Tag Archive | The American Songbag

The American Songbag, Part III: The Lover’s Lament

Today I conclude my series on The American Songbag. You can also read Part I and Part II. This post is a continuation of Part II.

Last week, I talked about finding in “The True Lover’s Farewell” elements from different songs I hadn’t thought were related. I then discovered a third song in The American Songbag, “The Lover’s Lament.” “Blendings from five or six old ballads are in this song of parting lovers,” Carl Sandburg says. This song has an A and a B text, but there is no indication as to whether they have different sources. Anyway, the verses of “The Lover’s Lament” seem to connect everything even more. Get ready for a lot of texts!

Before acquiring The American Songbag, I heard Tim Eriksen’s “Every Day Is Three” (from the album Josh Billings Voyage) and noticed its textual similarities to “The Blackest Crow.” Here is a comparison of the relevant verses of each:

“The Blackest Crow”

As time draws near, my dearest dear
When you and I must part
How little you know of the grief and woe
In my poor aching heart
‘Tis but I suffer for your sake
Believe me dear it’s true
I wish that you were staying here
Or I was going with you

I wish my breast was made of glass
Wherein you might behold
Upon my chest your name lies wrote
In letters made of gold
In letters made of gold, my love
Believe me when I say
You are the one I will adore
Until my dying day

The blackest crow that ever flew
Would surely turn to white
If ever I prove false to you
Bright day would turn to night
Bright day would turn to night, my love
The element’s would mourn
If ever I prove false to you
The sea would rage and burn

“Every Day Is Three”

Oh, my dearest dear, the time has come when we must part
No one knows the inner grief of my poor aching heart
Or what I set sail or sank for the one I love so dear
I wish that I could go with you or you could tarry here

I wish my breast was made of glass and in it you might behold
Your name in secret I would write in letters of bright gold
In letters of bright gold true love, pray believe me what I say
You are the one that I love best until the dying day

The crow that’s black, my dearest dear, will turn its colors white
If ever I prove false to be the brightest days to night
The brightest days to night, true love, all the elements shall mourn
If ever I prove false to be the raging seas shall burn

Now, we can dive into “The Lover’s Lament,” whose stanzas strongly resemble selected stanzas from “The Blackest Crow,” “Winter’s Night,” and “Every Day Is Three” (as well as the other American Songbag songs I’ve mentioned—but the text of “The Lover’s Lament” is actual closer to those of Molly & Maggie’s, Crowfoot’s, and Tim Eriksen’s songs than to the others in Sandburg’s book, which almost suggests these three more recent songs were derived from this text or a connected source). Interestingly, “The Lover’s Lament” has a refrain that doesn’t look much like anything else I’ve seen.

Verse 1 of Text A of “The Lover’s Lament” is very close to the first half of verse 1 of “The Blackest Crow”:

“The Lover’s Lament”

My dearest dear, the time draws near
When you and I must part;
But little do you know the grief or woe
Of my poor troubled heart.

“The Blackest Crow”

As time draws near, my dearest dear
When you and I must part
How little you know of the grief and woe
In my poor aching heart

Then, verses 2 through 6 of “The Lover’s Lament” are similar to just about all of the verses of “Winter’s Night” (excluding refrains! Because, in fact, “The Lover’s Lament” is the first song with the shoes/gloves/kisses motif that never mentions “ten thousand miles”!):

“The Lover’s Lament”

As I walked out one clear summer night,
A-drinking of sweet wine,
It was then I saw that pretty little girl
That stole this heart of mine.

Her cheeks was like some pink or rose
That blooms in the month of June,
Her lips was like some musical instrument,
That sung this doleful tune.

[Omitting verses about shoes, etc.]

You are like unto some turtle dove,
That flies from tree to tree,
A-mourning for its own true love
Just as I mourn for thee.

“Winter’s Night”

As I walk down on a winter’s night
Drinking of sweet wine
Walking with the girl I love
The one who stole this heart of mine

My love is like a red, red rose
Newly sprung in June
She is like a violin
Sweetly played in tune

[Omitting verses about shoes, etc.]

