Wake Up Ye Drowsy Sleeper
[From recording AFC 1937/001 by Alan Lomax, my transcription- two places lyrics are unclear.
Listen: http://digital.berea.edu/cdm/ref/collection/p16020coll13/id/509/
This is a type 2 ballad (no suicide). The first two lines of stanza 7 with the chair and paper is difficult to hear.
R. Matteson 2016]
Wake Up Ye Drowsy Sleeper- Sung by Clay Walters of Saylersville, Kentucky on October, 27, 1937. Recorded by Alan Lomax.
1. Wake up wake up ye drowsy sleeper
Wake up wake up, it's almost day,
How can you lay there in sleep and slumber,
When your true love is goin' away?
2. "Who's this, who's this, that is at my window?
Who's this calls out, just before day[1]"
"Oh, just rise up, it's your own true lover,
Rise up forthwith and go with me."
3. "Go ask your father if he is willing
Tonight [if you] my bride you ever can be,
If he says, 'No,' come back and tell me,
It's the very last time I'll trouble thee."
3. "Oh no my dear, I dare not ask him,
He lies back yonder taking his rest.
And in his hand he holds a dagger,
To pierce it through your tender breast.
4. "Go ask your mother if she is willing
Tonight my bride you ever can be,
If she says, 'No,' come back and tell me
It's the very last time I'll trouble thee."
5. Oh no my dear, I dare not ask her,
For tales of love she scorns to hear.
Go 'way back yonder and court some other,
Or whisper lowly in my[2] ear.
6. I'll not go 'way, nor court no other,
For what I say I mean no harm;
I've come to win[3] you from your mother,
And rest you in a true love's arms.
7. Oh, bring to me a chair and paper
And a pen to sit and write a while[?]
I'm going to leave my own true lover
I'm going to leave her [a] thousand miles
8. “Come back, come back, you distracted lover,
Come back, come back to me,
And I’ll forsake both father and, mother,
I'll leave them all and go with thee.”
1. ? hard to understand
2. sings "my' should be "her"
3. sings "win" could be "wean" See Ramsay, 1725