Old Maid's Lament for a Husband, The

Old Maid's Song (I), The

DESCRIPTION: An old maid laments her state, noting that her (two) sister(s were) popular, but she's been ignored all her life. She says she'd accept almost any man, and lists the good things she'd do for him
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1636 (broadside)
KEYWORDS: loneliness marriage nonballad family oldmaid
FOUND IN: US(Ap,NE,So) Ireland Britain(Scotland(Aber)) Canada(Mar,Newf)
REFERENCES (11 citations):
Wyman-Brockway I, p. 65, "The Old Maid's Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
SHenry H138, p. 256, "The Black Chimney Sweeper" (1 text, 1 tune, in which a "black chimney sweeper" finally marries her)
Hayward-Ulster, pp. 87-88, "The Black Chimney Sweeper" (1 text)
Flanders/Brown, p. 102, "Sisters Susan" (1 text)
Logan, pp. 353-355, "The Old Maid's Lament for a Husband" (1 text, which is not lyrically similar to the usual versions of this song but has all the same plot elements)
Kennedy 210, "The Poor Auld Maid" (1 text, 1 tune)
GreigDuncan7 1378, GreigDuncan8 Addenda, "Come Ye Inksmen" (5 texts, 2 tunes)
Peacock, p. 461, "I Long to be Wedding" (1 text, 1 tune)
Creighton-SNewBrunswick 21, "Black Chimney Sweeper" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber-FSWB, p. 186, "Old Maid's Song" (1 text)
DT, OLDMAID1 (OLDMAID2) OLDMAID6*
Roud #802
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 11(2011), "Chimney Sweep's Wedding," J.O. Bebbington (Manchester), 1858-1861; also Firth c.20(31), "Chimney Sweeper's Wedding"; 2806 c.7(10), "Chimney Sweepers Weding"[sic]
LOCSinging, as102060, "The Chimney Sweepers Weding"[sic], P. Brereton (Dublin), n.d.
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Betsy Bell" (theme)
cf. "I'll Not Marry at All"
cf. "Time to be Made a Wife"
cf. "The Old Maid's Song" (II)
cf. "A'body's Like to be Married but Me"
cf. "No to be Married Ava" (theme)
cf. "I Wonder When I Shall Be Married" (theme)
cf. "O Gin That I Were Mairrit" (theme)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Take Her Out of Pity
The Old Maid's Lament
NOTES: Also collected and sung by Ellen Mitchell, "An Old Maid in a Garret" (on Kevin and Ellen Mitchell, "Have a Drop Mair," Musical Tradition Records MTCD315-6 CD (2001))
Broadsides LOCSinging as102060 and Bodleian Harding B 11(2011) are duplicates. - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: R364

Old Maid's Song (II), The

DESCRIPTION: "Oh, Father, I'm sixteen years of age; I'm weary of my life.... I think it's almost time for me to be made a wife." Her father calls men liars; she points out that her mother married younger and her sister also. She says, "Don't let me die a maid"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1929 (Karpeles-Newfoundland)
KEYWORDS: marriage oldmaid
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Fowke/Johnston, pp. 162-163, "Time to be Made a Wife" (1 text, 1 tune)
Karpeles-Newfoundland 79, "Young Men, Come Marry Me" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, OLDMAID5
Roud #2304
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Old Maid's Song (I)" and references there
File: FJ162

Old Man at the Mill, The

DESCRIPTION: "Same old man, sitting at the mill/Mill turns around of its own free will...ladies go forward and the gents fall back." This is followed by floating verses, many taken from "The Birds' Courting Song (Leatherwing Bat)"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1962 (recording, Clint Howard et al)
KEYWORDS: courting floatingverses nonballad playparty
FOUND IN: US(SE)
Roud #733
RECORDINGS:
Clint Howard et al, "The Old Man at the Mill" (on Ashley02, WatsonAshley01)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Bird's Courting Song (The Hawk and the Crow; Leatherwing Bat)" (floating lyrics)
NOTES: This certainly shares a good deal with "The Birds' Courting Song (Leatherwing Bat)," but there are enough differences that I have split them. - PJS
Roud, interestingly, lumps it not with that song but with "The Miller Boy (Jolly is the Miller I)," presumably on the basis of the first verse. The result may well be a complex composite of the two. - RBW
In their notes to Ashley02 the Rinzlers attribute this "happy combination of two separate songs: a well-known play party, 'The Jolly Miller'; and 'The Bird Song' or 'The Leather Winged Bat'" to Ashley. - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: RctOMatM

Old Man Came Over the Moor, An (Old Gum Boots and Leggings)

DESCRIPTION: The singer's mother tells her to open the door to an old man. He is come to court her; she will not have him; he is too old. The girl's mother makes her to offer him various attentions; she does, and the old man spoils each. (At last he is sent home)
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1724 (Ramsey)
KEYWORDS: age courting rejection humorous clothes
FOUND IN: US(Ap,MA,MW,SE,So) Britain(England(All),Scotland(Aber)) Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (22 citations):
Belden, p. 264, "The Old Man's Courtship" (1 text)
Randolph 66, "The Old Black Booger" (3 texts, 3 tunes)
Randolph/Cohen, pp. 129-131, "The Old Black Booger" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 66C)
Eddy 42, "An Old Man Who Came Over the Moor" (3 texts plus a fragment, 4 tunes)
Gardner/Chickering 171, "The Old Man" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
BrownIII 9, "The Old Man's Courtship" (5 texts)
Brewster 48, "The Old Man Who Vame Over the Moor" (2 texts)
Ford-Vagabond, pp. 128-129, "The Carle He Cam' Ower the Craft"; p. 130, "The Dottered Auld Carle" (2 texts)
Greig #149, p. 1, "The Auld Carle" (1 text)
GreigDuncan4 815, "The Auld Carle wi' His Beard" (4 texts, 3 tunes)
Fowke/Johnston, pp. 152-154, "The Old Man" (1 text, 1 tune)
Warner 165, "Old Grey Beard" (1 text, 1 tune)
MHenry-Appalachians, pp. 9-10, "There Was an Old Man" (1 text)
FSCatskills 131, "Old Shoes and Leggings" (1 text)
JHCox 169, "The Old Man Who Came Over the Moor" (1 text)
SharpAp 108, "My Mother Bid Me" (5 texts, 5 tunes)
Ritchie-Southern, p. 87, "Mama Told Me" (1 text, 1 tune)
Creighton/Senior, pp. 190-191, "The Old Man" (1 text, 1 tune)
Vaughan Williams/Lloyd, pp. 76-77, "The Old Man from Lee" (1 text, 1 tune)
Kennedy 139, "Old Grey Beard" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, OLDSHOE*
ADDITIONAL: Roy Palmer, _The Folklore of Warwickshire_, Rowman and Littlefield, 1976, pp. 107-108, ("There Was An Old Man Came Over the Sea") (1 text, 1 tune)
ST R066 (Full)
Roud #362
RECORDINGS:
Frankie Armstrong, "The Old Man from Over the Sea" (on BirdBush1, BirdBush2)
Burnett Bros., "Old Shoes a-Draggin'" (Victor 23727, 1932)
[The Stoneman Family and] Uncle Eck Dunford, "Old Shoes and Leggins" (Victor V-40060, 1928; on AAFM1)
Betty Garland, "Old Gum Boots and Leggings" (on BGarland01)
Otis High, "Old Gray Beard A-Flappin'" (on HandMeDown2)
Lawrence Older, "Old Shoes and Leggings" (on LOlder01)
Jeannie Robertson, "Old Grey Beard Newly Shaven" (on FSB1)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Maids When You're Young Never Wed an Old Man"
cf. "I Wouldn't Have an Old Man"
cf. "The Brisk Young Lad" (plot)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
An Old Man Came Courting Me
The Young Lass contra Old Man
The Carle He Came o'er the Croft
The Auld carle
I'll Not Have Him
The Old Man from Over the Sea
His Old Grey Beard Kept Waggin'
Overshoes and Leggin's
NOTES: Roy Palmer's version of this song is included as a part of a Father Christmas play which "was performed every year at Christmastide at Newbold until the end of the nineteenth century." Unfortunately he gives no information on the source of the play, nor when it was first performed. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: R066

Old Man Fox

See The Fox (File: R103)

Old Man from Lee, The

See Old Man Came Over the Moor, An (Old Gum Boots and Leggings) (File: R066)

Old Man from Over the Sea, The

DESCRIPTION: An old man courts a young woman, whose mother advises her what to do when they are married -- all to no sexual avail.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE:
KEYWORDS: bawdy marriage age
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Randolph-Legman I, pp. 336-339, "The Old Man from Over the Sea" (2 texts, 1 tune)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Maids When You're Young Never Wed an Old Man"
cf. "Old Man Came Over the Moor, An (Old Gum Boots and Leggings)"
cf. "I Wouldn't Marry an Old Man"
cf. "I Wouldn't Have an Old Man"
cf. "My Husband's Got No Courage in Him"
NOTES: Legman provides significant notes on, and references to, ballads about May-December marriages in Randolph-Legman I. - EC
File: RL336

Old Man He Courted Me, An

See Maids When You're Young Never Wed an Old Man (File: K207)

Old Man in the North Countree, The

See The Twa Sisters [Child 10] (File: C010)

Old Man Kangaroo, The

DESCRIPTION: The singer and Bill Chippen are out of food when they spot a kangaroo. Chippen attacks the beast, which seizes him. The singer shoves his tucker-bag over the 'roo, then cuts off its tail. The animal drops dead; the two feed on its tail
AUTHOR: "Tom Tallfern," according to _The Australian Journal_
EARLIEST DATE: 1871 (_The Australian Journal_, according to Paterson/Fahey/Seal)
KEYWORDS: animal fight Australia
FOUND IN: Australia
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Meredith/Anderson, pp. 40-41, "The Old Man Kangaroo" (1 text, 2 tunes)
Paterson/Fahey/Seal, pp. 303-305, "Tailing a Kangaroo" (1 text)
File: MA040

Old Man Rocking the Cradle

See Rocking the Cradle (and the Child Not His Own) (File: R393)

Old Man under the Hill, The

See The Farmer's Curst Wife [Child 278] (File: C278)

Old Man Who Lived in the Woods, The

See Father Grumble [Laws Q1] (File: LQ01)

Old Man, The

See Old Man Came Over the Moor, An (Old Gum Boots and Leggings) (File: R066)

Old Man's Courtship, The

See Old Man Came Over the Moor, An (Old Gum Boots and Leggings) (File: R066)

Old Man's Lament (II)

DESCRIPTION: "When I was young and in my prime, I could get a hard on any time," but now he is old and is almost non-functional. The singer tells of all the things he used to be able to do, and warns listeners, "The time soon will ome when you'll be the same as I."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1976 (collected by Logsdon from Riley Neal)
KEYWORDS: bawdy age nonballad
FOUND IN: US(SW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Logsdon 50, pp. 238-240, "The Old Man's Lament" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #10105
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Little Brown Jug" (tune)
File: Logs050

Old Man's Lament, The

See Rocking the Cradle (and the Child Not His Own) (File: R393)

Old Man's Three Sons (Jeffery, James, and John)

DESCRIPTION: "There was an old (wo)man had three sons, (Jerry) and James and John. Jerry was hung, and James was drowned, John was lost and never found, And there was the end of (her) three sons, Jerry and James and John."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1632 (Choice of Inventions, according to Opie-Oxford2)
KEYWORDS: mother father children death drowning
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Opie-Oxford2 540, "There was an old woman had three sons" (3 texts)
Baring-Gould-MotherGoose #262, p. 160, "(There was an old woman had three sons)"
Roud #4661
NOTES: Opie-Oxford2: "This is the first of fourteen verses in The Old Woman and Her Three Sons, a toy book with coloured illustrations published by John Harris in 1815. It is a verse which was certainly current in the reign of Charles I, and may go back to Elizabeth's time." - BS
File: BGNG262

Old Marse John

DESCRIPTION: Lyrics about a slave promised freedom by his mistress -- but the freedom does not arrive as scheduled. Many floating verses about southern life. Chorus: "O mourner, you shall be free... When the good Lord sets you free."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1925
KEYWORDS: slave freedom animal food clergy floatingverses
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Lomax-FSNA 271, "Old Marse John" (1 text, 1 tune)
BrownIII 471, "Jigger, Rigger, Bumbo" (1 fragment)
Roud #6707
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Raise a Ruckus" (lyrics)
cf. "My Ole Mistus Promised Me" (lyrics)
cf. "Mourner, You Shall Be Free (Moanish Lady)" (floating lyrics)
cf. "Hard Time in Old Virginnie"
cf. "Poor Old Man (Poor Old Horse; The Dead Horse)" (floating lyrics)
NOTES: About half of this song, as found in Lomax, is identical to "Raise a Ruckus." But the chorus is different, and the similarities could be due to the Alan Lomax's "improvements." So I've classified them separately.
The Brown fragments "Jigger, Rigger, Bumbo" is another mystery unto itself. It has the "Raise a Ruckus"/"My old marster promised me" opening, and a chorus, and that's it. At some point, there comes a limit on separating songs based on nonsense choruses. So I tossed it here. Roud appears to have a whole category (#11723) of fragments around the "My old master/mistress promised me." - RBW
File: LoF271