Don’t you see that lonesome dove
Flying from vine to vine
She mourns the loss of her own true love
Why not me for mine?

Just as a side note, I think Crowfoot’s version is an improvement upon the words in “The Lover’s Lament.” I mean, “Her lips was like some musical instrument”?!

Verse 7 of “The Lover’s Lament” shares part of its text with “The Blackest Crow” and “Every Day Is Three,” though its first half does not overlap with these other two songs, which instead share the imagery of bright day and night:

“The Lover’s Lament”

You are like unto some sailing ship
That sails the raging main,
If I prove false to you, my love,
The raging seas will burn.

“The Blackest Crow”

Bright day would turn to night, my love
The element’s would mourn
If ever I prove false to you
The sea would rage and burn

“Every Day Is Three”

The brightest days to night, true love,
all the elements shall mourn
If ever I prove false to be
the raging seas shall burn

Verses 1 and 2 of Text B of “The Lover’s Lament” are very similar to the second verse of both “The Blackest Crow” and “Every Day Is Three,” but the greater similarity is with Tim Eriksen’s song:

“The Lover’s Lament”

I wish your breast was made of glass,
All in it I might behold;
Your name in secret I would write
In letters of bright gold.
Your name in secret I would write,
Pray believe in what I say;
You are the man that I love best
Unto my dying day.

“Every Day Is Three”

I wish my breast was made of glass
and in it you might behold
Your name in secret I would write
in letters of bright gold
In letters of bright gold, true love,
pray believe me what I say
You are the one that I love best
until the dying day

If you’re wondering why “Every Day Is Three” has that title, it’s because Tim Eriksen’s version of the song has two more verses that don’t overlap with anything in “The Blackest Crow” or “The Lover’s Lament.” Also, it’s worth noticing that Text B of “The Lover’s Lament” is addressed to a man, while most of Text A is addressed to a woman, like in “Winter’s Night”. Lastly, despite the fact that “The Lover’s Lament” contains material that matches the first and second verses of “The Blackest Crow” and “Every Day Is Three,” it does not mention the black crow!

What do I conclude from all of this? I’m no ethnomusicologist, but it seems to me that there is a set of WHO WILL SHOE YOUR FEET songs and a set of BLACK CROW songs, and then there are songs that belong to both sets, pointing perhaps to some common origin or else the mixing of texts with common themes. Carl Sandburg did call “The Lover’s Lament” a blended text, but is that also the case with “The True Lover’s Farewell”? Before poring over The American Songbag, I never thought there was any connection between two of my favorite songs: Crowfoot’s “Winter’s Night” and Molly & Maggie and The Ephemeral Stringband’s “The Blackest Crow.” Now I know! And because I couldn’t help myself, I created this chart comparing the imagery in all the songs discussed in this post and the last one!

P.S. At a recent shape note singing in Los Angeles, we sang “Forster” from Wyeth’s Repository of Sacred Music (1813), and I noticed one of the verses begins: “We’re often like the lonesome dove / Who mourns her absent mate / From hill to hill, from vale to vale / Her sorrows to relate.” Could there be a connection? Of course, this is sacred music, so the next line is: “But Canaan’s land is just before…”

The American Songbag, Part II: Of Doves and Crows

Nov27

Last week, I shared some highlights from Carl Sandburg’s folk song collection, The American Songbag. This week, I dig a little deeper.

In perusing The American Songbag, I was excited to discover evidence of a connection between some songs (or song families?) that I already knew and liked but which I had assumed were unrelated. The first song in the book is “He’s Gone Away.” Though the tune was unfamiliar to me, I immediately recognized the words as being like those of Crowfoot’s “Winter’s Night.” Here are selected verses from each:

“Winter’s Night”

Fare you well, my own true love
Fare you well, for a while
I’m going away, but I’m coming back
If I walk ten thousand miles

And who will shoe your feet, my love?
And who will glove your hands?
And who will kiss your ruby lips
When I am gone to a foreign land?

