Lowlands Lonesome Low- Cook (CO) 1890 Lumpkin
[I have an autographed copy of this article in my collection- it's taken from Colorado Folk Songs by Ben Gray Lumpkin in Western Folklore, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Apr., 1960), pp. 77-97. His notes follow.
R. Matteson 2014]
Parts of a very fine version of "The Sweet Trinity" or "Golden Vanity" (Child 286) are still sung by Leroy W. Cook, of Boulder, Colorado, who, while living in Hamilton County, Kansas, about 1890, learned it from his father. His father called it "The Lowlands Lonesome Low" and learned it before he moved to Kansas from Indiana.[1] As sung and written down by Cook, his version and tune are:
LOWLANDS LONESOME LOW
[Music upcoming]
There was a little boat, all fitted for the sea.
The name of the boat was the Merry Golden Tree.
And she sailed in the lowlands lonesome low.
And she sailed in the lowlands lonesome low.
There was another boat all ready for the sea,
And the name of the boat was the Turkish Revelrie.
And she sailed in the lowlands lonesome low. (Repeat.)
. . .
. . . had a thing fast to his coat,
And he bored nine holes in the bottom of the boat.
And she sank in the lowlands lonesome low. (Repeat.)
"Captain, oh captain, if it wasn't for your men,
I'd serve it unto you as I served it unto them.
And I'd sink you in the lowlands lonesome low." (Repeat.)
1. We have not found Cook's exact text or tune in published versions such as those in Belden, pp. 97-100; Randolph, I, 195-201; Paul G. Brewster, Ballads and Songs of Indiana (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1940), pp. 158-163; Arthur Kyle Davis, Traditional Ballads of Virginia (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1929), PP. 516-520, 602; Arthur Palmer Hudson, Folksongs of Mississippi . . . (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1936), pp. 125-127- Cook's version would probably be classified by Coffin as story Type A; see his op. cit., pp. 153-155- According to Jon Ward Bauman, a music student at the University of Colorado, the tune of Cook's version is in the Aeolian mode.