Old Massa He Come Dancin' Out

See Ol' Gen'ral Bragg's a-Mowin' Down de Yankees (File: BrII233)

Old Mayflower, The

DESCRIPTION: Mayflower runs ashore with its cargo of dry fish and ale. After the cargo is stolen we take the pail, jars, kettle, and, finally, the wood. "And that was the end of the old Mayflower"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1960 (Peacock)
KEYWORDS: ship wreck humorous theft
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Peacock, pp. 87-88, "The Old Mayflower" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #9954
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Mariposa" (theme)
cf. "The Teapots at the Fire" (theme)
cf. "The Middlesex Flora" (theme)
cf. "The Irrawaddy" (theme)
NOTES: I find myself wondering if Stan Rogers didn't have this or one of the other songs in the cross-references somewhere in the back of his mind when he wrote "The Wreck of the Athens Queen." It's interesting to see how many songs on the theme of, shall we say, extremely rapid and perhaps premature salvage come from Newfoundland.
The right of salvage is ancient, and so is its abuse. According to John Gillingham, Richard the Lionheart, Times Books, 1978, pp. 70-71, we find the English King Henry II rescinding the right of salvage at certain points along the Atlantic coast in the 1170s (to protect wine merchants, whose products floated and so could be re-collected even if their ship sank). Gillingham also mentions that the merchants thought he should have extended it even farther -- to Brittany, where the locals had a tradition of living off the proceeds of wrecks.
"The Hoban Boys" mentions the looting of a ship Mayflower. Whether they are the same ship I do not know. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: Pea087

Old Miller, The

See The Miller's Will (The Miller's Three Sons) [Laws Q21] (File: LQ21)

Old Missouri

See Old MacDonald Had a Farm (File: R457)

Old Moke Pickin' on the Banjo (Song of the Pinewoods)

DESCRIPTION: Singer lands in America in 1844 and works in the pinewoods. An Irish girl offers him whiskey and looks him over. He describes the teamsters with whom he works. Song may have many floating verses and a nonsense chorus.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1941 (Beck)
KEYWORDS: lumbering work emigration floatingverses music
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Beck 22, "Song of the Pinewoods" (1 text)
Hugill, pp. 340-341, "The Old Moke Pickin' on the Banjo" (1 text, 1 tune) [AbEd, p. 255]
Sharp-EFC, IV, pp. 4-5, "He-Back, She-Back" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, OLDMOKE*
Roud #862
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Whoa Back, Buck" (floating lyrics)
cf. "Shule Agra (Shool Aroo[n], Buttermilk Hill, Johnny's Gone for a Soldier)" (floating lyrics)
cf. "I'm a Rowdy Soul" (floating lyrics)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
He-bang, She-bang
Tapiocum
NOTES: Clearly we have a muddle here. Beck notes that this song can have a huge number of verses, but he lists only four, and the song makes little sense as a result. The chorus, meanwhile, is a reworking of "Shule Agra", with a last line close to "Tighten on the Backband (Whoa Back Buck)." Ah, the folk process! - PJS
A muddle indeed, and one with bounds very hard to define. Beck's refrain for this piece runs
Shu-li, shu-li, shula-racka-ru
Hacka-racka, shacka-racka, shula-bobba-lu
I'm right from the pinewoods. So are you
Johnny, can't you pick it on your banjo?
The more common chorus to this seems to be something like
Hooraw! What the hell's the row?
We're all from the railroad, too-rer-loo,
We're all from the railroad, too-rer-loo,
Oooh! The ol' moke pickin' on the banjo!
This chorus occurs, with variations, in Hugill and Sharp. - RBW
Hugill cites a Negro shanty titled "Tapiocum" found in v.3 of the Folk Song Journal. He only quotes one verse but believes that it is a variant of "Old Moke." - SL
File: Be022

Old Molly Hair

See Old Molly Hare (File: R277)

Old Molly Hare

DESCRIPTION: Fiddle tune with words, often of the form, "Old Molly Hare, What('r) you doin' there?" followed by a reply, e.g. "Sitting in the briarpatch, combing out my hair."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1881 (Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings)
KEYWORDS: animal fiddle nonballad dancetune
FOUND IN: US(SE,So)
REFERENCES (6 citations):
Randolph 277, "Old Molly Hare" (1 short text, 1 tune)
Randolph/Cohen, pp. 238-239, "Old Molly Hare" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 277)
BrownIII 167, "Old Molly Hare (Mr. Rabbit)" (2 texts plus 4 fragments, 1 excerpt, and mention of 2 more; the "C," "D," and "E" fragments, plus probably "B," are "Old Molly Hare," "I" is "Mister Rabbit"; "A" and "G" mix the two)
Lomax-ABFS, pp. 283-284, "Old Mother Hare" (1 text, 1 tune)
Cohen/Seeger/Wood, pp. 108-109, "Old Molly Hair" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, MOLLHARE
Roud #7781
RECORDINGS:
Clayton McMichen & Riley Puckett, "Old Molly Hare" (Columbia 15295-D, 1928; on CrowTold01)
New Lost City Ramblers, "Old Molly Hair" (on NLCR05)
Fiddlin' Powers & Family, "Old Molly Hare" (Okeh 45268, 1928; rec. 1927; on Cornshuckers2)
Riley Puckett, "Old Molly Hair" (Columbia 15295-D, 1928)
NOTES: Joel Chandler Harris quoted the first stanza of this song in "Mr. Rabbit Gorssly Decieves Mr. Fox," published in 1881 in Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings:
Ole Molly Har'.
W'at you doin' dar,
Settin' in de cornder
Smokin' yo seegyar? - RBW
File: R277

Old Mont Line, The

DESCRIPTION: "Come gather 'round me lads... Oh, maybe you don't believe me, lads... But ship in this starvation tow and you'll see the same as I." "There one Mont, two Monts, three Monts in a row." The sailors take a dull trip up the Lakes and grumble about the owner
AUTHOR: Captain F. W. Elliott and crew?
EARLIEST DATE: 1933 (collected from Elliott by Walton)
KEYWORDS: sailor ship hardtimes money
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Walton/Grimm/Murdock, pp. 125-126, "The Old Mont Line" (1 test, 1 tune)
RECORDINGS:
Ivan Watson, "The Old Mont Line" (fragment, 1938; on WaltonSailors)
NOTES: According to Walton/Grimm/Murdok, the Mont Line operated a set of sailing barges (cut-down schooners) with such names as Monymorency and Monticello. Supposedly Captain Elliott and crew made up this song during a particularly boring trip. Grimm's notes compare the tune to "The Bigler," but it seems to me the dependence on "The Derby Ram" is stronger. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.4
File: WGM125

Old Moses Smote de Waters

See Old Moses Smote the Waters (File: R290)

Old Moses Smote the Waters

DESCRIPTION: "Old Moses smote the waters, Hallelujah! Old Moses smote the waters, huh!..." "The waters they divided...." "The children passed over...." "Old Pharaoh's host got drownded...." "I see that ship a-coming...." "She'll take us on to glory...."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1941 (Randolph)
KEYWORDS: Bible religious travel freedom
FOUND IN: US(SE,So)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Randolph 290, "Old Moses Smote de Waters" (1 text, 1 tune)
BrownIII [612], "Moses Smote the Waters" (1 fragment, printed in the notes to Brown #610)
Roud #7822
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Sinful Army" (lyrics)
File: R290

Old Mother Hare

See Old Molly Hare (File: R277)

Old Mother Head's

DESCRIPTION: Adventures of staff and guests at Mother Head's. "Nobody knows what the sailors eat; Cast no remarks about your meat; But eat your pie, and close your mouth, In the hungry starving boarding house"
AUTHOR: Joe Broadfield
EARLIEST DATE: 1940 (Smith/Hatt)
KEYWORDS: food hardtimes humorous nonballad sailor
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Smith/Hatt, p. 11, "Old Mother Head's" (1 text)
Roud #9414
File: SmHa011

Old Mother Hubbard

DESCRIPTION: "Old Mother Hubbard Went to the cupboard To get her poor dog a bone, But when she got there The cupboard was bare And so the poor dog had none." Additional verses tell of Mother Hubbard's efforts for the dog and how almost all fail
AUTHOR: unknown (many additional verses by Sarah Catherine Martin, 1768-1826)
EARLIEST DATE: before 1797 (cf. Baring-Gould-MotherGoose)
KEYWORDS: dog death food humorous home commerce clothes
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Opie-Oxford2 365, "Old Mother Hubbard" (1 text plus some possibly-related fragments; also illustrations from several editions, including what seems to have been Sarah Catherine Martin's first publication)
Baring-Gould-MotherGoose #134, pp. 111-113, "(Old Mother Hubbard)"
cf. DT, MERRYLND
NOTES: This is probably only a nursery *rhyme*, and not a nursery *song*, and so properly does not belong in the Index. But Tony and Irene Saletan recorded it as part of their version of "Hail to Britannia" (which includes many nursery rhymes), so it does have a musical tradition of sorts.
In addition, though most of us hear only one verse of this, the Baring-Gould text is 14 stanzas long, although many of the stanzas are silly:
She went to the tailors
To buy him a coat,
But when she came back
He [the dog, note] was riding a goat.
Still, there is a plot in the early stanzas. The whole looks like a song, if an absurd one. - RBW
Opie-Oxford2: "It is now clear that the first three verses of Sarah Catherine Marin's 'Old Mother Hubbard' were taken from tradition, and that her contribution was to write eleven more verses, and to illustrate the whole. The first three verses had appeared in sheet-music form as one of Dr Samuel Arnold's Juvenile Amusements (1797), and were certainly not new then." - BS
Louis Untermeyer, The Golden Treasury of Poetry, credits the whole thing to Sarah Catherine Martin, and has a total of 16 verses. But he doesn't understand tradition very well. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: BGMG134

Old Mountain Dew

DESCRIPTION: The praises of mountain dew are sung. "Oh, they call it that good old mountain dew, And those who refuse it are few...." Doctor, preacher, conductor, lawyer (and, in some versions, Uncle Nort, Aunt June, Brother Bill) derive various benefits from it.
AUTHOR: Bascom Lamar Lunsford
EARLIEST DATE: 1928 (recording, Bascom Lamar Lunsford)
KEYWORDS: drink family
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Botkin-SoFolklr, p. 736, "Good Old Mountain Dew" (1 text, 1 tune)
Darling-NAS, p. 289, "Good Old Mountain Dew" (1 text, filed with "Real Old Mountain Dew"="Good Old Mountain Dew")
Silber-FSWB, p. 236, "Mountain Dew" (1 text)
DT, MTDEW3*
Roud #9133
RECORDINGS:
Delmore Brothers, "Old Mountain Dew" (Decca 5890, 1940)
John Griffin, "Real Old Mountain Dew" (Columbia 33145-F, n.d.)
Grandpa Jones, "Mountain Dew" (King 624, 1947)
Lulu Belle & Scotty, "Mountain Dew" (Conqueror 9249, 1939) (on CrowTold02; this may be the reissue of the Conqueror recording, but it's not certain)
Bascom Lamar Lunsford, "Mountain Dew" (Brunswick 219, 1928); "Old Mountain Dew" (on BLLunsford01)
NOTES: Botkin's text is from a 1949 field recording. He says Lunsford composed and recorded it in the twenties, but that it has already changed substantially in oral tradition. - NR
Some have thought that Lunsford took a traditional song and made it his own. His recording, however, remains the first known version -- and there is no evidence that Lunsford did this with any other song. - RBW
Lunsford himself said he wrote it in the early years of this century, and that it was made up out of whole cloth, not adapted. It should not be confused with the traditional Irish song usually called "Real Old Mountain Dew" [or "Good Old Mountain Dew"]. - PJS
File: BSoF736

Old Mud Cabin on the Hill

See The Little Old Mud Cabin on the Hill (File: HHH207)

Old Nantucket Whaling Song

DESCRIPTION: Description of a whaling voyage. Crew faces months of cold and storms. Upon spotting a whale they give chase, harpoon and fight with the whale, trying to avoid being swamped or crushed. Gives detailed descriptions and is written in future tense.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1945 (Harlow)
KEYWORDS: whaler ship sea work hardtimes
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Harlow, pp. 216-219, "Old Nantucket Whaling Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #9153
File: Harl216

Old Napper

See Old Tyler (File: JRSF069)

Old Ninety-Seven

See The Wreck of Old 97 [Laws G2] (File: LG02)

Old Noah

See De Fust Banjo (The Banjo Song; The Possum and the Banjo; Old Noah) (File: R253)

Old Noah Built an Ark

DESCRIPTION: "Good old Noah built an ark, To save the soul of man; A vessel built of gopher wood, By God, the father, planned. Noah preached for years and years To change their awful ways." The flood comes; Noah is saved; listeners are advised to turn to Jesus
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1939 (Thomas)
KEYWORDS: Bible ship flood Jesus religious
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Thomas-Makin', pp. 101-105, (no title) (1 text, 1 tune)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Old Uncle Noah" (subject) and references there
NOTES: For background on the Noah story, see the notes to "Old Uncle Noah."
This song has enough points of contact with that that I suspect common ancestry. But that song is humorous and this so brutally "straight" that I can't see any option but to split them.
Incidentally, "gopher wood" is not a reference to the small mammal. We don't know what sort of wood it is; the word occurs only in Genesis 6:14, and no cognates are known in related languages. So translations tend to just transliterate the word rather than guess at a translation. - RBW
File: ThBa101

