As I walked out of a May morning for to hear the birds sing sweet, I laid my back against a little parlor door for to hear two lovers meet, For to hear what they might say, That I might know a little more of the play, before they went away, That I might know a little more of the play, before they went away.
Come-a set you down upon my knee ’til I speak one word to thee, For it’s full three quarters of a year or more since I spoke one word to thee, For it’s full three quarters of a year or more since I spoke one word to thee.
Oh I shant sit down, I won’t sit down for I have not a moment of time, And besides you have got a true lover and your heart is no, not mine, And besides you have got a true lover and your heart is no, not mine.
Oh it’s hard to believe what an old man says, their [unintelligible]are two tongues, But much less to believe what a young man says, he purports on to anyone, But much less to believe what a young man says, he purports on to anyone.
But if I was to live for a year or more and God to grant my grace, I would buy me a bottle of dissembling water for to wash off her flattering face, I would buy me a bottle of dissembling water for to wash off her flattering face.
This month we have a beautiful and unique variant of a well-travelled song that many will no doubt recognize. Sometimes called “As I Roved Out” or “The False Young Man,” many versions include the “T stands for Thomas/P stands for Paddy” verse that is missing here. The above is my own transcription based on two recordings made in 1935 and 1942 of singer Thomas Armstrong of Mooers Forks, New York. Mooers Forks is in the far northeastern corner of the state near Lake Champlain and just two miles from the border with Quebec. You can hear the recording of Armstrong (the earlier recording is labeled “Two Lovers Meet”) via the digitized Flanders Ballad Collection on archive.org.
Armstrong’s first verse is longer than the others and after that he uses the first two lines of melody only, repeating the second line for the repeated text.
With the Sign of the Cross on my forehead, as I kneel on this cold dungeon floor, As I kneel at your feet, reverend father, with no one but God to the fore, I have told you the faults of my boyhood—the follies and sins of my youth, And it’s now from this crime of my manhood I speak with the same open truth.
You see, sir, the land was our people’s for ninety long years, and their toil, What first was a bare bit of mountain brought into good wheat-bearing soil, ’Twas their hands rose the walls of our cabin, where our children were borned and bred, Where our wedding’s an’ christening’s was merry, where we weeped and keened over our dead.
We were honest and fair to the landlord-we paid him the rent to the day, And it wasn’t our fault if our hard sweat they squandered and wasted away, In the cards, and the dice, and the racecourse, and often in deeper disgrace, That no tongue could relate without bringing a blush to an honest man’s face.
But the day come at last that they worked for, when the castles, the mansions and lands, They should hold but in trust for the people, ’til their shame passed away from their hands, And our place, sir, too, went to auction–by many the acres were sought, And what cared the stranger that purchased, who made him the good soil he bought?
The old folks were gone—thank God for it—where troubles or cares can’t pursue, But the wife and the children—Oh Father in Heaven—what was I to do? Sure I thought, I’ll go speak to the new man, and tell him of me and of mine, And the trifle that I’ve put together I’ll place in his hand as a fine.
The estate is worth six times the money, and maybe his heart isn’t cold, But the scoundrel that bought the thief’s penny-worth was worse than the pauper that sold.
Well I chased him to house and to office, wherever I thought he’d be met, And I offered him all he’d put on it—but no, ’twas the land he should get, I prayed as men only to God pray—my prayers they were spurned and denied, And no matter how just my right was, when he had the law at his side.
I was young, and but few years was married to one with a voice like a bird, When she sang the songs of our country, every feeling within me was stirred, Oh I see her this minute before me, with a foot wouldn’t bend a croneen, And her laughing eyes lifted to kiss me—my charming, my bright-eyed Eileen!
’Twas often with pride that I watched her, her soft arms folding our boy, Until he chased the smile from her red lip, and silenced the song of her joy, Whisht, father, have patience a minute, let me wipe the big drops from my brow, Whisht, father, I’ll try not to curse him; but I tell you, don’t preach to me now.
Well, he threatened, he coaxed, he ejected; for we tried to cling to the place, That was mine, yes, far more than ’twas his, sir; I told him so up to his face, But the little I had melted from me in making the fight for my own, And a beggar, with three helpless children, out on the wide world I was thrown.
