Young Men and Maids- Paul Joines (NC) 1968 REC
[From: Asch Records, Album No. AH3831, 1968; Ballads and Songs of the Blue Ridge Mountains: Persistence and Change.
This is a version of the "composed ballad" from the US, dating back to the early 1800s. A version was published in 1849. Their notes follow.
R. Matteson 2016]
Paul Joines, now about 56 years old, has spent much of his life in and around Sparta, N. C. He was born a few miles from Sparta, near Whitehead Community, and spent his first years on an old fashioned farm deep in the beautiful Blue Ridge country surrounding Sparta. There he was instilled with the old ballads of the Blue Ridge area, which he learned primarily from members of his family. He recalls for instance, that as a child he would often beg his Ma to sing "Green Willow Tree" when he was ill or could not sleep. Paul is a restless man and at an early age he embarked on a career of rambling which was to lead him to every part of the country. Always he has returned to the mountains, however, and he now lives in Sparta with his mother, only a few miles from the farm where he was born. An extremely fine old time style ballad singer, Paul is also a great source of local tales, stories, and country humor . He is interested in the preservation of the musical traditions of his area, and went to considerable trouble to make these recordings a success.
Band 4. "Young Men and Maids": sung by Paul Joines Sharp II 65 ''The Silver Dagger". The text is widely known in North Carolina and Virginia. The theme of lovers who are separated by parents, and as a result kill themselves, is common to many songs in this area as noted above.
The scale is hexatonic (6) dorian/aeolian; range: authentic; structure: abab; meter: 2/ 4. Due to greater degree of fit between text and tune, and to the repetition of the b part of the tune coincident with the rhyme structure, this ballad has a greater feeling of regularity and order about it than the two preceding ones.
Young men and maids, pray lend attention
To these few lines that I shall write
A comely youth that I shall mention
Who courted a lady fair and bright.
As soon as the parents came to know it,
They strove to part them night and day
To part him from his own dear jewel
For she was poor they had heard them say.
This damsel being both fair and pretty
She saw the grief that he went through
She wandered forth and left the city
Some pleasant shady grove to view.
Then she pulled out a silver dagger
And pierced it through her own true heart
Saying let this be a faithful warning
Never to young true love part.
Her true love lost out in the thicket
He thought he heard his true love 's voice
He ran to her like one distracted
Saying oh my love I am quite lost.
Her eyes like stars were brightly beaming
Said oh my love you've come too late
Prepare to meet me on Mount Zion
Where all our love can be more great.
Then he picked up the bloodstained weapon
And pierced it through his own true breast
And thus did say as he did stagger
Farewell my love I'm gone to rest.