Old Oak Tree, The [Laws P37]

DESCRIPTION: (Betsy) sets out from home to meet her love and never returns. Her widowed mother, after a long search, dies of grief. The girl's body is found during a hunt with the murderer's knife still there. He confesses the crime and (dies/kills himself)
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1921 (Greenleaf/Mansfield)
KEYWORDS: murder suicide gallows-confession
FOUND IN: US(MW) Canada(Mar,Newf) Ireland
REFERENCES (13 citations):
Laws P37, "The Old Oak Tree"
Doerflinger, pp. 283-285, "The Old Oak Tree" (1 text, 1 tune)
SHenry H207, pp. 417-418, "The Old Oak Tree" (1 text, 1 tune)
Morton-Ulster 15, "The Old Oak Tree" (1 text, 1 tune)
Morton-Maguire 49, pp. 141-143,175, "The Old Oak Tree" (1 text, 1 tune)
Munnelly/Deasy-Lenihan 11, "The Old Oak Tree" (1 text, 1 tune)
Gardner/Chickering 33, "The Old Oak Tree" (1 text plus mention of 1 more, 1 tune)
Greenleaf/Mansfield 55, "Squire Nathaniel and Betsy" (1 text, 1 tune)
Peacock, pp. 628-629, "The Old Oak Tree" (1 text, 1 tune)
Leach-Labrador 12, "The Old Oak Tree" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Dibblee/Dibblee, pp. 80-81, "The Old Oak Tree" (1 text, 1 tune)
Manny/Wilson 66, "Eliza Long (The Old Oak Tree)" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT 514, OLDOAKTR
Roud #569
RECORDINGS:
Robert Cinnamond, "The Old Oak Tree" (on IRRCinnamond02)
Warde Ford, "Beneath the Old Oak Tree" (AFS 4195 A1; tr.; in AMMEM/Cowell)
Tom Lenihan, "The Old Oak Tree" (on IRTLenihan01)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Squire
NOTES: Bodleian Library site Ballads Catalogue appears to have two broadsides for this ballad
Bodleian, Harding B 40(5), "The Old Oak Tree" ("The night was dark, cold blew the wind"), J.F. Nugent and Co.? (Dublin?), 1850-1899; also Harding B 26(481), "The Old Oak Three," P. Brereton (Dublin), c.1867
However, I was unable to read either of them. - BS
File: LP37

Old Oaken Bucket, The

DESCRIPTION: "How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood, When fond recollection presents them to view...: The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The moss-covered bucket That hung in the well." The singer recalls being refreshed by its water
AUTHOR: Words: Samuel Woodworth
EARLIEST DATE: 1818
KEYWORDS: home nonballad
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (4 citations):
RJackson-19CPop, pp. 167-170, "The Old Oaken Bucket" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber-FSWB, p. 256, "The Old Oaken Bucket" (1 text)
Fuld-WFM, pp. 413-414, "The Old Oaken Bucket"
DT, OAKBUCK
ST RJ19167 (Full)
RECORDINGS:
David Bangs, "Old Oaken Bucket" (Berliner 0600, rec. 1895)
Columbia Stellar Quartet, "The Old Oaken Bucket" (Columbia A-1820, 1915)
Jimmie Tarlton [Darby & Tarlton] "By the Old Oaken Bucket" (Columbia 15763-D, 1932; rec. 1930)
Edison Male Quartet, "The Old Oaken Bucket" (CYL: Edison 2216, 1897)
Haydn Quartet, "The Old Oaken Bucket" (Berliner 023-N, 1899)
Haydn Quartet w. S. Dudley, "Old Oaken Bucket" (Berliner 0873, 1898)
Honolulu Strollers, "Ole Oaken Bucket" (OKeh 45226, 1928)
Kaplan's Melodists, "The Old Oaken Bucket" (CYL: Edison [BA] 5155, c. 1926)
Knickerbocker Quartet, "The Old Oaken Bucket" (CYL: Edison [BA] 2046, n.d.)
Peerless Quartette, "The Old Oaken Bucket" (Zonophone 696, 1907) (Pathe 40032, 1916)
Standard Quartette, "The Old Oaken Bucket" (CYL: Columbia 2239, rec. c. 1895)
Anon. [Sterling Trio] "The Old Oaken Bucket" (Little Wonder 268, 1915)
SAME TUNE:
The Old Family Toothbrush (Pankake-PHCFSB, p. 160)
Nat Wills, "Parody on 'Old Oaken Bucket'" (Victor 16661/Victor 5659 [as "Old Oaken Bucket (parody)"], 1909)
The Old Oaken Bucket (As censored by the Board of Health) (Hazel Felleman, _The Best Loved Poems of the American People_, p. 386)
NOTES: Samuel Woodworth's only other noteworthy composition was "The Hunters of Kentucky." His novels and plays are mercifully forgotten.
Woodworth originally published this poem under the title "The Bucket." It soon acquired several (rather feeble) tunes and the title "The Old Oaken Bucket." Around 1850, it was fitted to the tune "Araby's Daughter" by George Kiallmark; that somehow rescued it from the dustbin of nostalgia and made it into a highly popular song. - RBW
File: RJ19167

Old Orange Flute, The

DESCRIPTION: A Protestant man marries a Catholic woman, but his flute refuses to convert, and continues to play Orange songs. Ultimately it is burnt at the stake as a heretic.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: c.1895 (Graham)
KEYWORDS: marriage music fire
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (7 citations):
Hodgart, p. 216, "The Old Orange Flute" (1 text)
OLochlainn 50, "The Old Orange Flute" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hayward-Ulster, pp. 112-113, "The Ould Orange Flute" (1 text)
OrangeLark 27, "The Ould Orange Flute" (1 text, 1 tune)
Graham, p. 12, "The Ould Orange Flute" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber-FSWB, p. 318, "The Old Orange Flute" (1 text)
DT, OLDFLUTE*
Roud #3013
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Protestant Maid" (subject: religious conversion) and references there
NOTES: OLochlainn: "Learnt in Belfast about 1912; the tune is another version of Villikens." - BS
File: Hodg216

Old Orange Tree, The

DESCRIPTION: King William brought the Orange tree and planted it near London "and frighten'd Popery." He took the plant with him to the Boyne where it frightened King James and his men. Winter cropped the tree but in spring it will flourish, and bloom on July 12.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1987 (OrangeLark)
KEYWORDS: England Ireland patriotic political
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
OrangeLark 38, "The Old Orange Tree" (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES: For William of Orange and the Battle of the Boyne, see the notes to "The Battle of the Boyne (I)." - RBW
File: OrLa038

Old Paint (I)

See I Ride an Old Paint (File: LxU063B)

Old Paint (II)

See Goodbye, Old Paint (File: LxU063A)

Old Palmer Song, The

DESCRIPTION: "The wind is fair and free, my boys... The steamer's course is north, my boys, And the palmer we will see." The singer encourages his listeners to come with him to the gold fields; by working together, they can prosper
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1964
KEYWORDS: river gold travel
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1875 - Discovery of gold in the Palmer River in Queensland. The influx of people from all over the world meant that few grew rich -- and many starved in the inhospitable terrain
FOUND IN: Australia
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Manifold-PASB, pp. 38-39, "The Old Palmer Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
File: PASB038

Old Pete Bateese

DESCRIPTION: French-Canadian dialect song. Pete Bateese is chased by wolves. He climbs a tree. The wolves fetch beavers to gnaw it down. Pete pours out some "hooch"; the beavers get drunk and chew up the wolves instead. Pete comes down and cries for the wasted hooch
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1941 (Beck)
LONG DESCRIPTION: French-Canadian dialect song. Pete Bateese is chased by wolves one night; he climbs a tree, so the wolves fetch beavers to gnaw it down. Pete pours out some "hooch"; the beavers get drunk and chew up the wolves instead. Pete comes down and "cry and cry to t'ink for where/His one-quart hooch she go."
KEYWORDS: humorous talltale drink animal
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Beck 75, "Old Pete Bateese" (1 text)
Roud #8851
NOTES: I rather suspect this is one of William Henry Drummond's poems; Beck prints several of these ("The Wreck of the Julie Plante'," "'Poleon Dore," "De Camp on de 'Cheval Gris'") as traditional poems, and a Bateese is the main character of another Drummond poem, "How Bateese Came Home." But I don't find this in Drummond's well-known book The Habitant. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: Be075

Old Petticoat, The

DESCRIPTION: The singer sees "an old petticoat hanging high" and hangs his trousers near to "keep that old petticoat warm" He says "'Old trousers, I hope you're on form!'" "The night of the wedding ... the father he's dead; he was shot with a gun"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1975 (recording, Paddy Tunney)
KEYWORDS: sex clothes humorous
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Tunney-StoneFiddle, pp. 54-55, "As I Was Going into the Fair of Athy" (1 text)
Roud #12940
RECORDINGS:
Paddy Tunney, The, "The Old Petticoat" (on Voice10)
File: RcOldPet

Old Plaid Shawl, The

See The Red Plaid Shawl (File: OCon084)

Old Polina, The

DESCRIPTION: "There's a noble fleet of whalers a-sailing from Dundee... There's not another whaler that sails the Arctic Sea Can beat the old Polina, you need not try, my sons." The singer describes all the various ships which failed to outrace the Polina
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1955 (Doyle)
KEYWORDS: ship whaler racing bragging
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
March 1884 - Loss of the Polynia (believed to be the model for this song) in the Straits of Belle Isle
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Fowke/Mills/Blume, pp. 165-166, "The Old 'Polina'" (1 text, tune referenced)
Fowke/MacMillan 15, "The Old 'Polina'" (1 text, 1 tune)
Blondahl, pp. 22-23, "The Old Polina" (1 text, 1 tune)
Doyle3, pp. 44-45, "Old Polina" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST FMB165 (Partial)
Roud #285
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "A Noble Fleet of Sealers" (tune)
cf. "Save Our Swilers" (tune)
NOTES: GEST Songs of Newfoundland and Labrador site claims the song was written in the 1880s.
The notes to A.L. Lloyd's Leviathan! for "The Balaena" makes this whaler R. Kinnes's Balaena, the "largest and fastest" of the 1873 Dundee whaling fleet. According to the Dundee City Council site, it "sailed its last voyage in 1892 under Captain Alexander Fairweather." That's a different explanation than the sinking of the Polynia proposed by the GEST site. - BS
It's worth noting that Lloyd's seems to be the only one calling the ship the Balena or anything similar. One suspects either an error of hearing as the song transferred to Britain or a Canadian adaption. The notes in Fowke/Mills/Blume also associate the song with the Polynia, lost in the Straits of Belle Isle in 1884. . - RBW
File: FMB165

Old Ponto Is Dead

See Old Roger is Dead (Old Bumpy, Old Grimes, Pompey) (File: R569)

