Young Man A-Growing- George Dunn (Birm) 1972 Palmer
[My title. Fragment from Musical Traditions' first CD release of 2002: George Dunn: Chainmaker (MTCD317-8). Their notes follow.
R. Matteson 2016]
[Liner excerpt] George Dunn (1887-1975) was born in the Black Country village of Quarry Bank, then in Staffordshire, some eight miles west of Birmingham, and spent most of his long life there. Click for larger map imageBoth his grandfather, Benjamin, and his father, Sampson (1858-1932) worked in the iron trade, as did George himself, who retired at the age of 72 after 59 years, mainly as a chainmaker.
[Song notes] The song, variously known (among other titles) as My Bonny Lad is Young, Still Growing and The Trees they do Grow High, has a feeling of great antiquity, although the earliest recorded version appears to be a re-working by Robert Burns published in 1792 in the Scots Musical Museum. However, the song has spread all over the English speaking world and has some 130 Roud entries, 27 of which are sound recordings. George's and Fred Jordan's (Topic TSCD 653) are the only entries from this part of England, except for Cecil Sharp's 1911 collection from John Bradley, of Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire. Other singers whose versions can be found on CD include Lizzie Higgins (Topic TSCD 667), Mary Ann Haynes (Topic TSCD 656) and Harry Cox (Rounder CD 1839).
George Dunn's recollection was unfortunately confined to one verse, together with a further couplet:
I enquired for my true love but they would not let him come
Because he was a young man a-growing.
TSF p.280.
Young Man A-Growing (The Trees they do Grow High)- fragment sung by George Dunn, recorded 4 Dec 1972, by Roy Palmer.
I enquired for my own true love[1], but they would not let him come,
Because he was a nice young man a-growing.
At the age of seventeen[2] he was a married man,
And at the age of eighteen the father of a son;
At the age of twenty, me boys,
Green grass it did grow over him,
Cold death did put an end to his growing.
Footnotes:
1. This forgotten stanza begins similarly:
She went to the college and looked over the wall,
She saw four-and-twenty gentlemen playing there at ball;
2. The age of seventeen corresponds to the real age Brodie married Innes and the age Urquhart died (twenty).