Open Your Door- Waters (MO) 1903 Belden B
[My title. Fragment from the German publication; Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen (1907). Reprinted in Ballads and Songs, 1940. Belden's notes follow.
R. Matteson 2016]
Folksong in Missouri-- Bedroom Window
The following fragments of a folksong known in Missouri — I hardly know how to classify it — are possibly of some interest in connection with the pieces described by O. Ritter in the Archiv CXVII. 54 ('Burnsiana' IX). The first fragment is from the repertory of a fiddler named Waters in Miller County, and was taken down by Mr. W. S. Johnson in December 1903. The two stanzas seem to be all of the piece that Waters knows.
I. Open your door, your diamond window,
And listen to what I have to say:
How can you lie and sleep and slumber
When your true love is going away?
2. Go way, go way, you wake my father
Who lays on yonder bed to rest,
And in his hand he holds a dagger
To pierce the one who loves me best.