And Eileen would soon have another—another that never drew breath, The neighbors were good to us always—but what could they do against death? For my wife and her infant before me lay dead, and by him they were killed, As sure as I’m kneeling before you, to own to my share of the guilt.
Well I laughed all consoling to scorn, I didn’t mind much what I said, With Eileen a corpse in the barn, with a bundle of straw for a bed, Sure the blood in my veins boiled to madness—do you think that a man is a log? Well I tracked him once more—’twas the last time—and shot him that night like a dog.
Yes, I shot him, I did it, but father, let them that makes laws for the land, Look to it, when they come to judgment, for the blood that lies red on my hand, If I drew the piece, ’twas them primed it, that left him stretched cold on the sod, And from their bar, where I got my sentence, I appeal to the bar of my God.
For the justice I never got from them, the right in their hands is unknown, Still I say sir, at last, that I’m sorry I took the law into my own, That I stole out that night in the darkness, whilst mad with my grief and despair, And I drew the black soul from his body, not giving him time for a prayer.
Well, it is told, sir you have the whole story, God forgive him and me for our sins, My life now is ended—oh father, for the young ones, for them life begins, You’ll look to poor Eileen’s young orphans? God bless you and now I’m at rest, And resigned to the death that tomorrow is staring me straight in the face.
This incredibly grim and moving song depicting an Irish tenant farmer confessing to the murder of his landlord appeared as a poem in an 1886 edition of Minneapolis’ Irish Standard newspaper. It was written by a Cork woman, Katharine Murphy, who published it in Ireland under a pseudonym in the nationalist newspaper The Nation ten years prior. The only known sung version of the poem is one collected in Beaver Island, Michigan from Andrew “Mary Ellen” Gallagher by Alan Lomax (listen to first part here and second part here). Above, I have transcribed Gallagher’s version and filled in some stanzas using the Irish Standard. For more information on this remarkable song including the Irish Standard excerpt and the Gallagher recording, see this post in the “Caught My Ear” blog by the American Folklife Center’s Stephen Winick.
You gentlemen of England far and near, Who live at ease free from all care, It’s little do you think and it’s little do you know, What we poor seamen undergo, Chorus: With the wind sou’west and a dismal sky, And the ruffling seas rolled mountains high.
On the second day of April, ‘twas on that day, When our captain called us all away, He took us from our native shore, While the wind sou’west and loud did roar.
On the fifth day of April, ‘twas on that day, When we spied land on the lo’ward lay, We saw three ships to the bottom go, While we, poor souls, tossed to and fro.
On the sixth day of April, ‘twas on that day, When our capstan and foremast washed away, Our mast being gone, the ship sprang a leak, And we thought we should sink in the watery deep.
The second mate and eighteen more, Got into the longboat and rowed for shore, But what must have been for their poor wives, A-losing their husbands’ precious lives?
On the seventh day of April, ‘twas on that day, When we arrived in Plymouth Bay, What a dismal tale had we for to tell, Of how we acted in the gale.
We return this month to the fantastic repertoire of singer Carrie Grover (1879-1959) who grew up in Nova Scotia and lived her adult life in Maine. “The Wind Sou’west” appears in her published songbook “A Heritage of Songs” where she classifies it as one of her father’s songs. Her father, George Craft Spinney, was born in 1837 and spent many years working on merchant vessels where he learned many sea songs. This song appears to be a variant of an English song dating to the late 18th century often titled “You Gentlemen of England” but Grover’s version is pretty unique with a localized New England reference to Plymouth Bay. No English versions I have seen include a chorus.
Thanks to the incredible work of singer and researcher Julie Mainstone Savas, we now have the website The Carrie Grover Project which includes transcriptions of all the songs in “Heritage of Songs” and more plus some audio recordings of Grover. The site is well worth checking out. There you can hear a recording of Grover singing the above (from which I made my own transcription). In it, Grover makes masterful use of the traditional singer’s trick of singing an “in between” third scale degree – somewhere between major and minor – that, to me, gives the song a perfect haunting quality.
