Bluegrass Messengers

Ripest Apples- Joe Cooper (Kent) 1966 Yates

[From: English Dance and Song - Volumes 36-37 - Page 15, 1974 by Yates. Also Stephen Sedley Sound Collection (Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, London) 17 CDA Tape Collection.

R. Matteson 2017]

Ripest Apples- sung by Joe Cooper of Biggin Hill, Kent collected by  Stephen Sedley in 1966 and  Mike Yates in 1970.

1. Pretty maiden, pretty maiden I have come to court you,
If your favour I could win.
Pretty maiden, pretty maiden I have come to court you,
Whether you answer " Yes" or " No."

2. Pretty maiden, pretty maiden I have gold and silver
I have houses and land in store.
"It's what care I for your gold and silver
All I want is a nice young man."

3. Well apples are ripe but they soon grow rotten
 A maiden's beauty will soon decay.
You pluck a flower on a sunny morning
And by the night it has faded away.

4. Oh once I lay on that young man's pillow
And I thought it all my own,
But now I lie under the weeping willow
That false young man has made me mourn.