There is an Alehouse- old singer (Lanc) 1904 Kidson
[From: Songs from the Collection of Mr. Frank Kidson; by Frank Kidson and Lucy E. Broadwood; Journal of the Folk-Song Society Vol. 1, No. 5 (1904), pp. 228-257.
Their notes follow the text. The text is brackets I assume was supplied by Kidson to avoid implications that the maid was pregnant. The text supplied is not standard and in stanza 4 is usually:
I wish I were but a maid again,
But a maid again I never shall be,
Broadwood similarly changed a stanza from Joseph Taylor in her 1908 book "English traditional songs and carols," inserting another and adding one more. I assume it was the Puritanical mores of the day that the text about an unwed pregnancy was expurgated.
R. Matteson 2017]
21.-- There is an Alehouse in yonder Town.
[music]
1. There is an alehouse in yonder town
Where my love goes, and sits him down,
And takes a strange lass on his knee,
Ah, is not that a grief to me?
2. A grief to me, I'll tell you why,
Because she has more gold than I;
Her gold will waste, her beauty blast.
Poor girl, she'll come like me at last.
3. Oh, once I [had no cause for woe],
My love followed me through frost and snow,
But [ah! the changes time doth bring]
My love passes by and he says nothing.
4. I wish, I wish, but it's all in vain,
I wish I were but [free again,
But free again I'll never be]
Till apples grow on an orange tree.
5. There is a bird on yonder tree,
They say it's blind and cannot see;
I wish it had been the same with me
Before I joined his company.
The above is from an old Lancashire singer. Versions of the song were once popular in many parts of England. See my little volume ' Traditional Tunes,' 1891, p. 44, for four other melodies to the same words. The ditty most frequently starts at
the second verse ('There is an alehouse'), but when complete it stands:
My true love once he courted me (Or ' A brisk young sailor courted me']
And stole away my liberty;
He stole my heart with my free good-will,
I must confess I love him still.
An American copy, probably traditional, has lately been largely printed, beginning:
'There is a tavern in this town.'
See ' Scottish Students' Song Book,' and elsewhere.
Cf. the last verse of 'Sweet William' in 'English County Songs.'-L. E. B