Father will shoe my feet, my love
And Mother will glove my hands
And you may kiss my ruby lips
When you come back from a foreign land

Don’t you see that lonesome dove
Flying from vine to vine
She mourns the loss of her own true love
Why not me for mine?

“He’s Gone Away”

I’m goin’ away for to stay a little while,
But I’m comin’ back if I go ten thousand miles.
Oh, who will tie your shoes?
And who will glove your hands?
And who will kiss your ruby lips when I am gone?

Oh, it’s pappy’ll tie my shoes,
And mammy’ll glove my hands,
And you will kiss my ruby lips when you come back!

Look away, look away, look away over Yandro,
On Yandro’s high hill, where them white doves are flyin’
From bough to bough and a-matin’ with their mates,
So why not me with mine?

The notes for “He’s Gone Away” say it’s “of British origin” and that “[o]ther mountain places in the southern states have their song about going away ten thousand miles.” Particularly noted is the “exceptional theme of the white doves flying from bough to bough and mating,” so I thought it was interesting that Crowfoot’s version also includes the dove, though in a different way.

Then, much farther along in the book, I came upon “Who Will Shoe Your Pretty Little Foot?”, which Carl Sandburg heard from one Prof. Frank C. Senour. There is only one verse, and it’s almost identical to Crowfoot’s:

O, who will shoe your pretty little foot,
And who will glove your hand,
And who will kiss your ruby lips
When I’ve gone to the foreign land?

With this song, however, Sandburg includes two other texts. The first, “Fair Annie of Lochyran,” is from Alexander Whitelaw’s “Book of Scottish Ballads” and is a bit further removed from the texts I’m most interested in. The second, however, given to Sandburg by R. W. Gordon (I don’t know who any of these people are), made me very excited. The text is entitled “The True Lover’s Farewell,” and the first three stanzas are more or less those I’ve already shown (ten thousand miles; a series of questions about shoes, gloves, and kisses; answers about father, mother, and the lover), but the fourth and fifth are these:

You know a crow is a coal, coal black,
And turns to purple blue;
And if ever I prove false to you,
I hope my body may melt like dew.

I’ll love you till the seas run dry,
And rocks dissolve the sun;
I’ll love you till the day I die,
And then you’ll know I’m done.

These verses strongly recalled another song I love, “The Blackest Crow,” from the album Converting Grace by Molly & Maggie and The Ephemeral Stringband. Specifically, the third verse:

The blackest crow that ever flew
Would surely turn to white
If ever I prove false to you
Bright day would turn to night
Bright day would turn to night, my love
The element’s would mourn
If ever I prove false to you
The sea would rage and burn

The most obvious similarities are the presence of the crow and the line “If ever I prove false to you,” but there’s also the sea. Also, the end of the second verse of “The Blackest Crow” is “You are the one I will adore / Until my dying day,” which is similar to the third line of the fifth verse of “The True Lover’s Farewell” above (“I’ll love you till the day I die”). The crow turns a different color in each version, and “The Blackest Crow” seems to make more sense in that a black crow turning white is anomalous (just as the lover proving false would be). In “The True Lover’s Farewell,” a black crow looking purple blue just sounds like a trick of the light. It’s presented as a fact, not an event connected to the lover’s potential falseness, and it kind of comes off as just setting up the rhyme with “dew.”

Now, the reason I got so excited about this text in The American Songbag is because it contained in one song textual elements of two songs (Crowfoot’s “Winter’s Night” and Molly & Maggie’s “The Blackest Crow”) that I had previously never connected. This may not be terribly surprising, given that these songs share a common theme, but still. Additionally, Sandburg’s notes on “Who Will Shoe Your Pretty Little Foot?” conclude with: “A little book could be written around this song and all its ramifications in the past.” Indeed!

The American Songbag, Part I: First Impressions

Nov20

This summer, my mother went to an estate sale and came home with several songbooks. One of them was The American Songbag by Carl Sandburg. I was surprised to learn that this was the same Carl Sandburg as the poet! Further poking around revealed that The American Songbag had its own entry in Benét’s Reader’s Encyclopedia. It was clearly a big deal!

