Sweet Mary and Sweet Joseph- Griffin (Fla.) 1930s
[From: Folksongs of Florida; Morris, 1950. This version was covered by Peggy Seeger on the The Long Harvest. Although Griffin claims she wrote this she clearly did not but knew it in her childhood. Mrs. (Georgia Civility) Griffin was born in Dooly County, Georgia in 1863. In 1877 she moved to Newberry, Florida. She learned most of her songs and ballads from her father, a fiddler, before 1877. Since she sang this for her father, it was learned before 1877.
This version has two of Christ's prophecies at the end, masking it a version of the first and second parts.
See notes from Lomax's 1939 Recording Trip below. This version was covered by Peggy Seeger (unaccompanied vocal) on The Long Harvest, vol. 8. Listen: Sweet Mary and Sweet Joseph
Cf. Hill's version (Moores) also from Georgia learned before 1890.
R. Matteson 2014]
Sweet Mary and Sweet Joseph- Mrs. G. A. Griffin (Fla.) 1930s Morris, Alton C. / Folksongs of Florida, Univ. Florida, Bk (1950), p262/#155 [1934-39] Recorded from the singing of Mrs. G. A. Griffin, Newberry. Concerning the history of the song, she had this to say, "of all the songs, that one about Sweet Mary and Sweet Joseph is the only one I made up all by myself. One rainy afternoon I went upstairs to my room and laid down on my bed and made it up. I sung it for Pa and he liked it a whole heap." I questioned her as to the possibility of her having heard the song somewhere and recalling it on that particular afternoon, but she was positive that it was of her own composition. In the summer of 1940 Mrs. Griffin appeared before a class in American balladry and folksongs at the University of Florida, and when asked whether she had any songs of her own making, she replied spontaneously by singing again this version of the "Cherry Tree Carol."
Sweet Mary and Sweet Joseph, walked out on the green,
Where apples and cherries, a plenty to be seen,
Where apples and cherries, a plenty to be seen.
Sweet Mary spoke to Joseph, so meek and so kind,
"Come gather me some cherries, for I am with child,
Come gather me some cherries, for I am with child."
Sweet Joseph spoke to Sweet Mary so crabby and so crime,
"Let the father of the baby gather the cherries for thine;
Let the father of the baby gather the cherries for thine."
Sweet Jesus broke the limbs down so low into Mary's hands,
Sweet Mary gathered cherries oft the endmost bows;
Sweet Mary gathered cherries oft the endmost bows.
Sweet Joseph taken Sweet Mary all on his right knee.
"Pray tell me sweet Mary when his birthday will be;
Pray tell me sweet Mary when his birthday will be."
Sweet Joseph taken Sweet Mary all on his left knee.
"Pray tell me Sweet Mary when his death day will be;
Pray tell me Sweet Mary when his death day will be."
"All on that same Friday when all things are clear,
The earth it shall be darkened and the sun disappear;
The earth it shall be darkened and the sun disappear.
. . . . . [1]
Then the righteous of the body shall rise from the tomb;
Then the righteous of the body shall rise from the tomb."
1. The line seems not to be missing. The last stanza is a tag or ending for the previous stanza.
________________
Newberry, Florida; Mrs. G.A. Griffin; June 1, 1939
We drove up to Mrs. Griffin's door about eleven o'clock in the morning. She was just building a fire in her wood cook-stove to cook dinner. Mrs. Griffin is almost blind; she keeps one of her grandchildren to help her, and she has a boarder, -a workman who takes his lunch with him. After we had talked with her a little while and she had sung three or four songs, she invited us to dinner; there was no excusing ourselves, and we stayed. The food was coarse and poorly prepared, but Mrs. Griffin's courteous hospitality made up for any deficiencies in the quality of the food. She had chickens, all of whom she called by name, - at least the older ones, and we had her record her call to the chickens. Ever since Professor Morris invited Mrs. Griffin to sing her ballads to his classes in the University of Florida, Mrs. Griffin has had an ambition to hear her name mentioned on radio. She was beginning to look to her shekels, too. It seems that some of her friends or her family had suggested that the men who were getting her songs were making money from them, of which she should have a large share. She at length seemed convinced of Mr. Lomax's sincerity of purpose, and she recorded several songs that she had thought up since Mr. Lomax was there with Professor Morris. I set down here some interesting remarks that are not included in the excerpts from a letter, a copy of which is attached.
