The Cambric Shirt- Mrs. G. A. Griffin (GA-FL) c1870 REC 1939; Morris; Lomax
[Titled "Save Rosemary and Thyme" in Morris, 1950, pp. 235-36 with music- see below. Griffin was born in Dooly County, Georgia in 1863. In 1877 she moved to Newberry, Florida. She learned songs from her father, a fiddler, before 1877. Some of the lyrics, below with music, are different from my transcription.]
The Cambric Shirt- Mrs. G. A. Griffin; Newberry, Fla. June, 1939; Collected by Alan Lomax. "Learned it when a little girl and sang it more times than the hairs o' my head."
Listen: http://memory.loc.gov/afc/afcss39/270/2705b2.mp3
Go tell her to make me a cambric shirt
Sage, rosemary and thyme
Without a needle or seamster's work,
And she shall be a true lover o' mine.
Go tell her to wash it all in a dry well
Sage, Rosemary and thyme.
Where water never sprung, no rain never fell
And she shall be a true lover o' mine.
Go tell her to hang it all on a thorn bush,
Sage, Rosemary and thyme.
Where bush never growed since Old Adam was born,
And she shall be a true lover o' mine.
Go tell her to iron it against a horse back,
Sage, Rosemary and thyme.
Without lookin' down and lettin' it get black
And she shall be a true lover o' mine.
*Go tell him to get him one acre of ground
Save Rosemary and thyme,
Twixt sea-water and the sea-sound
And he shall be a true lover o' mine
Go tell him to plant it in little grain corn,
Sage, Rosemary and thyme.
Go tell him to plought it with a horse's horn
And he shall be a true lover o' mine
Go tell him to reap it with a shickle o' leather,
Sage, Rosemary and thyme.
Go tell him to haul it home on a peafowl's feather,
And he shall be a true lover o' mine.
Go tell him to thrash it against the house wall,
Sage, Rosemary and thyme.
Without lookin' down or lettin' a grain fall,
And he shall be a true lover o' mine.
When he gits all this work done,
Sage, Rosemary and thyme.
Tell him to come to me for his cambric shirt
And he shall be a true lover o' mine.
*changes to "him" and "he" instead of "her" and "she" for the rest of the song. Learned from her father, a fiddler, who was from Georgia. The first part is of course the lover's tasks for the woman; the second for the man.
----------------
X:42 [from abcnotation.com]
T:Save Rosemary and Thyme
T:The Elfin Knight
B:Bronson
C:Trad
O:Morris, 1950, pp. 235-36. Sung by Mrs. G. A. Griffin, Newberry,
O:Fla.; learned from her father.
N:Child 2
M:6/8
L:1/8
K:C % Hexatonic (-6)
C | EEC GGG | FED C3 |
w:Go tell her to make me a cam-*bric shirt
E2 C EEF | G3-G2 G | Gcc DDD |
w:Save rose-ma-ry and thyme,* With-out an-y need-le or
B2 B D2 C | E2 C GGG | ECD C2 |]
w:seam-ster's work, And she shall be a true lov-er of mine.
W:
W:Go tell her to make me a cambric shirt,
W:Save rosemary and thyme,
W:Without any needle or seamster's work,
W:And she shall be a true lover of mine.
W:
W:Go tell her to wash it all in a dry well,
W:Save rosemary and thyme,
W:Where water never sprung, or rain never fell,
W:And she shall be a true lover of mine.
W:
W:Go tell her to hang it out on a thorn bush,
W:Save rosemary and thyme,
W:A bush that never growed since Old Adam was born,
W:And she shall be a true lover of mine.
W:
W:Go tell her to iron it against the house back,
W:Save rosemary and thyme,
W:Without looking down or letting it get black,
W:And she shall be a true lover of mine.
W:
W:Go tell him to get him an acre of ground,
W:Save rosemary and thyme,
W:Betwixt the sea water and the sea sand,
W:And he shall be a true lover of mine.
W:
W:Go tell him to plant it in little grain corn,
W:Save rosemary and thyme,
W:Tell him to plough it in with a horse's horn,
W:And he shall be a true lover of mine.
W:
W:Go tell him to reap it with a shickle of leather,
W:Save rosemary and thyme,
W:Tell him to haul it home on a peafowl's feather,
W:And he shall be a true lover of mine.
W:
W:Go tell him to thresh it against the house wall,
W:Save rosemary and thyme,
W:Without looking down or letting a grain fall,
W:And he shall be a true lover of mine.
W:
W:Go tell him when he gets all this work done,
W:Save rosemary and thyme,
W:Tell him to come to me for his cambric shirt,
W:And he shall be a true lover of mine.
-----------------------------------
Section 18: Newberry, Florida; June 1
2695 2704; 2698 2705; 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".
Mrs. Griffin's version of the lullaby, "Go to sleepy, little baby",
concludes: "When you wake up, you shall have
Some cake an' all them pretty little horses."
She tells about her reluctance to sing a certain song for Mr. Lomax and Professor Morris: "I looked over an' saw Mr. Morris a-look-in' down, an' I knowed he was thinkin' evil. An' I tried to keep from laughin' till my jaws hurt."
Her father had fifteen guns, called by name: Bull-tyre(?); Scooter-plough (made from scooter plough); Spike barrell; Holt--; Meat-in-the-pot; Betsy, etc.
About her and her brother's trip back to Georgia when she was 15 years old, she says: "When I was 15 years old, brother an' me walked back to Georgy in seven days an' nights. Sometimes at night we stayed in people's houses; we always told 'em the truth, never lied; I told my brother to always tell the truth an' we'd be all right: jes' brother an' sister makin' our way back to Georgy. One night we come to a church, with the door open; it was empty, a space so-high where the roof come down to the walls was open, not boarded-up; don't know why; may be they didn't have 'nough plans or may be cooler that way. We pulled some benches together and I put my bundle under my arms and laid down. Now my brother found a path leadin' down to the well,-he was older and been about more and saw sech things. We went down to git some water and we had to pass a graveyard There was a cow that just had a calf and she was groanin' and carryin' on, an' I got scairt. An' when I was layin' on them benches I kept nearin' them noises in the graveyard an' 'bout that time I heared the awfullest Flop-flop-flop, an' I knowed it was sperits. I called my brother an' he said it wasn't no sich, go, on to sleep, -but the floppin' kep' up till I couldn't stand it no longer. Then my brother got up a-cussin' me an' said hit warn't nothin' but buzzards. They was some straw an' dry leaves outside an' he set 'em of fire an hit blazed up an' he said they was seven buzzards an' a owl come out from that big crack, but I didn't see 'em, an' I still believe they was sperits."
When Mr. Lomax mentioned to her the ballad, The King wrote a love-letter, which she had recorded previously, she said she learned it from her father, and proceeded to relate this incident: "Once my father stood on top o' the shed and sung The king wrote a love-letter, and he sung it so loud that the neighbors three mile away said they heared him. They was a creek and I guess his voice went down the creek."
She was sixteen years old the last time she heard him sing.