Old Port Rockwell

DESCRIPTION: "Old Port Rockwell has work to do, So he saddles his sorrel and rides away... the waiting wife... shrinks in terror as down the night Comes the wailing of Port's dread war cry, 'Wheat!'" Rockwell's cry means that a wife and children will be orphaned
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1958 (Burt)
KEYWORDS: murder mother orphan
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Burt, pp. 114-115, "(Old Port Rockwell)" (1 text)
Roud #10880
NOTES: Burt lists Orrin Porter Rockwell (1813-1878) as a bodyguard to both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, but he was evidently a dangerous tough also. He was the most famous of the Sons of Dan, or Danites (Walker, p. 209), which also apparently included John D. Lee, the alleged main perpetrator of the Mountain Meadows Massacre (for which see "The Mountain Meadows Massacre" [Laws B19]).
Rockwell's cry "Wheat!" is reputedly derived from the parable of the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13:24-30): The wheat was to be kept, the tares (weeds) to be burned.
According to Stegner, pp. 37-38, "Rockwell had been promised by Joseph [Smith] that no bullet would ever touch him. He wore his hair long in remembrance of that prophecy, and in a long life that his enemies said included upwards of a hundred holy murders (his most scrupulous biographer guesses twenty) the promise held good. He was illiterate, nerveless, tireless, dedicated, an utterly dependable zealot." Even Fawn M. Brodie, herself a Mormon, calls his appearance "sinister" (Brodie, p. 322).
At the time Burt and Stegner wrote, however, there do not appear to have been any really good biographies of Rockwell. The first appears to be Schindler,which is the primary basis for what follows.
Little is known of Rockwell's early life, except what is found in church and other official records; he was born in 1813 in Belcher, Massachusetts, the second of nine children. At the age of ten, he broke a leg, and the doctor who set it did a poor job, leaving him with a lifelong limp (something he shared with his idol Joseph Smith) Early in life, his family moved close to the home of Smith, and he seems to have fallen under the Prophet's spell even while Smith was compiling the Book of Mormon, working in the fields to help the Prophet's work. Apparently the first record of him as an individual is as a rambunctious youth of 17, in 1831, as he is found running off his energy on a boat on the Erie Canal. He was already a Mormon at this very early date -- indeed, he was one of the first converts, and helped to bring his mother into the fold (Schindler, pp. 2-6).
Rockwell was one of the Mormons who moved to the colony in Independence, Missouri, where he married his first wife Luana Beebe in 1832 -- "the first Mormon wedding in Jackson County" (Schindler, p. 8). He came to work as a ferryman, which finally closed off any possibility of schooling; Rockwell never did learn to read or write (Schindler, p. 9). According to Schindler, pp. 10-11, it was Rockwell and his father who ferried the toughs who perpetrated the first assault on the Missouri Mormon colony. It was this that brought the state's Lieutenant Governor, Lilburn W. Boggs, to the area, where he made it clear that he wanted the church destroyed. The Mormons promised to get out, then sought relief from the courts -- and found themselves under even more severe assault.
The Missouri brutality was personal to Rockwell -- his brother-in-law and a neighbor were beaten in one of the assaults (Schindler, p. 15). A later attack destroyed, among others, the homes of Rockwell and his father (Schindler, pp. 16-17). The Mormons scattered to other parts of the state; Rockwell ended up in the Mormon Community of Far West in 1838; his wife had borne him two daughters, Emily and Caroline, in the interim (Schindler, pp. 23-24).
It was in this context that the Sons of Dan were formed. After some experimentation, they settled on their name based on Genesis 49:17, which calls Dan a serpent in the road that bites at horses' heels. It is also noteworthy that the name "Dan" means "judge" -- though that is not evident from the King James Bible, and there seems to have been no one in the Mormon church with the Biblical learning to realize that (had there been, someone would surely have told Joseph Smith of the fact that the Greek and Hebrew, unlike the King James Bible, are not full of archaisms; they were in the ordinary language of the times they were written. Maybe that someone would also have told him that Hebrew is an actual language, not something in which one could arbitrarily make up words).
Little is really known of the Danites; it's not even clear whether Joseph Smith was aware of their founding (Schindler, p. 32). It is known that, contrary to legend, Rockwell was not their chief (Schindler, p. 33). But we have testimony that they were sworn to work for the "utter destruction of apostates" and to keep the group's secrets at all costs (Schindler, p. 36).
Meanwhile, the war in Missouri was just getting hotter as the Mormons began to fight back seriously. Bands of Danites were important to this process. It is thought that Rockwell may have fought his first battle in a raid on the Crooked River, though we cannot be certain he was present (Schindler, pp. 45-46).
Lilburn Boggs [this is the spelling used in most histories; my Concise Dictionary of American Biography prefers "Lillburn"] made anti-Mormonism one of his key issues, and rode it to the Missouri governorship in 1836. In 1838, he issued an "Extermination Order" against the Mormons (DeVoto, p. 83; Schindler, p. 49, prints the order and notes that it was not rescinded until 1976!). We know that Rockwell was prepared to fight the battle which followed the Boggs order (Schindler, p. 52), but Joseph Smith decided to yield in Missouri.
Smith ended up in prison, where Rockwell visited him regularly (Schindler, p. 56). After that, Smith, Rockwell, and most other Mormons headed for Illinois.
Rockwell's father died in 1839, but Rockwell the Younger -- whose wife bore a son around this time -- was clearly becoming an important figure in the Church; when Smith sent a petition for relief to Martin van Buren (which the president rejected as politically inexpedient), Rockwell was one of those sent to convey it. It sounds as if his real role was bodyguard (Schindler, p. 59), but still, he was clearly a trusted bodyguard.
His looks probably contributed. By this time, he worse his beard long and his hair longer -- well below his shoulders; he really did have the look of an Old Testament prophet. The one problem with the image was his voice, which went into the falsetto when he became worked up. Schindler, p. 61, reports that he tried very hard to control his emotions as a result.
In 1842, with his fourth child about to be born, Rockwell headed back to Missouri to be with his wife and her parents. He was well enough known by now that he chose to use the pseudonym "Brown" rather than his own name (Schindler, p. 66).
Of course, returning to Missouri also brought him back into the state of Lilburn Boggs.
In 1842, someone attempted to kill Boggs by shooting through his window (Walker, pp. 207-208). If the murderer didn't manage to kill him, it wasn't for lack of trying; he had a heavy pistol loaded with buckshot, and fired it through Boggs's window. Boggs suffered four wounds, the worst being to his head and neck; he was thought to be doomed, and it was considered miraculous that his six-year-old daughter, who was in the room at the time, was not injured (Schindler, pp. 67-70). Boggs gradually recovered, but left Missouri in 1846 to settle in California.
Rockwell, who had been in Missouri for only a few months, was quickly credited with the assassination attempt, though no absolute proof was offered at the time. Bagley, p. 13, is sure he did it; his note on p. 392 says, "While it may be imposible to prove Joseph Smigh sent Rockwell to kill Boggs, a church newspaper called the shooting a 'noble deed.'"
Still, Schindler is not entirely sure Rockwell committed the crime, though he cites strong evidence for it (p. 73). Brodie, pp. 323-324, notes only two points of evidence: That Rockwell had briefly visited Missouri at the time, and that Rockwell seemed to come into some money after his return -- and Smith had offered $500 for anyone who killed Boggs. But she also notes that Rockwell's improved circumstances seemed to be derived from the work he did for Smith, not from any payment for the attack on Boggs.
As a result of the attempted murder, a newsman dubbed Rockwell "The Destroying Angel." Rockwell later threatened the writer John Cook Bennett for the charges published against him (Schindler, p. 72) -- though much of Bennett's information in fact came from Boggs, who swore to an affidavit charging Smith with being an accessory to murder (Brodie, p. 324)
The Nauvoo authorities (in effect, Smith) ignored the charge against Rockwell (and against Smith himself), refusing to extradite them to Missouri (Schindler, pp. 74-76). Eventually Rockwell ended up with a price of $3000 on his head. Although he remained free, he was unable to find employment in the world outside the church, and spend some time wandering around the Midwest; his wife left him at this time (Schindler, p. 79). Eventually the Illinois authorities tossed out the warrant against Smith -- but Rockwell was apprehended (Schindler, p. 82). The trip back to Missouri had comic aspects; the driver was so drunk that he twice cracked up the stage, and Rockwell, with his knowledge of horses and carts, twice had to repair and rescue the vehicle (Schindler, pp. 84-85). He was imprisoned in dreadful conditions while awaiting trial (Schindler, pp. 85-87), attempted an escape which failed mostly because his companion was too slow (Schindler, pp. 88-89) -- and, upon his recapture, was shackled so tightly that he could not even stand up straight (Schindler, p. 90).
Ironically, Rockwell was eventually cleared of the murder charge, but was forced to stay in prison because he had attempted to escape (Schindler, p. 95). After much more maneuvering, an apparent attempt to kill Rockwell, and most of a year in prison, he finally came to trial. The case finally went to the jury, which sentenced him to "five minutes in the county jail" (Schindler, p. 99). After a few hours of last-minute attempts to file new charges, Rockwell went free. Of course, he was still stuck in Missouri, and vigilantes were after him. Broke, and with his shoes in tatters, he had to walk most of the way to Nauvoo (Schindler, pp. 100-101). This was considered to fulfill one of Smith's visions, though if God were really watching over Rockwell, I'd have to say, that should have included taking care of his badly injured feet....
When Rockwell arrived in Nauvoo, he went to visit a party being held by Smith. And it was there that Smith made his prophecy: "you -- Orrin Porter Rockwell -- so long as ye remain loyal and true to thy faith, need fear no enemy. Cut not thy hair and no bullet or blade can harm thee!" (Schindler, p. 102, who notes the obvious similarity to the tale of Samson -- who, in the Book of Judges, had superhuman strength and avoided capture and death until his hair was shaved).
The prophecy would come to inspire its own folklore; Schindler, p. 351 n. 52, tells two well-known stories about Rockwell which he understandably does not believe. In one, he put a gang of desperadoes to flight and then shook himself, to have several bullets fall out of his coat. According to the other, a man stuck a pistol in his face -- and Rockwell calmly asked if he would try to fire a pistol without a firing cap. While the other hesitated and glanced at the weapon, Rockwell shot him.
For a brief time, Rockwell served as a bartender in Smith's large hotel -- until Smith's wife Emmy convinced the prophet that the head of a church shouldn't himself be serving liquor (Schindler, pp. 103-104). Smith then started a police force of sorts. Or perhaps we should call it a secret police (Schindler, pp. 105-108).
Rockwell's first unquestionably criminal act came as a member of this force. Joseph Smith's authoritarian rule of the Mormon Church led to the founding of a sort of opposition newspaper, the Nauvoo Expositor. Among other things, it carefully documented Mormon polygamy (see Brodie, pp. 374-375). Smith determined to suppress it, taking a posse to the offices, where the press was destroyed, the type pied, and the whole office burned (Brodie, p. 377). Rockwell was one of those involved in the destruction, reportedly kicking in the office door (Schindler, p. 116).
The affair was to prove a fatal mistake; Smith ended up in prison in Carthage, Illinois, where he was lynched (Brodie, pp. 382-395).
Rockwell had a curious part in this final tragedy. When Smith realized the Illinois authorities were coming for him, he decided to flee west, leaving his senior wife Emma and the entire Mormon colony behind to suffer the rage of the citizens of Illinois. Rockwell was one of the handful he took with him as a guide, and it was Rockwell who was to get them across the Mississippi. But before Smith left the western shore of the river, Rockwell was sent back to the Illinois side -- and brought back word of the fears of the people of Nauvoo. Smith relented and returned to his martyrdom (Brodie, pp. 384-386; Schindler, pp. 119-121). Rockwell was curiously passive in this, accepting whatever Smith decided -- but did not accompany Smith to Carthage, and so survived even though, in terms of raw violence, he was surely as guilty as the prophet. This was apparently at Smith's command; he wanted Rockwell in Nauvoo to rescue him if need be (Schindler, p. 121). Obviously that didn't work out.
Rockwell did end up being arrested not long after, but immediately escaped (Schindler, p. 136), His first unquestioned killing came soon after this: Lieutenant Frank Worrell, one of those who took part in the capture and killing of Smith, pursued Rockwell and a companion, and was fatally shot during the pursuit (Schindler, pp. 138-139).
Schindler notes that the death of Smith turned Rockwell "aggressive, even belligerent"; he went so far as to appropriate the wife of fellow Mormon Amos Davis at gunpoint (Schindler, pp. 142-143). This at least technically made him guilty of bigamy (polygamy being of course normal Mormon practice at the time), but his first wife, as we know, was no longer with him (Schindler, p. 145). Curiously, I found no mention of the former Mrs. Davis in Schindler's pages after this; she seems to disappear the moment he had won her favors.
When the Mormons began their exodus to Utah (for which see, e.g., "Brigham Young"), Rockwell was given the important task of carrying messages between those already on their way and those who had not yet departed; the logic seems to have been that he would be hard to stop along the way (Schindler, p. 146). Eventually he was captured by Gentiles in Nauvoo -- and found to have so many guns that he could have fired 71 rounds without having to reload (Schindler, p. 147).
Schindler, p. 148, describes this as a sort of publicity stunt. With Rockwell on trial, attention would be shifted away from the rest of the Mormons. The trial was moved to a neutral county, and there were no witnesses against Rockwell (Stegner, p. 90, though he seems to think Rockwell intimidated the witnesses while Schindler gives him a more complex defence). Rockwell went free. He then became one of the pioneers Brigham Young brought along to search for the site of the New Zion (Schindler, pp. 152-153). Rockwell did much hunting and scouting on this trip. When Young selected the site of Salt Lake City, Rockwell was chosen to accompany and protect Ezra T. Benson when the latter was sent to lead the remainder of the Mormon exodus (Schindler, p. 167).
Salt Lake City, of course, was barren, and the Mormons arrived with very little. It was a desperate time. Eventually, an expedition was sent to California to try to purchase much-needed supplies, with Rockwell along as a scout. The planning for this expedition was utterly botched (Schindler, p. 171), and in the end it wasted a lot of money without bringing in much in the way of food. Rockwell, before it was over, had parted company with the commander of the expedition (Schindler, p. 172).
Rockwell soon after went on another expedition to California, to collect tithes from Mormons there (Schindler, pp. 184-185). Rockwell, left on his own while the financial types did their work, apparently tried panning for gold, then brought in whisky for a saloon (Schindler, pp. 186-187). He also won a rifle contest, which resulted in his name (which he had concealed) being revealed (Schindler, p. 190); he barely avoided lynching. Charges of murder would greet him when he returned to Utah, but of course the Mormon hierarchy supported him.
It supported him also when he led a group to settle a contract dispute, and in the complications which followed, ended up executing four Indians (Schindler, p. 196).
In 1854, Rockwell married Mary Ann Neff, who was about half his age (Schindler, pp. 197, 205). She bore him a daughter in March 1855 (Schindler, p. 217), and another in August 1856 (Schindler, p. 238).
Soon after the birth of that first child came another Samson-like incident: He had, until then, worn his hair very long. On a trip to California, he met the widow of one of Joseph Smith's brothers, who had lost her hair due to illness. Having nothing else to do for her, he cut his hair to make her a wig. From then on, he claimed, he could no longer control his urge to drink and swear (Schindler, p. 220). Of course, he soon grew his hair out again.
Despite his reputation in the Boggs affair, Rockwell's career to this point had been relatively tame. But "as the year 1855 came to a close, Rockwell, now a man of forty-two, was entering the most exciting period of his checkered career -- a time when his name would become synonymous with the mysteries and terrors of Mormonism described in the dime novels of the day" (Schindler, p. 223). Though it appears that, at first, he was more sinned against than sinning. He was nearly lynched while carrying the mail between the Mormon colony and the rest of the United States (Schindler, p. 240).
That didn't last long; the Utah War soon followed, in which the United States tried to guarantee its control over the independence-minded Mormons. The Mormons were sadly deficient in trained military officers; theoretically their forces were commanded by a Lieutenant General (a typical piece of Joseph Smith fiction; he had appointed himself to that rank because it would make him senior to every officer in the United States Army), but their actual forces would have been more suitable to a brigadier -- if they'd had anyone competent even to that office (Schindler, p. 293, quotes Captain Albert Tracy, who observed their formations: "They little seemed to know or heed the modern system of deploying of skirmishing.... [T]he 'corrals' of rock which they had erected... would have been knocked about their ears, and rendered untenable in but a brief time...").
In such a setting, it is little surprise that Rockwell, though he had never commanded troops, was given command of a cavalry company (Schindler, p. 251); he may have been illiterate, impetuous, and not particularly bright, but he was a survivor and knew both horses and weapons.
"Selecting five reliable men, Rockwell set out on the first Mormon action against the United States government" (Schindler, p. 255). He started a panic among the expeditionary force's transport mules -- only to have the mules head back for the Federal lines when the soldiers sounded the Stable Call. To add to the embarrassment, the Mormon's own horses proceeded to follow the Federal mules back to camp, leaving the raiders without mounts (Schindler, p. 256). So they slipped into the Federal lines again, and stole horses for themselves -- only to be told on their return that the horses had earlier been stolen by the Federals from the Mormons (Schindler, p. 257).
Rockwell had better luck later; the Mormon plan was for a "scorched earth policy" to deny the Federals any supplies, an Rockwell was one of those involved in clearing the land of any useful material (Schindler, p. 260). He also was involved in additional raids on the federal supply line (Bagley, p. 181), depriving the Federals of much livestock; late in the year, he would lead over 600 head of cattle into the Mormon ranks (Schindler, p. 264).
This was the period of the Mountain Meadows Massacre (for which see "The Mountain Meadows Massacre" [Laws B19]). Rockwell does not seem to have had any part of it -- but he did participate in the killing of the Aiken party, a group of (apparently) gentile con artists who had hoped to get rich preying off the Federal army (Schindler, p. 276). It will tell you something about relations between the Mormons and Gentiles at this time that Rockwell, an active guerilla and now undeniably a murderer, was still permitted to preach in church (Schindler, p. 283 n.).
He did find himself again under federal charges. A federal judge with a grudge against the Mormons had induced a grand jury to frame treason charges against much of the Mormon community, mostly unnamed -- but Rockwell was one whose name was given explicitly (Schindler, p. 284). Fortunately for him, he was included in the amnesty which ended the Utah War (Schindler, p. 288). During the negotiations which followed, Rockwell continued to serve as scout, sentry, and messenger for Brigham Young; at the beginning of the negotiations, it was Rockwell who escorted the Federal commissioners into the Mormon camp (Schindler, p. 292). As relations improved, Rockwell -- who became the father of a son late in 1858, then another in early 1860 -- began to look for a way to pick up money, and went back to serving liquor (Schindler, p. 294).
Later in 1860, two men engaged in a scheme to produce counterfeit quartermaster's notes which they could use to requisition supplies. Both would end up dead by gunfire. Schindler, pp. 307-308, seems uncertain just what happened -- but it was possible that Rockwell fired the shots.
It is interesting that it is only on p. 309 that Schindler first mentions Rockwell's slogan "Wheat!" The famous explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton, who had earlier visited Mecca and who had an interest in non-standard religion, decided to see what he could learn in Salt Lake City. There he met and drank with Rockwell -- and the Mormon said "Wheat!" because he enjoyed the contents of his glass (Schindler, p. 309). Rockwell is also said to have used the phrase "Old wheat in the mill" in referring to an easy task (Schindler, p. 347), and to have said "Wheat!" when discussing a court case with his lawyers -- seemingly to indicate disinterest in the charges against him (Schindler, p. 365).
In this period Rockwell also worked to track criminals. Schindler, p. 317, describes him winning a shootout with one wanted fugitive, and tells (p. 319) how two of the fugitive's colleagues also ended up dead by gunfire, though not shorty until after Rockwell had turned them in.
After the Utah War, Rockwell found success managing a mail-carrying outfit as well as running his inn. Schindler, p. 321, writes, "This brief interlude in Rockwell's otherwise violent existence may have been his most enjoyable era, but destiny did not plan a quiet life for Orrin Porter Rockwell." As early as 1862, he was back to fighting Indians (in this case, the Shoshone); he was one of those who lured them into what proved to be a set-piece battle against United States (Schindler, p. 327 -- though Bagley, pp. 252-253, thinks that Rockwell may have been trying to lure the Federals into an ambush).
The result was a slaughter of the natives known as the Bear Creek Massacre, which resulted in the death of at least 250 Indians. But the Europeans came close to destruction themselves due to the weather; the commanders credited Rockwell with saving them by bringing up enough transport (Schindler, p. 331). Indeed, Rockwell and the federal officer became close friends -- so close that some sources claim Rockwell confessed to him of the attempted murder of Boggs (Schindler, pp. 332-333, though it sounds as if he doesn't believe it). He continued to work with the Federals in their Indian wars in the coming years, but managed to father another daughter on Mary Ann in 1863 (Schindler, p. 335).
The Indian conflicts had, however, resulted in the death of one of Mary Ann's close friends; she insisted on leaving the area, so Rockwell moved back to Salt Lake City, then filed a claim on some ranchlands west of Sheeprock Mountain (Schindler, p. 337).
His fame, or infamy, continued to grow. Newspaper reports at this time credited him with forty or more murders (Schindler, pp. 340-341), though this may have been just an attempt to sell more papers.
In 1866, Mary Ann experienced her sixth pregnancy, dying in childbirth on August 24, with the boy dying soon after (Schindler, p. 344). Rockwell then moved again, the better to hand his contract carrying the mail (Schindler, p. 346. It is not clear to me who was watching the children during all this. Rockwell eventually was involved in a dispute over payment, but his lawyers managed to collect in full; Schindler, p. 360). It appears, though, that he mostly sold alcohol, living as quietly as a man in that occupation can do (though he once threw one of his assistant bartenders through a window; Schindler, p. 355. This brought him up before the law). He did manage to get a stake in a silver mine that became the successful Rockwell Mining Company (Schindler, p. 356).
Through it all, he remained intensely loyal to Brigham Young. When Young was charged in a murder conspiracy, and the court tried to set thing up so that he would be found in contempt for not being in court on time, it was Rockwell who rode a race to inform the Prophet of the trap and hurry him back to the court (Schindler, p. 359).
In his later years, Rockwell turned to ranching (Schindler, pp. 361-362). He also, in 1870 or 1871, took a fourth wife (Schindler, p. 360), his former housekeeper, who was 34 years old (he was 59 at the time). She bore him three girls, though the first died shortly after birth.
As long as Brigham Young was alive, he was never brought to account for his previous activities. After Young died, however, Rockwell was charged with the murder of John Aiken and arrested in 1877. Released on bail, he died of natural causes in 1878 (Schindler, pp. 365-366) -- meaning that Joseph Smith's prophecy came true: No bullet did touch him.
I wish I knew what to make of Rockwell. Schindler's biography is unhelpful -- the only assassination he seriously discusses is that of Boggs, and he nowhere says that Rockwell did it (though he does leave the impression of Rockwell's guilt). Rockwell, it is true, shot at a few others, but all in legitimate circumstances. It is, I suppose, possible that Rockwell never did go after anyone else. But it feels as if Schindler is hiding evidence -- his portrait of Rockwell is just too favorable. Rockwell's reputation was surely exaggerated, but presumably it was based on something.
Schindler, p. 362, lists two ballads about Rockwell: This one, which he knew from Burt [Roud #10880], and one beginning "Have you heard of Porter Rockwell, the Mormon Triggerite?" [Roud #10879]. - RBW
Bibliography