*She kept her jewels in a girly-perchy box."--" That song? why, I ain't thought o' that song since I used to go to the cowpen and sing." Requesting to hear her recorded song played back: "Set that off and see what hit caught." "My father was always singing songs; taught singing schools."
*"When I was a girl, somebody brought me a box, smelled like rubber, called hit a 'girly-perchy box."
Letter from RTL to her family
Newberry, Fla.
re: Mrs. G. A. Griffin
June 2, 1939
Night before last we spent at Live Oak, Fla., "way down upon the Swanee River", the real Swanee. I don't have a Florida map handy, but if you follow Highway No. 41 on down you will find Newberry where we spent yesterday with Mrs. G. A. Griffin, a white singer. The Library already has seventy of her songs which John Avery and a University of Florida man* got two years ago. Mrs. Griffin is much feebler and has lost severl more teeth ("I caint sing no more, fer my lips git sucked in the holes between my teeth", giving thereupon an exhibit as proof); nevertheless Mrs. Griffin added six or seven songs to her list of recordings. She must have had a repertoire of two hundred in her prime, for there is mentioned hardly an old secular song of which she did not know at least one couplet or stanza. She calls herself a Georgy Cracker. "How did you happen to leave Georgia, Mrs. Griffin?" "Well, my Ma had a sister down here she wanted to see, so her an' five o' us kids jes' come. We lef' Pa at home an' he come later." "How did you come?" "Walked hit. A hundred 'n' seventy eight miles, ever step of hit. Tuck us three weeks. But when we wuz bigger me an' my brother walked hit agin in seven days an' nights". She had twelve children all brought to maturity and eleven of them living now. "my children all had the same father. I haint never been that way except fer one man, an' as the Lord's my witness I haint never knowed but two men in all my life, an' them two wuz my husbands. An' I've been thowed with men in every way. I've worked in the fields with 'em, rid horse races with 'em-why I run a horse race right over thar, ridin' barback, made some money too, not bettin', but jest the prize money; an' I've built a house with my own hands, an' when I married Mr. Griffin I wuz runnin' a sawmill o' my own, an' had twelve men a workin' for me." Explaining that she was not on good terms with one of her daughters who probably could remember some of the song words that she had forgot, Mrs. Griffin said: "Will Brown, he's my daughter's husband, told me he'd kick me off the place if I ever come near his house. An' d'ye know why? Well, I told 'em plain out that Nellie, that's their daughter an' my own grandchild, too, I haint a-denyin' that, but I told 'em she wuz goin' to burn in hell fire fer breaking up another man's home. She went in an' got a man to fall in love with her, then she tuck an' divorced her own husband an' made this other man divorce his wife an' then they wuz married. Twarnt nothin' but plain adultery an' nothin' caint save her from hell, an' I told 'em so an' they don't like hit." "Anyhow my daughter caint sing any better than I can, fer she's snaggled toothed too, Mrs. Griffin used to work large farm, but once had $22000 in bank. Lost most of it in bank failure. Mrs. Griffin calls a spade a spade. She can't write, "never went to school a day in my life". This came out when she complained that she had difficulty in shopping: "I have to send my grandson here, an' he caint remember but one thing at a time; so I have to send him fer meat, an' then when he gits home with the meat, I have to send him back for beans." "Why dont you write out a list for the grocer?" Then came the explanation. But Mrs. Griffin is wise in many ways beyond "book-larnin'". Wish we could hear her husbands' side of this story.
*Prof. Alton Morris
Newberry, Florida; Mrs. G.A.Griffin - Further notes on Mrs. Griffin--June 1, 1939
"My father was a fiddler. I learnt most o' my songs from him. We still got his fiddle. The children all bid for it, and I bid it in for $92.00".