Recordings & Info: 7M. The Colour of Amber
Notes: The Colour of Amber
and
Black/Dark is the Colour
Colour of Amber, The
DESCRIPTION: "The colour of amber was my true love's hair." "Many a time [his lips] they've been pressed to mine. I'd fish and catch him "with a line and hook" and never part. It's in vain. I'll never be a maid again.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1974 (recording, Mary Ann Haynes)
KEYWORDS: courting love betrayal hair floatingverses nonballad fishing lyric
FOUND IN: Britain(England(Lond))
Roud #1716
RECORDINGS:
Mary Ann Haynes, "The Colour of Amber" (on Voice11)
Notes: "The Colour of Amber" is the reverse of "Black Is the Color" with the usual floating verse from the woman's point of view. It is tempting to lump this with, say, "Fair and Tender Ladies," but the amber and fishing verses make it stand aside for me. Yates, Musical Traditions site Voice of the People suite "Notes - Volume 11" - 11.9.02, refers to John Ashton's Real Sailor Songs "The Sailor Boy" [Ashton/Sailor *63] as another version; that does have the amber verse but is a version of "The Sailor Boy"(I) [Laws K12]. "Fair and Tender Ladies" would be a closer match than that. - BS
----------------
DESCRIPTION: "(Black, black,) black is the color of my true love's hair...." The singer describes the beautiful girl he is in love with. (He regretfully concedes that they will never be married)
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1916 (Cecil Sharp collection)
KEYWORDS: love courting hair beauty separation nonballad
FOUND IN: US(Ap,SE,So)
REFERENCES (8 citations):
Lomax-FSUSA 16, "Black Is the Color" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax- FSNA 100, "Black Is the Color" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ritchie-Southern, p. 88, "Black is the Color" (1 text, 1 tune, with several floating lines including some that appear to be from "Lady Mary Anne" or something related)
SharpAp 85, "Black is the Colour" (1 text, 1 tune)
Sharp/Karpeles-80E 41, "Black is the Color" (1 text, 1 tune)
Darling-NAS, pp. 267-268, "Black is the Color" (1 text)
Silber-FSWB, p. 145, "Black Is The Color" (1 text)
DT, BLACKCOL* BLACKCO2*
Roud #3103
RECORDINGS:
Pete Seeger, "Black is the Color" (on PeteSeeger18)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair
Notes: John Jacob Niles, who is largely responsible for popularizing this song, also claims to have written it. For a recently composed song, however, it exists in unusually diverse and widespread forms. Randolph notes connections with English pieces, and Lomax correctly observes that the tune resembles "Fair and Tender Ladies." - RBW
----
see also Joe Heaney
Sean 'ac Donncha, as mentioned earlier in this thread.
DARK IS THE COLOUR OF MY TRUE LOVE'S HAIR
Trad, as sung by Sean 'ac Donncha
Dark is the colour of my true love's hair
Her face is like some rose so fair
The slenderest waist and the neatest hands
I adore the ground whereon she stands
I went to the Clyde for to mourn and weep
But satisfied I ne'er could sleep
I sent her a letter in a few short lines
I suffered death a thousand times
I kneeled down and I wrote a song
I wrote it neat and I wrote it long
At every line I shed a tear
And the last line said, "Farewell my dear."
So fare thee well my own true love
I thought you were true as the stars above
But if pleasure on earth no more I'll see
I'll never treat you as you treated me
The winter is past and the fields are green
The time is past that we have seen
But still I hope the day will come
When you and I shall be as one
000000000000000
Subject: RE: black is the color?from where?
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie) - PM
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 08:32 PM
Well yes, I'm back, and have enjoyed reading all about "Black is the Color." Thanks, Spaw, for clarifying the Peter Bellemy story...I had been about to tell you-all I've never met Willie Clancy, unfortunately (know Liam, but that's a different person, no?). I have sung the song, which we always called, "But Black," to tell it apart from the Niles, "Black, Black, Black", almost all my life. I think my older sisters brought it home from Berea College where they had sung it in the chorus, so it is probably the Sharp NC version. That would be in the late 20s/early 30s, so I HAVE known it a long time. Have always thought it Scots because of the Clyde. Among his many other changes in melody & lyrics, JJ Niles substituted "Troublesome" for "Clyde." That refers to Troublesome Creek, in Knott County, KY where my dad was born & raised, so I sometimes (not always) used "Troublesome" in my performances. Just tickled me to do that.
