If Jamis don't hear me and help me to moan,
I am a troubled soldier, no friend and no home.
4 Go build me a castle on yon mountain high,
Where the wild geese can hear me as they do pass by,
Where the turtle dove can hear me and help me to mourn,
I am a troubled soldier, no friend and no home.
5 Don't you remember on one Friday night,
While by your side I sat, you said
You loved me, and my heart laid in your breast,
And if you didn't get married you never could rest?
Adieu to Old Kentucky I never more expect to see,
For love and misfortune has called me away,
For love and misfortune has called me to mourn,
I am a troubled soldier, no friend and no home.
POST-RAIL SONG
The post-mil fence in Kentucky has posts with holes bored in them, through which the fence rails run. Fence-builders chant these lines to the swing of their bodies as they "put 'em up solid." We have this on the authority of Charles Hoening of the University of Rochester faculty. He grew up in the blue grass region and when he had finished growing he was six feet four inches tall and put up solid.
Put 'em up so - lid, they won't come down!
Hey, ma lad-die, they Von't conie down"
Put 'em up solid, they won't come down!
Hey, ma laddie, they won't come down!
HAMMER MAN
The negro worker often makes songs on the job, whether in the white harvest of cotton or driving a railroad tunnel through a rock mountain. We are told of a research student who took a seat on a fence to listen to the singing of a negro work gang on a railroad. When he finally detected their words he found they were singing lines that sounded like, "See dat white man . . . sittin* on a fence . . . sittin' on a fence . . . wastin' his time . . . wast in* his time." This song from the Combs collection was probably made by negroes on the job and learned from the negroes by the mountain whites. Drivin' steel is hard work; the worker's stay on the job depends on whether he is treated right or wrong; the idea is big enough for a song whose tempo is hammer swing rhythms.
1 Drivin' steel, drivin' steel,
Drivin' steel, boys,
Is hard work, I know;
Drivin' steel, drivin' steel,
Drivin' steel, boys,
Is hard work, I know.
3 Boss man, boss man,
Boss man, boys,
See the boss man comin* down the line,
Boss man, boss man,
Boss man, boys,
See the boss man comin* down the line.
Treat me right, treat me right,
Treat me right, boys,
I am bound to stay all day;
Treat me wrong, treat me wrong,
Treat me wrong, boys,
I am bound to run away.
LOVE SOMEBODY, YES I DO
Fiddlers play this. It's time heat is to "all hands circle round." If the fiddlers fail to come the dancers can sing their music. The word "love" is mentioned in every line but the last, "Tween sixteen and twenty -two." It is for young folks, and has air and step from an old English contra dance, Wathall tells us. Also, for this we are indebted to the Combs collection.
1 Love somebody, yes I do;
Love somebody, yes I do;
Love somebody, yes I do;
Love somebody, but I won't tell who.
Love somebody, yes I do;
Love somebody, yes I do;
Love somebody, yes I do;
And I hope somebody loves me too.
2 Love somebody, yes I do;
Love somebody, yes I do;
Love somebody, yes I do;
Love somebody, but I won't tell who.
Love somebody, yes I do;
Love somebody, yes I do;
Love somebody, yes I do,
Tween sixteen and twenty-two.
AIN'T GONNA RAIN
This Iowa and Nebraska dance song has mountaineer and negro versions; it came west from Kentucky and other southern states according to Edwin Ford Piper; it is at least as old as the 1870's.
1. It ain't gon-na rain, it ain't gon - na snow,
It ain't gon-na rain no mo';
Come on ev - ry - bod - y now,
Ain't gon - na rain no mo*.
Oh, what did the blackbird say to the crow?
It ain't gonna rain no mo',
Ain't gonna hail, ain't gonna snow,
Ain't gonna rain no mo' .
3 Bake them biscuits good and brown,
It ain't gonna rain no mo'.
Swing yo* ladies round and round,
Ain't gonna rain no mo'.
KENTUCKY MOONSHINER
Gilbert R. Combs says that of all songs he heard as he grew up in the mountains, this is the most desolate and poignant. It wails; it brandishes sorrow; it publishes grief; it opens the final stop-gaps of lonely fate, staunchly vocal. This relates directly to ancient Gaelic lamentations over dead kings; it is "keening" of a sort and has the character of melody suitable to a wake over one with the lights gone from him. A "grocery," we note, is a general store keeping liquor among provisions and staples for sale.
KENTUCKY MOONSHINER
1 I've been a moonshiner for seventeen long years,
I've spent all my money for whiskey and beers.
I'll go to some holler, I'll put up my still,
I'll make you one gallon for a two dollar bill.
2 I'll go to some grocery and drink with my friends,
No women to follow to see what I spends.
God bless those pretty women, I wish they were mine,
Their breath smells as sweet as the dew on the vine.