Bagley: Will Bagley, Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows, University of Oklahoma Press, 2002
Brodie: Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, 1945, 1971 (I use the 1995 Vintage edition)
DeVoto: Bernard DeVoto, The Year of Decision: 1846, Little, Brown and Company, 1943
Schindler: Harold Schindler, Orrin Porter Rockwell: Man of God/Son of Thunder (with illustrations by Dale Bryner), University of Utah Press, 1966, 1983 (I use the 1993 paperback edition).
Stegner: Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion: The Story of the Mormon Trail, University of Nebraska Press, 1964, 1981
Walker: Dale L. Walker, Legends and Lies: Great Mysteries of the American West, Forge, 1997

Last updated in version 2.5
File: Burt114

Old Prospector's Crime, The

DESCRIPTION: "Gather round me, people, While I speak this last one word, I am on the gallows And I'll ne'er again be heard." The singer and Hard Rock Jim are miners; the singer finds a claim, tricks Hard Rock Jim into a fight with a bear, kills him, and is executed
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1958 (Burt)
KEYWORDS: murder animal mining gold execution
FOUND IN: US(Ro)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Burt, pp. 90-91, "(The Old Prospector's Crime)" (1 text, 1 tune)
File: Burt090

Old Rattler

DESCRIPTION: Chorus: "Here, Rattler, Here." Rattler is a great tracking dog. When (Old Riley) escapes from prison, Rattler is put on his trail, and finds the man despite many distractions and even (the Brazos River) in the way
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1924 (recording, George Reneau)
KEYWORDS: dog manhunt prison escape captivity worksong chaingang floatingverses prisoner
FOUND IN: US(SE,So)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Courlander-NFM, pp. 104-105, "(Here, Rattler, Here)" (1 text, perhaps composite, plus apparently a portion of another version)
Lomax-ABFS, pp. 66-67, "Ol' Rattler" (1 text, 1 tune)
Jackson-DeadMan, pp. 282-285, "Long Hot Summer Days" (2 texts, 2 tunes); pp. 290-296, "Rattler" (4 texts, 2 tunes)
Silber-FSWB, p. 66, "Old Reilly (In Dem Long Hot Summer Days" (1 text); p. 395, "Old Rattler" (1 text, with the chorus of this song though the verses are those of "Old Tyler")
Roud #6381
RECORDINGS:
Elizabeth Cotten, "Here Old Rattler Here" (on Cotten01)
Mose "Clear Rock" Platt & James "Iron Head" Baker, "Old Rattler" (AFS 208 B1, 1934; on LC8)
Mose "Clear Rock" Platt, "Old Rattler" (AFS 205 B2) [this is a solo recording, as opposed to the duet with James "Iron Head" Baker]
George Reneau, "Here Rattler, Here" (Vocalion 14814, 1924)
Texas state farm prisoners, "Here Rattler Here" (on NPCWork)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Take This Hammer" (lyrics)
cf. "Long John (Long Gone)" (floating lyrics)
cf. "Poor Lazarus (Bad Man Lazarus)" (plot)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Here, Rattler, Here
NOTES: The "Old Reilly" version is officially credited to Huddle Ledbetter. This looks to me like Lead Belly's adaption of "Long John" -- but of course there is Lomax influence. Given that "Long John" is also derived primarily from the Lomaxes, it's hard to have any confidence about the relationship between the songs, or even their folk status. - RBW
Seeger reports that the Texas state farm prisoners from whom he collected a version of the song believed it described the escape of the prisoner Riley from Clements State Farm. - PJS
To add to all the fun, Jackson thinks that the Leadbelly-type versions which combine "Old Rattler" verses with the chorus "In the long, hot, summer days" are a composite of "Old Rattler" with an independent song which he would title "Long Hot Summer Days." At first glance, this seems reasonable, since he has a "Long Hot Summer Days" version which never mentions Rattler. But it has a lot of "Godalmighty Drag" in it. And his other version does mention Rattler. So, in desperation, I'm continuing to file "Long Hot Summer Days" versions here until we find a pure "Long Hot Summer Days" version.
Jackson of course also has "Rattler" texts with no mention of "Long Hot Summer Days." He says that the convicts he talked to considered Rattler a sort of super-dog, capable of things most other dogs could not do. This does little to clarify matters, since these versions could easily be worn down from a version which did feature long hot summer days. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.4
File: CNFM104

Old Rattler (II)

See Old Tyler (File: JRSF069)

Old Recruiting Soldier (Twa Recruiting Sergeants)

