My Bonny Lad Is Young- Mrs. Joiner (Herts) 1914 Broadwood
[From: Songs of Love and Country Life by Lucy E. Broadwood, Cecil J. Sharp, Frank Kidson, Clive Carey and A. G. Gilchrist
Journal of the Folk-Song Society, Vol. 5, No. 19 (Jun., 1915), pp. 174-203. Published by: English Folk Dance + Song Society. Their notes follow.
An arrangement of this version for mixed voices by E.T. Sweeting was publsihed by Novello in 1925. The ballad was sung to Janet Broadwood; Lucy's sister(?) with minor changes.
R. Matteson 2016]
MS notes by Broadwood: Sung by Mrs Joiner (59) Chiswell Green, near St. Stephens, Herts. Mrs Joiner (widow, employed to weed in the garden at Bone Hill) learned a large number of her old songs from her mother & grandmother who learned them from her great grandmother. All these women were born and bred in Hertfordshire. The *great grandmother and grandmother kept a "plaiting-school, where straw hat-plaiting and reading were taught. The girls sang as they plaited & taught each other these & similar songs. Mrs Joiner learned at [?] the plaiting school.
This is one of the most favourite ballads amongst country singers. It is curious that Child has not included it in his English and Scottish Ballads, although in his notes on the " Cruel Mother" he quotes a line or two from the curtailed version called " Lady Mary Ann " in Johnson's Scots Musical Museum. For full references and distinct airs as well as variants of the tune in this Journal, see Journal, Vol. i, P. 2I4; and Vol. ii, pp. 44, 95, 206, 274. The harmonized airs in Songs of the West, Songs from Somerset, and English Traditional Songs and Carols are all distinct and none have any likeness to the earliest book-version which is in the Musical Museum. To the previous references for texts should be added the broadside " My bonny Laddie's young," beginning " The trees they are high," (seven verses, B.M., I871, 8, I3), which is much the same as the version noted by me in Surrey. Cf. Mrs. Joiner's air with the Somerset variants in Journal, Vol. ii, pp. 44 and 96, and the Yorkshire variant, p. 274. So far as I am aware, the latter is the only example which has any phrase at all like Mrs. Joiner's chorus. Her version and that of Mr. Harry Richards (noted by Mr. Cecil Sharp) probably represent the norm of the most favourite tune amongst several other fine airs sung to the ballad. Versions two and three in this Journal, noted by Miss Gilchrist on the Lancashire coast, are-more or less-major variants of version one. They approximate oddly to the tune of "The Basket of Oysters," which is greatly affected of sailors, who by preference use it also for "The Golden Vanity." The norm, therefore, may be said to have "suffered some sea-change" in this case!- L. E. B.
39.-THE TREES THEY DO GROW HIGH; or, MY BONNY LAD IS YOUNG, HE'S A-GROWING.
Noted by Lucy Broadwood. sung by Mrs. Joiner of Chiswell Green, Hertfordshire,, Sept. 7th, 1914.
Very slow and expressive.
1.The trees they do grow high, and the leaves they do grow green,
And many a cold winter's night my love and I have seen.
Of a cold winter's night, my love, you and I alone have been,
Whilst my bonny boy is young; he's a-growing.
CHORUS. Growing, growing, whilst my bonny lad is young, he's a-growing.
2 Oh father, dearest father, you've done to me much harm,
You've tied me to a boy when you know he is too young."
Oh daughter, dearest daughter, if you'll wait a little while
A lady you shall be whilst he's growing.
CHORUS: Growing, growing, a lady, etc.
3 I'll send your love to college, all for a year or two,
And then in the meantime he will do for you;
I'll buy him white ribbons[1], tie them round his bonny waist,
To let the ladies know that he's married."
CHORUS: Married, married, to let the ladies, etc.
4 I went up to the college, and I looked all over the wall,
Saw four and twenty gentlemen playing at bat and ball,
I called for my own love, but they would not let him come,
All because he was a young boy, and growing.
CHORUS: Growing, growing, all because, etc.
5 At the age of sixteen he was a married man,
At the age of seventeen he was father to a son,
At the age of eighteen the grass grew over him,
Cruel death soon put an end to his growing.
CHORUS: Growing, growing, cruel death, etc.
6 And he shall have a shroud of the very best brown[2],
And whilst in a-making the tears shall roll down,
Saying "Once I'd a sweetheart, but now I've never a one,
So fare you well, my own true love, for ever, ever more."
CHORUS: Saying, "Once, etc., so fare you well, etc."
7 And now my love is dead, and in his grave doth lie,
The green grass grows over him so very, very high,
I'll sit and I'll mourn his fate until the day I die,
And I'll watch all over his child whilst he's growing.
CHORUS: Growing, growing, and I'll watch, etc.
1. The well-known part that ribbons formerly played in betrothal and marriage customs is dealt with in most hand-books of Folk-Lore. For one convenient reference see " Ribbands " in Hazlitt's Dictionary of Faiths and Folk-Lore, where the Scottish ballad " Lady Mary Ann " is quoted thus:
" We'll sew a green ribbon round about his hat,
And that will let them ken he's to marry yet."- L. E. B
2. Variant to verse 6.
Now I've never a one, So fare you well, my own true love, forever, evermore,"
CHORUS. Saying "Once I'd a sweetheart, but now I've never a one,
So fare you well, my own true love, forever, ever more."