The House Carpenter- Payne (NC) pre1966 Burton
[From Burton and Manning's Folksongs II, 1966. Their notes follow.
R. Matteson 2013]
ORA PAYNE- bio by Burton and Manning
Ora Isaacs Payne was born June 11, 1914, on Isaacs Branch at Cove Creek (Beech Mountain), where she grew up on the forty-six acre farm her parents had bought when they moved from Beaver Dams, North Carolina. On Sundays the whole family rode in the buggy to Cove Creek Baptist Church where her mother sang in the choir. Her father played a homemade banjo and "could really buck dance," and from him Mrs. Payne learned several of her songs included in this volume. She attributes her "knack for dancing" to her father, and she says that although her sisters and she were consistently named "Best String Band" (fiddle, guitar, and mandolin) at annual fiddlers conventions, she received more prize money for her dancing than for her fiddling. As a church woman her mother did not look with favor upon "all this hillbilly music"; consequently, the Songs Ora learned from her mother are mostly of a religious or moral nature.
After she married, Ora lived in New Jersey for two months and in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, for twelve years; but when her husband was killed in 1942, she moved back to Cove Creek, where she again lives up Isaacs Branch.
The guitar, which she used to accompany all her songs that follow, is now Ora's major instrument. She plays in her own style, sometimes with a pick, sometimes in the "folk music way," with the fingers only.
THE HOUSE CARPENTER (child 243)- Sung by Ora Payne, May 14, 1966; learned from her mother, who learned it from Mrs. Payne's grandmother. Tonality: mixolydian; range: octave+m3
"We met, we met, my old true love,
We met, we met once more;
I'm just returning from the salt, salt sea,
And it's all for the love of thee."
"I could have married a king's daughter fair;
I'm sure she'd married me,
But now I've forsaken a crown of gold,
And it's all for the love of thee. "
"If you could have married a kng's daughter fair,
I'm sure you ought to have married her,
For I have married a house carpenter
And I think he's a nice young man."
"If you will leave your house carpenter
And go away with me,
I'll take you where the grass groweth green
On the Eanks of Sweet Willow lea."
"If I will leave my house carpenter
And go away with you,
Have you anything to obtain me [1]
To keep me from slavery?"
"I have five ships upon the sea
All sailin' toward dry land,
And I have five hunderd or salt-sea men
Which shall be at your command."
She called her three little babes to her knee,
And kisses she gave them three,
Saying, "Stay at home my sweet little babes,
Keep your papa company. "
They hadn't been on sea but about two weeks,
I'm sure it was not three,
Till she fell a-weepin' in her true lover's arms,
And she wept most bitterly.
"Are you a-weepin' for my gold,
Or weeping for my store?
Or weepin' for your house carpenter
You [2] never shall gee anymore?"
"I'm not a-weepin' for your gold,
Or weeping for your store;
I'm weepin' for my three little babes
Which I [3] never shall see anymore."
They hadn't been on sea but about three weeks,
I'm sure it was not four,
Till a leak sprang in the the lover's ship;
They sank to rise no more.
"A curse, a curse to all seamen,
A curse forevermore,
You have robbed me from my three little babes
Which I never shall see anymore."
1. maintain
2. originally, You'll
3. original has "I'll"