The other song mentioned is I believe NOT a variant of "But Black," someone just dragged in a verse of "Black" to round out the "Sailors' Life" song. The FOLK do that all the time... there's a great old banjo song from my family/community that does it, sung there long before they ever knew the "But Black" that I recorded in 1950(EK-L-2, released in 1952). One of the verses:
O that pretty little girl, sixteen years old
Hair j'st as yaller as the flamin gold,
Well the prettiest hair and the neatest hands-
God bless the ground onwhere she stands!
Lord, I hope those worked...Joe'll kill me if they don't! Jean
--------------
Subject: RE: black is the color?from where?
From: wes.w - PM
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 06:58 AM
I've found a reference to this in James F. Leisy, Folk Song Fest, 1964: (my italics)
John Jacob Niles wrote a melody for the traditional words to 'Black is the Color' and came up with a version that has given the song great popularity amoung folk song revivalists. His possesion of the most used version almost moved the song out of the the folk song class in this day of copyright exclusives for folk song arrangements - until performers began coming up with their own melodies and versions.
He then lists 'essential' recordings by Niles, Susan Reed, Pete Seeger, Bob Ross, and (surprise, surprise) Jean Ritchie.
The air played by Peter Bellamy attributed to Willie Clancy, I mentioned earlier, is in fact a family tune of Jeans. I'd muddled the story, which I'll try to give in Pete's own words:
This is an Irish whistle tune that I learnt from the playing of Willie Clancy. This is a fascinating tune, not just for its beauty, but for the fact that I'd heard exactly the same tune with the same name from Jean Ritchie. In fact, this is not an Irish tune that got taken out unchanged to America. This is an English song that went out to America so long ago that everyone has forgotten about it, and the Americans changed it, as they do, and it became part of the Ritchie Family repertoire. Jean Ritchie sang it to, I believe, Shirley Collins, who came back to England where she sang it to Willie Clancy who thought 'Thats a lovely tune' and went back to Ireland playing it. Meanwhile Folkways Records from America turned up and said 'Play us an Irish tune, Mac!' and Willie played them 'Black is the Colour'. They rushed back to America, released it on an American label, which got exported to England, where Muggins bought it.
This air is similar to the song Sharp collected from Mrs Lizzie Roberts, Hot Springs, N.Carolina in 1916. That also has the Clyde in the lyrics, as Malcom says.
---------
Malcolm: Willie Clancy is supposed to have picked up Dark is the Colour from an American singer in Warsaw in the late 1950's, and started playing it himself; that may be as Irish as it ever was
---
Mellinger Henry collected a version of "My Pretty Little Pink" from Austin Harmon of Varnell, Georgia, in 1929, that has overtones of "Black is the Color". The last several verses then switch over to a "final testimony" situation.
My pretty little pink, so fare you well.
You slighted me, but I wish you well.
The prettiest face, and the meanest hand;
I love the ground whereon she stands.
I saw you the other day; you looked so loving
And you were so gay; you fooled and trifled your time away.
If on earth no more shall see,
I can't serve you as you serve me.
I love me love and well she knows
-----------------------------------
I would rather build my home on some icy hill
Where the sun refuses to shine; a trusting girl is hard to find.
But when you find one just and true,
Forsake not the old one for the new.
On the twenty-ninth of May the prison doors flew open wide
With guns and guards on ever side, and on my coffin made ride.
Come, welcome, death, I will go with you;
The roads are dark and lonesome too.
Come on, my dear, and see me die,
And meet sweet Jesus in the sky.
The rope is bought, the bolt is swung,
A innocent man, you all have hung.
Before they thought he was quite dead,
Down came a little dove, hovered around his head,
And they thought it was the Saviour dear.
Henry does not print a tune. Austin Harmon was the son of Sam Harmon of Cades Cove, Tennessee.
------------------
One of the most beautiful of the Appalachian lyric songs, which Dellie begins with a verse from the separate song Come My Pretty Little Pink. According to Roger deV Renwick (Recentering Anglo/American Folksong. 2001. pp. 51 - 52), the song is similar, in parts, to versions of The Week Before Easter and to the song The Rambling Boy, which contains verses such as:
The rose is red, the stem is green
The time is past that I have seen
It may be more, it may be few
But I hope to spend them all with you.