DESCRIPTION: Recruiter(s) from the Black Watch tell a ploughboy the advantages of enlisting. Leave your rotten food and work. "If you chance to get a bairn" or would leave "Three little weans and a wife" "we'll soon rid your hand of that"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1906 (GreigDuncan1)
KEYWORDS: army recruiting humorous nonballad food wife children soldier
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Greig #176, p. 1, "The Recruiting Sergeant" (2 texts)
GreigDuncan1 77, "The Recruiting Sergeant" (4 texts, 1 tune)
DT, TWARECRU
Roud #3356
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Wha Saw the Forty-Second" and references there (subject: The Black Watch)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Twas In That Year
NOTES: Greig's first version "is made to apply to the days of Queen Victoria; but there are earlier versions." His second version refers to King George; Greig's correspondent "says that the song was popular about the time of the French wars."
GreigDuncan1 quotes a song in which "words like the chorus appear in ... George Farquhar's play The Recruiting Officer (1706); the queen here is Queen Anne." - BS
For the typical British recruiting method of The King's Shilling and getting potential soldiers drunk, see the notes to "The Recruited Collier." The irony of this song is that the sergeant's recruiting technique consists mostly of telling the potential recruit of the dangers he will escape:
"O laddie, ye dinna ken the danger that ye're in, Gin yer hoorses was to flag... The greedy auld farmer he winna pay your fee...." True, of course, but pay in the British army was legendarily low and late.
"It's a slavery a' your life" to obey a farmer: And obeying a sergeant, and an officer who has the right to punish you with the lash, isn't? The British army controlled its recruits with savage disciplline.
"O laddie, gin ye hae a sweethairt or a bairn, Ye'll easily be rid o' that ill-spun yarn": The usual problem for soldiers, of course, was that they had to leave sweethearts behind. The British army in this period did make provision for bringing some wives along -- but not enough to let all the men stay with their women; competition was fierce for the few slots available for spouses.
"With your tattie porin's and yer meal and kale": Food for the plowboy at home may have been poor -- but the British hired out contracts for provisions, and the contractors often provided inadequate, rotten, and inedible food. (In the Navy, this would result in the Spithead and Nore Mutinies, for which see "Poor Parker.") Almost all formations in the British army suffered more casualties from diet-related disease than from battle.
"And it's over the mountain and over the main Through Gibralter, to France and Spain": An interesting lack of mention of India. And Sudan. And other such places, where the risk of disease and casualties were far higher, and where a soldier might spend years without seeing anyone he knew other than his messmates.
The ultimate irony, though, is that the Black Watch managed to maintain its numbers all through the eighteenth and nineteenth and even the twentieth century. Only in the twenty-first, when most of the above problems were solved, did it have to be dissolved. For background, see the notes to "Wha Saw the Forty-Second." - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: GrD1077

Old Reilly

See CNFM104 (File: CNFM104)

Old Reuben

See Reuben's Train (File: Wa133)

Old Riley

See Old Rattler (File: CNFM104)

Old Robin Gray

See Auld Robin Gray (File: Pea482)

Old Robin of Portingale [Child 80]

DESCRIPTION: Old Robin's young wife arranges with her lover Sir Gyles for 24 men to kill Robin. Warned by a page, he kills Gyles, then cuts off his wife's breasts and ears. He makes the page his heir, burns a cross into his shoulder and goes to the holy land.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1765 (Percy)
KEYWORDS: betrayal husband wife injury death fight travel lastwill
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Child 80, "Old Robin of Portingale" (1 text)
Percy/Wheatley III, pp. 50-58, "Old Robin of Portingale" (2 texts, the second being that of the folio manuscript and the first being Percy's rewrite)
OBB 53, "Old Robin of Portingale" (1 text)
Roud #3971
NOTES: This ballad is so thoroughly nasty, I'm surprised it isn't more popular. - PJS
The likely explanation is that it is literary; there is no evidence that it ever entered oral tradition. And the moral, that young women should not marry old men, is adequately taught in other songs. - RBW
File: C080

Old Roger is Dead (Old Bumpy, Old Grimes, Pompey)

DESCRIPTION: (Old Bumpy) is dead and buried. An apple tree grows from his grave. An old woman comes to gather apples. Bumpy arises from his grave and kicks the woman for her temerity
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1876 (sheet music); some similar text from 1849 (Halliwell)
KEYWORDS: burial humorous supernatural playparty
FOUND IN: US(Ap,MW,NE,SE,So) Britain(England(All),Scotland(Aber)) Ireland
REFERENCES (13 citations):
GreigDuncan8 1596, "Poor Gracie is Dead" (1 text, 1 tune)
Belden, pp. 509-511, "Old Grumbler" (3 texts plus mention of 1 more, 1 tune)
Randolph 569, "Old Bumpy" (1 text, 1 tune)
Randolph/Cohen, pp. 411-413, "Old Bumpy" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's #569)
Hudson 138, pp. 284-285, "Old Grampus" (1 text plus mention of 4 more)
Scarborough-NegroFS, pp. 136-137, "Old Ponto Is Dead" (1 text plus a fragment which might be part of this, 1 tune)
Eddy 65, "Old Granddaddy's Dead" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Flanders/Brown, pp. 182-183, "The Tommy Song or Apples are Ripe" (1 text)
Fuson, p. 186, "Old Grumbler" (1 text)
SharpAp 259, "Old Roger" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Botkin-NEFolklr, p. 585, "Pompey" (1 text, 1 tune)
LPound-ABS, 114, pp. 232-233, "Poor Robin" (1 text)
Hammond-Belfast, p. 16, "Poor Toby is Dead" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST R569 (Full)
Roud #797
RECORDINGS:
Dora Richards, "Pompey is Dead" (AFS, 1940; on LC55)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Old Limpy
Old Grimes
NOTES: Eddy quotes John Powell as writing, "This is not a song but a singing game, 'Old Roger is Dead.' It is a relic of an ancient pagan ritual...." Randolph gives details on how the game is played.
Botkin believes this originated with "Pompey! A Famous End Song," with words credited to "Mrs. K. B." and music by W. R. Dehnoff. This is possible, as I know of no collections prior to the 1876 publication of that song. But the degree of variation makes me suspect it is older.
This should not be confused with "Bohunkus (Old Father Grimes, Old Grimes Is Dead)," which also goes by the title "Old Grimes"; the forms are different, and "Bohunkus" has a plot about two competing brothers. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: R569

Old Rosin the Beau (Bow)

See Rosin the Beau (File: R846)

Old Rustic Bridge by the Mill, The

DESCRIPTION: "I'm thinking tonight of the old rustic bridge... 'Twas there, Maggie dear, with our hearts full of cheer, We strayed 'neath the moon's gentle gleam." The singer recalls their happy meeting by the bridge, and all the joys they had there
AUTHOR: Joseph P. Skelly (source: GreigDuncan6 and broadside LOCSheet sm1881 02090)
EARLIEST DATE: 1881 (broadside, LOCSheet sm1881 02090)
KEYWORDS: love courting
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (2 citations):
GreigDuncan6 1254, "The Old Rustic Bridge" (1 text)
Ord, p. 124, "The Old Rustic Bridge by the Mill" (1 text)
Roud #3792
BROADSIDES:
LOCSheet, sm1881 02090, "The Old Rustic Bridge by the Mill," Spear & Dehnhoff (New York), 1881; also sm1884 04056, "The Old Rustic Bridge by the Mill"; sm1881 03842, "Heimweh [and] The Old Rustic Bridge by the Mill" (tune)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "When You and I Were Young, Maggie" (theme)
NOTES: This feels so much like "When You and I Were Young, Maggie" (right down to the name of the girl) that I have to suspect dependence. But they aren't the same song, though they're about equally sloppy. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: Ord124

Old Sailor's Song

DESCRIPTION: No tune given, basically a poem recounting the various travails of sailors. Nine stanzas; begins "Come listen unto me a while and I will tell you then, the hardships and the misery of life on a merchantman..."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1938
KEYWORDS: sailor work hardtimes
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Colcord, pp. 138-140, "Old Sailor's Song" (1 text)
ST Colc138 (Partial)
Roud #4705
NOTES: Colcord says this was secured from Fannie Hardy Eckstorm, co-author of Minstrelsy of Maine (though it is not in that collection), which would date it to around 1927. - SL
Curiously, the song does not appear in Jean Patten Whitten's description of the Eckstorm folk song collection (Fannie Hardy Eckstorn: A Descriptive Bibliography), at least not under this title or filed under Colcord's first line.
The lyrics fit "Bold Jack Donahoe"/"Jim Jones at Botany Bay," and there are enough similarities that I think that may have been the tune intended. - RBW
File: Colc138

Old Sally Walker

See Little Sally Walker (File: CNFM157)

Old Sam Fanny

See There Was an Old Woman and She Had a Little Pig (File: E068)

Old Satan's Mad

See Free at Last AND Down by the Riverside (Study War No More) (File: FSWB368A)

Old Scout's Lament

DESCRIPTION: "Come all of you, my brother scouts, And join me in a song." The singer notes that "but few" old scouts are left alive. But the elk and buffalo are gone, and the Indians driven away: "We won great homes for gentle ones, And now, our West, goodbye."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1910
KEYWORDS: age Indians(Am.) animal cowboy work farewell
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Ohrlin-HBT 18, "The Old Scout's Lament" (1 text)
DT, OLDSCOUT
Roud #4631
File: Ohr018

Old Section Boss, The

See Jerry, Go and Ile that Car [Laws H30] (File: LH30)

Old Settler's Song,The

See Acres of Clams (The Old Settler's Song) (File: LxU055)

Old Settoo, The

DESCRIPTION: A rich farmer's daughter courts a beggar wearing an old settoo. Her father tries unsuccessfully to dissuade her. She joins the beggar begging. They get married. "The cold of winter she never knew, For every night I rolled her in my old set-too"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1925 (OLochlainn-More)
KEYWORDS: courting marriage clothes begging father
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
OLochlainn-More 26A, "The Old Settoo" (1 text, 1 tune)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The White Cockade" (tune)
cf. "A-Begging I Will Go" (theme and some lines)
NOTES: OLochlainn 26A: "Settoo = Surtout, Overcoat."
OLochlainn-More 26A shares lines with "A-Begging I Will Go": "Above all trades going sure begging is the best, When a man is tired he may sit down and rest," "When night comes on for lodgings we seek, They will put us in the barn us both to sleep" - BS
File: OLcM026A

Old Shawnee, The

See Banks of the Ohio [Laws F5]
(File: LF05)

Old Sheep Went to Sleep

DESCRIPTION: "Old sheep went to sleep And left the lambs a-feeding, Little mouse jumped over the house And set his nose a-bleeding." Other verses also tell of off moments in animal life: A mare kicks a bear, a goat jumps into a boat, a goose breaks loose
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1939 (Gardner/Chickering)
KEYWORDS: animal sheep humorous
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Gardner/Chickering 191, "Old Sheep Went to Sleep" (1 text)
ST GC191 (Partial)
Roud #3709
File: GC191

Old Ship of Zion (I), The

DESCRIPTION: Following the form of "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain": "The old ship of Zion, when she comes, when she comes." "She rocks so steady any level when she comes." "Have your lamps trimmed and burning." "Have oil in your vessels."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (Brown)
KEYWORDS: religious nonballad
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
BrownIII 623, "The Old Ship of Zion" (3 texts, but only the "A" text is certain to be this piece)
Roud #4204
RECORDINGS:
Uncle Dave Macon, "Old Ship of Zion" (Vocalion 15033, 1925)
Ernest Phipps & his Holiness Singers, "Old Ship of Zion" (Victor 20927, 1927)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain" (form, tune, lyrics)
NOTES: The references to a trimmed lamp and having oil in one's vessels are clearly an allusion to Jesus's parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, Matt. 25:1-13. - RBW
File: Br3623

Old Ship of Zion (II)

See The Ship of Zion (I, II, etc.) (File: FSC083)

Old Shoes and Leggings

See Old Man Came Over the Moor, An (Old Gum Boots and Leggings) (File: R066)

Old Smite, The

See The Wreck of the Semmity (Yosemite) (File: Pea983)

Old Smokey

See On Top of Old Smokey (File: BSoF740)

Old Smoky

See On Top of Old Smokey (File: BSoF740)

Old Soap-Gourd, The

DESCRIPTION: "Here we go round the old soap-gourd, theold soap-gourd, the old soap-gourd, Here we go round the old soap-gourd, Earlye in the morning." "The old soap-gourd likes sugar in his tea" as he finds a girl: "Rise and give me your lily-white hands."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1952 (copyrighted by Jean Ritchie)
KEYWORDS: playparty courting drink
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Ritchie-Southern, p. 62, "The Old Soap-Gourd" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #7387
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush" (form)
cf. "This Is the Way We Wash Our Clothes" (form)
NOTES: This appears to be another variation of the "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush"/"This Is the Way We Wash Our Clothes" tune group and game. But the lyrics are entirely different, so I split them. - RBW
File: RitS082

Old Soldier (I), The

See The Old Tobacco Box (File: FSC143)

