O Drowsy Sleeper- Kuykendall (NC) 1939 Brown E
[From: The Brown Collection Volume 2, 1952, the music from Volume 4 is at the bottom of this page.. Their notes follow.
R. Matteson 2016]
71. The Drowsy Sleeper
Familiar both in print and as traditional song on both sides of the water; see BSM 1 18-19, and add to the references there given Virginia (FSV 56-7), North Carolina (FSRA 81-2; a fragment of it sung by Negroes, ANFS 177-8), Florida (SFLQ viii 167-8), Arkansas (OFS i 246), Missouri (OFS i 244-6), Ohio (BSO 92-4), Indiana (BSI 170-4), Michigan (BSSM 86-8), Illinois (JAFL LX 223-4), and Wisconsin (JAFL lii 31). Mrs. Steely found it in the Ebenezer community in Wake county. It is No. 518 in the series of stall ballads printed by Wehnian in New York. For its possible relation to the Gude and Godlie Ballads of 1567, see JEFDSS in 161-4. Very often it is combined, as in version B below, with 'The Silver Dagger,' probably because of the weapon (sometimes specifically a dagger) which the girl tells her lover that her father (or mother) has in readiness against him.
E. 'O Drowsy Sleeper.' From Otis Kuykendall of Asheville, 1939. A truncated text of four stanzas, the last of which does not appear in our other versions:
Oh, who is that in yon porch window
A-talking of your own true love?
Oh yes, oh yes, it is my darling,
It is the one that I love best.
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E. 'O Drowsy Sleeper.' Sung by Otis Kuykendall. Recorded at Asheville in 1939. This tune is quite similar to 'The 'Prentice Boy' sung by Aunt Becky Gordon (62B).
For melodic relationship cf. **SharpK i 360, No. 57C.
Scale: Mode III, plagal. Tonal Center: f. Structure: aabc (2,2,2.2) = ab (4,4).