Oh, You Drowsy Sleeper- Mrs. York (NC) 1939 Brown D
[From: The Brown Collection Volume 2, 1952, the music from Volume 4 is at the bottom of the page. Their notes follow. The letter stanza is usually found in England and Scotland ("Set my ship in Order") and "distress" is "disgrace." The father writes it to the male suitor's disgrace, whereupon he replies, "To my disgrace, to my disgrace." After being insulted, he boards his ship and leaves.
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.
D. 'Oh, You Drowsy Sleeper.' Secured from James York of Olin, Iredell county, in 1939. Slightly longer than the preceding versions. The first two stanzas are :
'Wake up, wake up, you drowsy sleeper,
Wake up, wake up; 'tis almost day.
How can you lie there and slumber
When your true love is a-going away?'
'Who is this at my side window
A-calling of my name so sweet?'
'It's a young man that you are loving.
One word with thee I wish to speak.'
Then follows the dialogue, in which it appears that the mother (who is mentioned first) holds in her hands "a letter To read to her children in distress" and the father a weapon wherewith "To slay the young man that I love best." It ends with two stanzas from 'Little Sparrow' :
'I wish I was a little sparrow.
One of them that could fly so high.
I'd fly and sit on my true love's dwelling,
And when she talked I'd be close by.
'Neither am I a little sparrow
And neither do I have wings to fly ;
So I'll sit down and weep in sorrow,
I'll sing and pass my troubles by.'
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D. 'Oh, You Drowsy Sleeper.' Sung by Mrs. James York. Recorded probably at Olin, Iredell county, in 1939.
[music upcoming]
Scale: Hexatonic (2), plagal. Tonal Center: g. Structure: aa^bc (2,2,2,2) ab (4.4)- Rhythmically, the four subphrases are practically identical.