Or
Oh my pretty little miss sixteen years old
Her hair just as yeller as the shining gold
The prettiest face and the sweetest hands
Bless the ground on where she stands.
Cecil Sharp noted a single set from Mrs Lizzie Roberts of nearby Hot Springs, NC, in 1916 (see English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians (1932) vol.2 p.31). The reference to the river Clyde suggests that it may be based on an older Scottish song."
----------
Black is the color
From: GUEST,Bobby McMillon - PM
Date: 25 Apr 06 - 05:01 PM
I learned "Dark is the Colour of My True Loves Hair" in my youth from Mrs. Mae Shults Phillips, originally from the McMillon Settlement, near Cosby, Tennesse in the Great Smoky Mountains. She told me that, as a school girl (prior to 1916, the year she married)she and her girl friends would sing this song as the boys passed by as if they were crying as they sang it, to tease the boys. Her tune was close, but with differences to the Roberts melody. Dellie Norton, of the Burton Cove, near Revere, NC, told me in 1976 that she knew it to begin both as "Black is..." and "Dark is...". The tune she sang was quite a bit different than the way Evelyn Ramsey sang it. She said it was originally called "Fair Pink". Her neighbor Cas Wallin sang the same tune, but his words were often different and had the verse about "I'd ruther make my home on some cold,icy lake", a verse found in "Midnight on the Stormy Deep" which, in turn, is related to "Earlye Earlye in the Spring". Mae Phillips sang her variant also to a tune in a faster, livelier tune in a major key, but which was longer than the one in a minor key, and is very close to the song Henry collected in neighboring Sevier Co. as well as two others that may be found in the Frank Brown Collection of NC Folklore. In 1988 I learned a version called "Come All Ye Girls of Adams Race" from Mrs. Rendie Smith (appx 88 years old) of Mollie, Columbus County, NC, near the coast. I believe there is a version that Leonard Roberts collected in Kentucky and included in his work "In the Pine". As to the question of "the Clyde" in this song, I have heard all that have been mentioned in the discussion as well as "I go to Christ...". On more than one occasion I've wondered if the "I go to Troublesome" verse couldn't possibly be "I go to trouble some, to mourn and weep" which certainly would be in context with the drift of the song.
--------------
Another traditional ballad singer, from Lenoir, North Carolina, is Bobby McMillon. He sings a very interesting version of "Black is the Color" on his recording "A Deeper Feeling" from Ivy Creek Recordings (ICR 401). Bobby learned a lot of his songs from his Maw Maw Phillips of Cosby, Tennessee. He was also influenced by all the folks over in Sodom, in Madison County, such as the Wallins and the Chandlers and Dellie Norton. Bobby is a close friend of Sheila Kay Adams. Here is his version:
DARK IS THE COLOR OF MY TRUE LOVE'S HAIR
Dark is the color of my true love's hair,
Her home is on some island fair.
The sweetest face and the neatest hands,
I love the ground whereon she stands.
It's I love my love and well she knows.
I love the ground whereon she goes.
If you no more on earth I see,
It's I wouldn't serve you like you have me.
The winter's past and the leaves are green.
The time has past that we have been,
But yet I hope the time will come,
When you and I shall be as one.
I go to cry, for to moan and weep,
But satisfied I never can sleep.
It you no more on earth I see,
It's I wouldn't serve you as you have me.
The pain of love no tongue can tell,
No heart can think no mind can sell.
But I'll tell you in a few short lines,
It's worse than death ten thousand times.
So fare you well, I'd rather make,
My home upon some icy lake,
Where the southern sun refused to shine,
Then trusting love as false as thine.
Bobby has some interesting variations with regard to lyrics, and his tune is a little different, too. He says "this song has two different tunes, one in a minor key and theother in a major key." Bobby is a ballad singer worth finding out about. Sheila says "he's the walking encyclopedia of all things Appalachian" and "he knows more than 800 of the old love songs (ballads)".
---------------------
The Dublin University Magazine, Aug. 1862
Humours of an Irish Wake
The Colour Of Amber (MacEdward Leach)
Oh, the colour of amber is my love's hair,
And her rosy cheeks do my heart ensnare;
Her ruby lips so meek and mild,
Ofttimes have pressed them to those of mine.