Old Soldier (II), The

See Peggy and the Soldier (The Lame Soldier) [Laws P13] (File: LP13)

Old Soldiers Never Die (I)

DESCRIPTION: "There is an old cookhouse not far away Where we get sweet damn all three times a day. Ham and eggs we never see, damn all sugar in our tea, As we are gradually fading away. Old soldiers never die... They just fade away."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1951
KEYWORDS: soldier army age
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Silber-FSWB, p. 277, "Old Soldiers Never Die" (1 text)
DT, OLDSOLDR*
Roud #10521
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "There Is a Happy Land Far Away" (tune)
NOTES: The verse quoted above seems to be the only item truly characteristic of this piece. But other verses exist, often bawdy and/or scatological, describing the difficulties of army life or veterans' affairs. - RBW
File: FSWB277A

Old Southwester

See My Father's Old Sou'wester (File: Doyl3042)

Old Sow Song, The

See The Sow Took the Measles (File: LoF015)

Old Sow, The

DESCRIPTION: "And the old sow went to the barn to pig, (whistling) barn to pig, And the old sow went to the barn to pig, But never cry di dry do cry da. For old Susanna is a pretty woman." The sow and piglets may try to escape, but are stopped by the wall.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1907 (GreigDuncan8)
KEYWORDS: animal
FOUND IN: US(SE) Britain(England(Lond),Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (3 citations):
BrownIII 178, "The Old Sow" (1 fragment)
GreigDuncan8 1661, "Oor Little Pigs" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, OLDSOW
Roud #1737
RECORDINGS:
Albert Richardson, "The Old Sow" (on Voice07)
Cyril Smith, "The Old Sow Song" (Castle [UK?] 1259, n.d.)
Rudy Vallee & his Connecticut Yankees w. Cyril Smith, "The Old Sow Song" (Bluebird B-7078, 1937)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Susannah's a Funny Old Man
NOTES: The Brown text and that from the Digital Tradition have little in common, but they both mention Susanna, are about sows, and contain a lot of nonsense; it seems pointless to separate them.
The editors of Brown seemed helpless to expain their text (quoted in full in the description, though they note that several lines are apparently missing), notably the verb "to pig." I wonder if it isn't an error for "to dig." Alternately, presumably, it means "to live as a pig" or "to have piglets." - RBW
The latter, according to the Random House Dictionary. - PJS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: Br3178

Old Spencer Rifle,The

DESCRIPTION: The singer tells of Johnny's visit, and his "shooting" her with his gun, no less than seven times. John does the mother too and goes off with his gun-barrel bent.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE:
KEYWORDS: bawdy sex
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Randolph-Legman I, pp. 128-129, "The Old Spencer Rifle" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #11499
NOTES: Annotator Legman in Randolph-Legman I asserts that the melody of this apparently unique ballad is "unmistakably" similar to "Yankee Doodle." In fact, it directly quotes "Cotton-Eyed Joe." - EC
File: RL128

Old Spotted Cow, The

See The Crafty Farmer [Child 283; Laws L1] (File: C283)

Old Stable (Sable) Jacket, The

See Wrap Me Up in my Tarpaulin Jacket (File: FR439)

Old State Mill, The

DESCRIPTION: "It is pretty hard times for the farmer, Who lives by the sweat of his brow." He has to sell his cow to pay taxes, and can't pay the store But "The railroad bummers have lots of cash To spend at the Old State Mill." Times are hard many others as well
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1965 (Dunn, _The St. Croix_, from an uncited source)
KEYWORDS: farming hardtimes worker railroading
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
ADDITIONAL: James Taylor Dunn, _The St. Croix: Midwest Border River_, reprint edition with new introduction published 1979 by the Minnesota Historical Society press, pp. 256-257, [no title] (1 text)
NOTES: Dunn cites no source for this song; it sounds to me as if it might be a Grange song. But it is not just about farmers; river men, tote teamsters, and "every day men" are also singled out as being in trouble. Dunn thinks the song dates from the aftermath of the Panic of 1873.
Searching the Internet, I was unable to locate an Old State Mill in Wisconsin (although there seems to be a famous one in Ohio, and several others of lesser note). However, the stanza about river men mentions the St. Croix and Clam rivers -- which clearly localize the song to northwestern Wisconsin (the Clam is a tributary of the Saint Croix). - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: JTDST256

Old Stepstone, The

See Goodbye to My Stepstone (File: R853)

Old Stone Wall, The

DESCRIPTION: "Outside Casey's cabin there is an old stone wall." The singer recalls the sights the wall has seen: Friends meeting, youths singing, pipers playing, lovers meeting. He wishes he could live on the wall; not even a throne would be better
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1925 (Sam Henry collection)
KEYWORDS: love
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
SHenry H83, pp. 156-157, "The Old Stone Wall" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #13453
File: HHH083

Old Stormey

See Stormalong (File: Doe082)

Old Stormy

See Stormalong (File: Doe082)

Old Stumper

DESCRIPTION: Leo B MacCormack and his brother Archie agree to dig Uncle Stones's well in exchange for "skin and bones" nag Stumper. When title is questioned Stumper asks "did you get a clear receipt?" At the trial title is settled in MacCormack's favor.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1973 (Dibblee/Dibblee)
KEYWORDS: bargaining trial work humorous horse
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Dibblee/Dibblee, pp. 17-18, "Old Stumper" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #12481
NOTES: The song dates delivery of the summons March 17, 1892. - BS
File: Dib017

Old Swansea Town Once More

See Swansea Town (The Holy Ground) (File: Doe152)

Old Tamarack Dam, The

See The Wild Mustard River (Johnny Stile) [Laws C5] (File: LC05)

Old Testament in Verse (The Books of the Bible)

DESCRIPTION: "In Genesis the world was made, In Exodus the march is told, Leviticus contains the law, In Numbers are the tribes enrolled." And so on to "...And Malachi of John his sign, The Prophets number seventeen And all the books are thirty-nine."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1923 (Randolph)
KEYWORDS: Bible nonballad
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Randolph 875, "The Books of the Bible" (1 fragment)
Pankake-PHCFSB, p. 204, "Books of the Old Testament"; p. 205, "Books of the New Testament" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Roud #7540
BROADSIDES:
NLScotland, RB.m.143(073), "The Books of the Bible: A Literary Curiosity" ("In Genesis the world was made by God's creative hand"), Poet's Box (Dundee), n.d.
NOTES: In general the summaries in this song are accurate, though it is very clearly Protestant Christian -- the Catholics, e.g., add assorted deuterocanonical books to the Old Testament.
The Jewish canon contains the same books as the Protestant, but organize them differently. The number of books is not 39, but 24 (or 22): 5 books of the Law (Genesis-Deuteronomy), eight of the Prophets (Former Prophets=Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings; Later Prophets=Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve), and the rest, with some reorganization, form the Writings (note that Daniel is not one of the Prophets).
The texts in Pankake are NOT the same song as in Randolph, but they are so thematically close (and so unlikely to be looked up separately) that I just decided to lump them in here. Their two texts simply list the books of the Bible in order -- both in the Protestant order of the King James Bible (a traditional Greek Bible would put the "Catholic Epistles" of James through Jude with Acts, and might place Hebrews after 2 Thessalonians rather than Philemon).
A third anonymous poem on this general theme, "Names and Orders of the Books of the Old Testament," is found on pp. 602-603 of Hazel Felleman's The Best Loved Poems of the American People.
The greatest myster of all may be the relationship between the Randolph text and the NLScotland broadside. They have very many common lyrics, but the Randolph text is in short lines and the Scottish version in long. A rewrite seems likely, but how it proceeded is unclear at best.- RBW
File: R875

Old Texas

See Going to Leave Old Texas (Old Texas, Texas Song, The Cowman's Lament) (File: FCW066E)

Old Timbrook Blues

DESCRIPTION: Race between Timbrook & Molly; Timbrook races "like a bullet from a gun", while Molly creeps along "like a criminal to be hung." Singer addresses jockey Johnny Walker. Timbrook beats Molly "to the hole in the wall." Singer says old mistress lost her "mon"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1930 (recording, John Byrd)
LONG DESCRIPTION: Race between Timbrook & Molly; Timbrook races "like a bullet from a gun", while Molly creeps along "like a criminal to be hung." Singer addresses jockey Johnny Walker, telling him to hold Timbrook's reins tight. On the windy race day, "you couldn't see old Timbrook as he come darting by." Everyone shouts, but Timbrook beats Molly "to the hole in the wall." Singer says he loves his racehorse; "old mistress went to the racecourse, lost all of her mon." Song also incorporates the "fourth day of July" verse from "The Cuckoo"
KEYWORDS: gambling horse
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
July 4, 1878 - race between Ten Broeck and Miss Mollie McCarthy (won by Ten Broeck)
FOUND IN: US
RECORDINGS:
John Byrd, "Old Timbrook Blues" (Paramount 12997, 1930; on StuffDreams1)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Molly and Tenbrooks" [Laws H27] (subject)
cf. "Timbrook" (subject)
cf. "The Cuckoo" (inexplicable floating verse)
NOTES: Obviously this describes the same events as "Molly and Tenbrooks" and "Timbrook." However, it does not share lyrics or tune with either of those songs, so I classify it separately. So far as I know, it's the only occurrence of the story in African-American tradition -- unless you count Henry Thomas's "Run, Mollie, Run," which includes the title phrase but none of the story.
The verse from "The Cuckoo" ("The cuckoo was a fine bird, hollered when he fly/But he never hollers cuckoo til the fourth day o' July") makes no sense until you note that the race between Ten Broek and Miss Mollie was held on July 4, 1878. - PJS
File: RcOTimbB

Old Time Cowboy (Melancholy Cowboy)

DESCRIPTION: "Come all you melancholy folks wherever you may be, I'll sing about the cowboy whose life is light and free." We are told "his heart is gay," "they're a little bit rough... but if you do not hunt a quarrel you can live with them in peace," etc.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1908
KEYWORDS: cowboy nonballad
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Thorp/Fife XIX, pp. 240-243 (40-41), "Old Time Cowboy" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Ohrlin-HBT 17, "Old-Time Cowboy" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #8046
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Come All Ye Melancholy Folks
File: TF19

Old Time Religion, (The)

See That Old Time Religion (File: R628)

Old Time Sealer's Song

DESCRIPTION: "We'll sound the hardy sealers praise, a wild and cheerful strain...." The singer notes that merchant vessels stop travelling in winter, but sealers work through all the dark. stormy months. At last they can come home from the ice
AUTHOR: "Mr. Webber... of Harbour Grace" ?
EARLIEST DATE: 1902 (Murphy, Songs and Ballads of Newfoundland, Ancient and Modern); dated by Murphy to 1842
KEYWORDS: hunting ship work
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Ryan/Small, pp. 18-19, "Old Time Sealer's Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST RySm018 (Partial)
File: RySm018

Old Time Sealers, The

DESCRIPTION: "The bells they are ringing, the sirens are screaming... The sealing fleet's ready to leave port once more." As snow blows in, the fleet sails. The singer tells of the hunt; he says sealers face dangers greater than mountain climbers or big game hunters
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1964 (Newfoundland Stories and Ballads)
KEYWORDS: hunting ship bragging
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Ryan/Small, pp. 138-139, "The Old Time Sealers" (1 text, 1 tune)
File: RySm138

Old Timer's Song, The

See The Day Columbus Landed Here (File: FJ178)

