Pretty Polly- Francis Gillum (KY) Meade 1974 REC
[Fragment from "Meeting's a Pleasure; Folk-songs of the Upper South, Volumes 2," Dedicated to the memory of Annadeene Fraley. The liner notes follow.
R. Matteson 2016]
20. Pretty Polly - Francis Gillum, vocal; Alva Greene, fiddle (Rec: Mark Wilson and Gus Meade, Isom, Ky, April, 1974). Laws P36; Roud 15. This song represents a locus classicus of how American pruning can sometimes improve a rather gaseous original, in this case the broadside ballad variously called The Gosport Tragedy or The Cruel Ship's Carpenter (vide MT 307 and MT 317). As such, it was widely printed in The Forget-Me-Not Songster and similar Yankee publications, but seems to have begun to shed its excess verses sometime in the later nineteenth century, possibly as the banjo drifted from the minstrel show into the countryside (Jim Garland and others told me that mountaineers would often return home from log drives down river with banjos or, at least, a notion of their construction). There are many, many wonderful recordings available: Pete Steele, Rdr 1511 & Fwys 3828; The Stanley Brothers, Co 20770; B F Sheldon, Vi 35838; E C Ball, Rdr 0072 & 1511 & 1705. Here Francis sings just a snatch of the song, but the duo's quintessential hill country sound proves quite stirring, I think.
Pretty Polly, Pretty Polly, you think it unkind (x2)
For me to set down by you and tell you my mind?
My mind is to marry and never part (x2)
For the first time I saw you, you wounded my heart.