This songbook is a treasure. Here’s a collection of things I’ve found amusing, interesting, or delightful about The American Songbag so far:

Opposite the title page is a list of other works by Carl Sandburg, including, under “For Young People,” something called Rootabaga Pigeons. Rootabaga Pigeons?!
The copyright page includes the following notice: “[This book] is manufactured under wartime conditions in conformity with all governmental regulation controlling the use of paper and other materials.” The American Songbag was published in 1927, but perhaps the edition I have was printed during World War II…?
The prefatory notes include this tidbit: “Leo Sowerby was twenty-one years old when a Chicago orchestra produced a concerto for ‘cello by him entitled ‘The Irish Washerwoman.’” Wow, can I play this?
Then there is Carl Sandburg’s Apologia, which I found so astonishing I think it deserves to be quoted at length: “I apologize for the imperfections in this work. I believe no one else is now, or ever will be, so deeply aware and so thoroughly and widely conscious of the imperfections in these pages.…Many considerations which have governed the selection of material…are not worth setting forth in a foreword…; they would have value chiefly and only to those who already understand somewhat the labyrinths, the twisted pathways, and roads of life, out of which this book issues. The book was begun in depths of humility…. It is a book for sinners, and for lovers of humanity. I apologize to them for the sins of the book and that it loves much but not enough.”
The songbook is sorted into various sections, some of which have amusing titles like “Tarnished Love Tales or Colonial and Revolutionary Antiques,” “Kentucky Blazing Star” (Kentucky gets a whole section unto itself!), “Hobo Songs” (including “Hallelujah, I’m a bum!”), and perhaps best of all, “Picnic and Hayrack Follies, Close Harmony, and Darn Fool Ditties.”

Going through the songbook page by page, I realized most of the songs were unfamiliar to me. A few I did recognize or which otherwise stood out to me:

“Sourwood Mountain” (p. 125): The notes say this song has many different versions. I learned one in elementary school, to a tune that is clearly related to the one in the book. The first verse is the same one I remember, but the only other verse I recall (“My true love she lives in Letcher / She won’t come and I won’t fetch her”) is not in The American Songbag.
The Missouri Harmony (p. 152): I was quite surprised to discover in the middle of this songbook pages reproduced from The Missouri Harmony, a shape note tune book I have only once had the opportunity to sing out of. Apparently it is said Abraham Lincoln sang from The Missouri Harmony.
“The Brown Girl or Fair Eleanor” (p. 156): I had to mention this song because it has my name in it! In the text, the Brown Girl and Fair Eleanor are rivals for the affections of one Lord Thomas. All three characters are dead by the end of the song, but incredibly, the tune is lilting and cheerful. Also, Abraham Lincoln may have been sung this song as a child.
“Weevily Wheat” (p. 161): This is the first time I’ve come across this song since I learned it in elementary school. The tune is roughly the same, though I remember singing it in a different meter. The only verses I remember are the first and the one about going over the river to the sheep. The notes say that “the Charley of this song may be the Prince Charlie of Jacobite Ballads.” I always remember knowing it was about Bonnie Prince Charlie, though somebody must have told me that.
“Little Ah Sid” (p. 276): This is a racist song about Chinese people.
“Mag’s Song” (p. 316): A second text is included with this song, and it’s actually this second text that piqued my interest. Entitled “The Orphan Girl” or “No Bread for the Poor,” it appears, I’m pretty sure, in The Shenandoah Harmony, a new shape note tune book published just this year. The text tells the tragic and melodramatic tale of an orphan girl who begs at the door of a rich man who refuses to let her in, so she freezes to death overnight. It’s like a cross between “The Little Match Girl” and Dives and Lazarus.

Coming next week: the discovery of unexpected connections between songs! (If you thought this post was esoteric, I’m afraid it’s only going to get worse. But I promise you pretty music!)