3 I'll eat when I'm hungry and drink when I'm dry,
If moonshine don't kill me, I'll live till I die.
God bless those moonshiners, I wish they were mine,
Their breath smells as sweet as the good old moonshine.
MISTER FROG WENT A-COURTING
"In continuous use for four hundred years," L. W. Payne tells us in a forty-four page history of the song in Publication No. 5 of the Texas Folk Lore Society; he prints sixteen tunes and has many more. The following is a Kentucky and Virginia version, with text additions from Payne. "Ah-hah" can be "ulm-huhn," "eh-heh," "och-kungh" (like a bull frog) and, as you please.
1 Mister Frog went a-courting, he did ride, ah-hah, ah-hah!
Mister Frog went a-courting, he did ride, a sword and a pistol by his side, ah-hah, ah-hah!
2 He rode up to Miss Mousie's door, ah-hah, ah-hah!
He rode up to Miss Mousie's door, where he had often been l>efore, ah-hah, ah-hah!
3 Now Uncle Rat when he came home says, "Who's l>een here since I been gone?"
4 "A very fine gentleman has been here who wishes me to be his dear."
6 Uncle Rat laughed and shook his side to think his niece would be a bride.
6 Uncle Rat on a horse he went to town to buy his niece a wedding gown.
7 Where shall the wedding supper be? Away down yonder in a hollow tree.
8 What shall the wedding supper be? Three green beans and a black-eyed pea.
9 Tell us, what was the bride dressed in? A cream gauze veil 'and a brass breastpin.
10 Tell us next what was the groom dressed in? Sky blue britches with silver stitches.
11 The first came in was a bumble bee, to play the fiddle upon his knee.
12 They all sat down and began to chat, when in walked the kitten and the cat.
13 Mrs. Cat she stepped to the supper and turned over the plate of butter.
14 Miss Mousie went a-tearing up the wall, her foot slipped and she got a fall.
15 They all went a-sailing across the lake, and they all were swallowed by a big black snake.
16 So here's the end of one, two, three, the cat, the frog and Miss Mousie.
17 There's bread and cheese upon the shelf, and if you want any just help yourself.
KIND MISS
"Did she marry him for love or money?" is about as old as the query, "Would you rather marry a handsome man who is poor or a man with lots of money and a face like a mud fence?" The answer among children is, "I'd rather have both." In the Kentucky song here we have an offer of marriage, even elopement. The girl refuses and tells why. . . . Ann Riddell Anderson of the University of Kentucky communicates this; her father, Hugh Riddell, is judge in a circuit of courts including " Bloody Brcathitt " County.
1 Kind miss, kind miss, go ask your mother
If you, my bride shall ever be.
If she says "Yes," come back and tell me,
If she says "No," well run away.
2. Kind miss, I have much gold and silver,
Kind miss, I have a house and land,
Kind miss, I have a world of pleasure,
And all of these at thy command.
3 What do I care for your gold and silver,
What do I care for your house and land.
What do I care for your world of pleasure,
When all I want is a handsome man.
GOIN' DOWN TO TOWN
This is comic poetry, in a rough and tumble sense, put to a tune that is strictly rough and tumble. Millions of horses and mules have heard this, and the likes of it, from drivers on the wagon seat singing to themselves. It is a horse's earful.
1 I used to have an old grey horse,
He weighed ton thousand pounds,
Ev'ry tooth he had in his head,
Was eighteen inches around.
Refrain:I'm a-goin' down to town,
I'm a-goin' down to town,
I'm a-goin' down to Lynchburg town,
To carry my tobacco down.
2 That horse he had a holler tooth,
He could eat ten bushels of corn,
Ev'ry time he opened his mouth,
Two bushels and a half were gone.
Refrain:
3. I had a yaller gal,
I brought her from the south,
All the fault I had with her,
She had too big a mouth.
Refrain:
4 I took her down to the blacksmith shop,
To get her mouth made small,
She opened her mouth to get a long breath,
And swallowed blacksmith, shop and all.
Refrain:
5 I'm a-goin'o get me some sticks and sand,
To make rny chimney higher,
To keep that dog-goned old torn cat,
From puttin* out my fire.
Refrain:
THE SHIP THAT NEVER RETURNED
A Kentucky mountain version of a popular song of about 1870, we are told. Gilbert R. Combs heard it as a boy on Pine Mountain. The Prisoner's Song, a 1925-1926 "hit," got its melody from "The Ship that Never Returned" and its verses from another old timer, "Moonlight." That is, two songs Broadway launched and forgot, lived on and changed, mellowed and sweetened among the mountaineers. Years later the tune of one forgotten "hit" joined to the verses of another, sweep the country as a Broadway triumph. Such, in short, is the history of The Prisoner's Song; R. W. Gordon is to give us the documents in full. From the homemade dulcimers of Pine Mountain to the repercussive banjoes and sobbing saxophones of Broadway was a long leap for this old tune. It will be fretted on the keyboards of those same dulcimers when Broadway has again tossed it to
the anh cans. The manner and method of its next comeback is anybody's guess.
