Sailor Boy- Edward Hovington (QC) 1847 Barbeau
[From JAFL in 1917 in the article, "Folk Songs" by C.M. Barbeau. His notes and Hovington's text follow.
R. Matteson 2017]
1. Sailor Boy: Recorded in September, 1917, at Tadousac, Quebec, from Edward Hovington, aged 90, formerly a lumber-jack and canoeman in the employ of the Hudson Bay Company. While Hovington's father was a Scotch-Canadian, his mother—named Auclair—was a French-Canadian from Beauce County, P.Q. Among his large repertory of French ballads and songs, Hovington happened to remember a few English or American ones, which we are presenting here. Hovington learned “The Sailor Boy" over seventy years ago, while spending the winter at Sept-Iles, Quebec, from an old-country Irishman named Patrick McGouch, a laborer, who knew a large number of songs. (Phonograph record No. 447, Victoria Museum, Ottawa.) (Compare p. 162.)
Sailor Boy
It was early, early in the spring,
Me love and I went to serve the King.
The night [had] been stormy, and the wind blew[] high,
Which parted me and my sailor boy.
O father, father! get me a boat;
For it's on the ocean I will float,
And watch the French fleet [while it sails by];
[There I must] inquire for my sailor boy."
I had not sailed far on to the deep
Till a French frigate I chanced to meet.
"Come, tell me, tell me, my jovial crew!
Is my love Jummy on board with you?" —
"Oh, no, dear lady! he is not here;
For he was drownded not far from here.
'Twas [near] that green island, as we pass by.
'Tis there we lost your fine sailor boy."
She wrung her hands and [tore] her hair
Like a virgin that falls into despair.
Her little boat began to rake around.
"What shall I do when my Jimmy is gone?
"Come, all [the] young ladies dressed in black,
And all the young sailors dressed in blue!
And the sail tip toppers all dressed in blue!
For 'tis now w' will mourn for my sailor boy!"