THE SHIP THAT NEVER RETURNED
1 On a summer's day while the waves were rippling, with a quiet and a gentle breeze;
A ship set sail with a eargo laden for a port beyond the sea.
Refrain: Did she ever return? No, she never returned, and her fate is still unlearned,
But a last poor man set sail commander, on a ship that never returned.
2 There were sad farewells, there were friends forsaken, and her fate is still unlearned,
But a last poor man set sail commander on a ship that never returned.
Refrain:
3 Said a feeble lad to his aged mother, I must cross that deep blue sea,
For I hear of a land in the far off country, where there's health and strength for me.
Refrain :
4 Tis a gleam of hope and a maze of danger, and our fate is still to learn,
And a last poor man set sail commander, on a ship that never returned.
Refrain:
6 Said this feeble lad to his aged mother, as he kissed his weeping wife,
"Just one more purse of that golden treasure, it will last us all through life.
Refrain:
6 "Then we'll live in peace and joy together and enjoy all I have earned."
So they sent him forth with a smile and blessing on a ship that never returned.
Refrain:
DOWN IN THE VALLEY
Here are nine verses of a poem as idle as the wind. It is an old fashioned lyric, simple in its stitches yet as fixed in its design as certain "kiverlids" made by housewives in the Kentucky mountains. I have heard the remark, "It is a good song to be singing while writing a love letter it is full of wishes and dances a little and hopes a beloved dancing partner will come back/* The text and tune are from Frances Ries of Batavia, Ohio.
1 Down in the valley,
The valley so low,
Hang your head over,
Hear the wind blow.
2 Hear the wind blow, dear,
Hear the wind blow,
Hang your head over,
Hear the wind blow.
3 If you don't love me,
Love whom you please;
Throw your arms "round me,
Give my heart ease.
4 Throw your arms 'round me,
Before it's too late;
Throw yours 'round me,
Feel my heart break.
5 Writing this letter,
Containing three lines,
Answer my question :
44 Will you be mine?"
6 "Will you be mine, dear,
Will you be mine?'*
Answer my question:
"Will you be mine?"
7 Go build me a castle
Forty feet high;
So I can see him,
As he goes by.
8 As he goes by, dear;
As he goes by;
So I can see him,
As he goes by.
9 Roses love sunshine.
Violets love dew,
Angels in heaven
Knows I love you.
I DREAMED LAST NIGHT OF MY TRUE LOVE
English travelers have said it is the 17th century language of England that is spoken in certain isolated mountain and seaboard corners of America. Among these pocketed populations they say "poke" for "pocket," "my may" for "my sweetheart," and asking a kiss, "Come buss me." , . . The mountaineer may remark of his horse, "That mare is the loveliest runner and the sensiblest animal I ever saddled," or he may give places names such as Shoo Bird Mountain, Shake-a-rag Holler, or Huggins Hell. Once in Kentucky a wanderer inquiring the route was told he was on the right road and to go on " about two screeches and a holler." . . . The independent lingo and manner of the mountaineer is in this text and tune from Mrs. Mark . Hutchinson of Mount Vernon, Iowa,
1 I dreamed last night of my true love.
All in my arms I had her;
Her pretty yeller hair like strands of gold,
Lay dangling round my pi Her.
2 I waked in the morning and found her not.
I was forced to do without her;
I went unto her uncle's house*
Inquiring for this lady.
3 He said that she was not there,
And neither would he keep her.
I turned around to go away,
My love she come to the winder.
4 She said that she would come to me,
If doors nor locks did not hinder.
I turned around and broke them locks,
I broke 'em all asinder (asunder).
DRIVIN' STEEL
The mountaineers of East Tennessee have their own song of the steel driving man who toils in tunnels and on railroads. This version is from Gilbert R. Combs as he heard it from mountaineers. It is a working class song straight from men on the job, uttered to muscular body rhythms. We can almost hear the ring of steel on steel. There is heave of shoulders, deep breath control, the touch of hands on a familiar well-worn hammer handle.
1 If I could drive steel like John Henry
I'd go home, Baby, I'd go home.
2 If I had forty-one dollars
I'd go home, Baby, IM go home.
3 I'm goin' home and tell Little Annie,
No mo' trials, Baby, no mo' trials.
4 Do you hear that rain crow hollerin'?
Sign of rain, Baby, sign of rain.
5 This old hammer killed John Henry
Can't kill me, Baby, can't kill me.
6. This old hammer killed Bill Dooley
Can't kill me, Baby, can't kill me.
7 This old hammer weighs forty pounds, sah,
Can't kill me, Baby, can't kill me.