Old Tippecanoe

DESCRIPTION: "The times are bad and want curing, They're getting past all enduring, Let us turn out old Martin Van Buren, And put in old Tippicanoe." A political song, this piece points out the depressed economic conditions and Tippicanoe's humble origins.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1940 (Warner)
KEYWORDS: political hardtimes derivative
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Dec 2, 1840 - William Henry Harrison defeats Martin Van Buren
Mar 4, 1841 - Harrison (the first Whig to be elected President) is inaugurated. He gives a rambling inaugural address in a rainstorm and catches cold
April 4, 1841 - Harrison dies of pneumonia, making him the first president to fail to complete his term. After some hesitation, Vice President John Tyler is allowed to succeed as President
FOUND IN: US(NE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Warner 73, "Old Tippecanoe" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST Wa073 (Full)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "We Won't Go Home Until Morning" (tune) and references there
cf. "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" (subject)
cf. "Tippecanoe" (subject)
cf. "Harrison Campaign Song" (subject)
NOTES: When Andrew Jackson stepped down as President, he hand-chose Martin Van Buren as his successor. It was Van Buren's misfortune to suffer the consequences of Jackson's questionable economic policies (Jameson, p. 480). May 10 is traditionally considered the first day of the Panic of 1837, in which hundreds of banks failed. Almost all halted specie payment at least for a while (Morison, p. 455). The economic consequences lasted until the early 1840s, and made Van Buren, and indeed the whole Democratic party, extremely unpopular.
Harrison's campaign, on the Whig ticket, was far from honest. (Morison, p. 456, calls the election of 1840 the "jolliest and most idiotic presidential contest in our history"). He ran as a frontiersman (his election strategy is referred to as the "Log Cabin and Cider" campaign) even though he was a southern aristocrat -- born in Virginia (DeGregorio, p. 139) although he spent much of his later life in the Midwest (he was Governor of Indiana Territory 1800-1812 and congressman and senatory from Ohio 1819-1828; DeGregorio, pp. 141-142). As Holt says on p. 106, "William Henry Harrison was neither poor nor the resident of a log cabin." But the Democrats had tried what we would now call negative campaigning, and the Whigs responded by making "log cabins, hard cider, and the accompanying coonskins... the dominant symbols of a symbol-laden campaign."
Holt notes (p. 100) that the Whigs, having been trounced by Van Buren in 1836, had little choice: "Harrison, recognizing the potential damage of [Whig defeats in local elections in 1838-1839], moved astutely to separate himself from the party's loosses and to reemphasize his popularity among non-Whig voters. His message was clear. The Whig part could no longer win on its issues, but Harrison could still win on personal charisma." And he had a point: The Whigs in their roughly two decades of existence (they formed to oppose Jackson and fell apart after the election of 1852) managed to elect only two candidates, both generals: Harrison in 1840 and Zachary Taylor in 1848.
Harrison ran as a successful soldier, even though his only military exploits were the slaughter of Tecumseh's Shawnee and allies on the Tippecanoe River (and that only because Tecumseh himself wasn't present and in his absence the warriors attacked Harrison's defensive position; Mahon, pp. 24-27; also p. 63, which notes that Harrison actually resigned his commission due to the controversy over the battle) and some minor maneuverings on the Great Lakes during the War of 1812 after the Battle of Lake Erie (for which see "James Bird" [Laws A5]) had opened the way.
But it didn't matter; people would have taken anything in preference to Van Buren. This song, sung to the tune of "I Won't Be Home Until Morning/The Bear Went Over the Mountain," betrays the simplistic popular view of the campaign.
To be as fair as I can (probably fairer than Harrison deserves), his exploits against the Indians did open the way for much American expansion. Berton, pp. 53-68, tells how the great Shawnee Tecumseh, and his brother the Prophet, were gradually building a coalition of tribes that might be strong enough to halt American expansion. Harrison was determined to stop it -- and his timing was brilliant: He waited until Tecumseh was too far away to interfere, and then lured the Prophet into battle.
According to Berton, p. 69, "The Battle of Tippecanoe is not the glorious victory that Harrison, down through the years, will proclaim. It is not even a battle, more a minor skirmish, and indecisive, for Harrison, despite his claim, loses far more men than the Indians. Overbolown in the history books, this brief fracas has two significant results: it is the chief means by which Harrison will propel himself into the White House... and, for the Indians, it will be the final incident that provokes them to follow Tecumseh to Canada, there to fight on the British side in the War of 1812.
"Tippecanoe is unnecessary. It is fought only because Harrison needs it to further his own ambitions." Furthering his own ambitions is something at which he was always amazingly successful.
Berton, pp. 75-76, describes the casualties of Tippecanoe as follows: "Harrison has lost almost one-fifth of his force [pf roughly a thousand men].Thirty-seven white corpses lie ssprawled on the battlefield. One hundred and fifty men have been wounded of whom twenty-five will die of their injuries.... No one can be sure how many Indians took part in the skirmish. Nobody know howmany died. Harrison, like most military commanders, overstimates the enemy's losses, declar[ing] that the Prophet's casualties run into the hundreds. This is wishful thinking; only thirty-six Indian corpses are found." Harrison did, however, hold the field, and as a result was able to burn the Prophet's settlement -- and the food supplies left there; he may have caused more casualties by starvation than he did in the battle.
But he also increased Tecumseh's desire for blood, and Tecumseh was a much more formidable leader than his brother the Prophet could ever hope to be.
The 1840 election was full of rather silly campaign songs; Holt, p. 106, quotes another:
Farewell, dear Van,
You�re not our man;
To guide the ship
We'll try old Tip.
According to Holt, p. 111, the Democrats responded with
Hush-a-by-baby;
Daddy's a Whig,
Before he comes home
Hard Cider he'll swig.
Then he'll be Tipsy
And over he'll fall;
Down will come Daddy,
Tip, Tyler and all. - RBW
Bibliography

Berton: Pierre Berton, The Invasion of Canada [Volume I], 1812-1813, Atlantic-Little Brown, 1980
DeGregorio: William A. DeGregorio, The Complete Book of U. S. Presidents, fourth edition, Barricade Books, 1993
Holt: Michael F. Holt, The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War, Oxford, 1999
Jameson: J. Franklin Jameson's Dictionary of United States History 1492-1895, Puritan Press, 1894
Mahon: John K. Mahon, The War of 1812, 1972 (I used the undated Da Capo paperback edition)
Morison: Samuel Eliot Morison, The Oxford History of the American People (Oxford, 1965)

Last updated in version 2.5
File: Wa073

Old Tobacco Box, The (There Was an Old Soldier)

DESCRIPTION: "There was an old (soldier) and he had a wooden leg. He had no tobacco; no tobacco could he beg." He asks a comrade for tobacco, and is refused. He is told to save; then he will have tobacco. He gets even by stabbing the other with a splinter from his leg
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (Sandburg)
KEYWORDS: soldier humorous begging drugs injury
FOUND IN: US(Ap,MA,MW,Ro)
REFERENCES (11 citations):
Warner 182, "The Old Geezer" (1 text, 1 tune)
FSCatskills 143, "The Old Tobacco Box" (1 text, 1 tune)
Brewster 93, "The Soldier's Song" (1short text)
Sandburg, pp. 432-433, "There Was an Old Soldier" (1 text, 1 tune)
Flanders/Brown, p. 50, "The Auld Soldier" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber-CivWar, p. 32, "There Was an Old Soldier" (1 text, 1 tune)
Beck 91, "The Old Geezers" (1 text)
Silber-FSWB, p. 242, "There Was An Old Soldier" (1 text)
Darling-NAS, p. 258, "The Old Soldier" (1 text)
Pankake-PHCFSB, p. ,143 "The Was an Old Geezer" (1 text, tune referenced; this is a partial parody but consists mostly of traditional elements)
DT, (TURKST2)
Roud #3342
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Turkey in the Straw" (tune & meter) and references there
NOTES: This piece is often sung to the tune of Turkey in the Straw, and the lyrics often float back and forth, but also exists on its own with its own tune (as was vehemently pointed out by the Warners' informant, Tom P. Smith; Jerome S. Epstein calls it similar to "The Red Haired Boy," but it's Ionian).
It is often listed as a Civil War song, and probably is, but I have not been able to find any Civil War reference to this which clearly distinguishes it from "Turkey in the Straw."
On the other hand, the Civil War is one of the few wars in which a man with a wooden leg really could be on fairly active duty. As the war dragged on, and the number of crippled soldiers rose, the Union in 1863 decided to recruit an "Invalid Corps," later renamed the "Veteran Reserve Corps" (Catton, pp. 143-144). The men were classified as "first battalion" men, considered to be fit for garrison duty away from the front lines, and "second battalion" men, who were no longer fit enough even to carry a musket (they were supposed to serve in hospitals as nurses and cooks, according to Boatne's, article on the "Veteran Reserve Corps").
Yet Catton, pp. 144-146, tells how 166 of these poor second battalion men were once sent out to march and fight at Belle Plain. They naturally had to travel without knapsacks (more than half the men in their unit had been unable to march at all), so it would have been perfectly reasonable, on that occasion, for a soldier with a wooden leg to be in the front lines and begging for tobacco. I doubt that explains the origin of the song -- but it *could* have happened.
We might note that there were also a fair number of officers with wooden legs, the most senior being Confederate Lieutenant General Richard Ewell (who was wounded during the Second Bull Run campaign; Harpers, p. 385) and full General John Bell Hood (who lost the leg at Chickamauga; Harpers, p. 546. He had earlier lost the use of an arm at Gettysburg). As officers, however, they were permitted to ride rather than march -- Hood, in fact, had to be strapped to his horse, though Ewell was able to mount and dismount on his own. We might also add that, though both had been fine division commanders before being wounded, neither performed very well following amputation and promotion. Ewell's hesitation at Gettysburg may have cost the Confederates that battle; Hood's performance in the Atlanta and Nashville campaigns finally doomed the Confederacy.)
For whatever reason, the Union doesn't seem to have had as many active-duty officers who lost legs. At least, I can't recall reading of many. Daniel Sickles lost his at Gettysburg (Harpers, p. 512), but he was an incompetent and was put on the shelf after that -- indeed, it was his incompetent direction of his corps which cost him his leg. There was a young fool named Ulric Dahlgren who led a cavalry raid on Richmond after losing a leg, but he was only a colonel -- and was killed in the Dahlgren Raid, his only active service after his injury (Harpers, p. 523). There were some fairly senior men who had lost an arm -- Philip Kearney (who lost his left arm in the Mexican War; Boatner, p. 449) and Oliver O. Howard (who lost his right arm at Fair Oaks; Boatner, p. 413), But losing an arm doesn't seem to have been as debilitating as losing a leg. Hard to shoot a musket, though....
The versions called "The Soldier's Song" should not be confused with the song of that name which is the national anthem of Ireland. - RBW
Bibliography

Boatner: Mark M. Boatner III, The Civil War Dictionary, 1959 (there are many editions of this very popular work; mine is a Knopf hardcover)
Catton: Bruce Catton, A Stillness at Appomattox, Doubleday, 1953
Harpers: Alfred H. Guernsey and Henry M. Alden, Harper's Pictorial History of the Great Rebellion in the United States, 1866 (I use the facsimile published by The Fairfax Press as Harper's Pictorial History of the Civil War; this is undated but was printed in the late Twentieth Century)

Last updated in version 2.5
File: FSC143

Old Tom Bolen (Tom Boleyn II)

DESCRIPTION: "Old Tom Bolen, his horse Beaver, Forked Deer and Hatchee River, My wife's dead and I'm a widower, And I'll go back to Rollin' River."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1941 (Randolph)
KEYWORDS: animal death
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Randolph 425, "Old Tom Boleyn" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
Roud #7632
NOTES: Randolph tentatively links this song to the minstrel piece "Way Down South in Alabama," containing the lines "My wife's dead and I'm a widder, All de way from Roarin' Ribber." Since we're speculating, is there any possibility that these are the fiddler's mnemonic for "Forked Deer"? (I concede the tunes are not the same.) - RBW
File: R425

Old Tom Cat, The

DESCRIPTION: "An old lady sat by the fire, An she thought no one was nigh her... And she pulled up her petticoat higher." "The old tom cat saw something naked, an for a rat or a mouse did take it," and attacks, with raucous results
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1976 (collected by Logsdon from Riley Neal)
KEYWORDS: bawdy animal fight humorous
FOUND IN: US(SW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Logsdon 46, pp. 228-229, "The Old Tom Cat" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #10102
File: Logs046

Old Tommy Kendal

See This Old Man (File: FSWB390C)

Old Travelling Man, The

See Traveling Man (Traveling Coon) (File: RcTMTC)

Old Turkey Hen, The

DESCRIPTION: "Seven years a-boiling, Ho-ma-hala-way, Seven years a-baking, Ho-ma-hala-way." "They blowed the horn for dinner... The people could not eat her." "They carried her to the old field... The buzzards could not eat her...."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1924 (Brown)
KEYWORDS: bird food humorous
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
BrownIII 203, "The Old Turkey Hen" (1 text)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Old Gray Goose (I) (Lookit Yonder)"
NOTES: Paul Stamler suggests that this is a version of "The Old Gray Goose (I) (Lookit Yonder)." There are similarities of both plot and lyrics; he may well be right. In fact, I think it more likely than not that he's right. But just enough doubts remain that I'm tentatively keeping them separate. - RBW
File: Br3203

Old Tyler

DESCRIPTION: "Old (Tyler/Napper) was a good old dog, We thought he'd treed a coon, But when we come to find it out Old Tyler was barking at the moon...." The song tells of Tyler's eccentricities and how Allegheny finally shot the animal
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1936 (Hudson)
KEYWORDS: dog death animal
FOUND IN: US(Ap,So)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Hudson 76, p. 203, "Old Napper" (1short text, mostly floating verses)
Ritchie-SingFam, pp. 69-70, "[Old Tyler]" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber-FSWB, p. 395, "Old Rattler" (1 text, evidently this song from the verses, though it has the chorus from "Old Rattler")
Roud #5712
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Napper"
NOTES: This is a bit of a conundrum. The Ritchie family's "Old Tyler" is a coherent song, but its first verse floats, and the other songs here are all mixed up. And, of course, the name of the dog varies, e.g. Hudson's text seems to call him "Napper."
Then there is the Brown collection, which has a pair of fragments about "Napper" or "Old Napper." It's clearly not the same as Old Tyler; Napper is a human who fools around with the singer's wife. But the form hints that there is continuous variation between the two. - RBW
File: JRSF069

Old Uncle Noah

DESCRIPTION: "Old Uncle Noah built him an ark / He built it out of hemlock bark... The animals went in two by two / The elephant and the kangaroo... Mrs. Noah she got drunk / She kicked old Noah out of his bunk..."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1925 (Scarborough)
KEYWORDS: Bible humorous nonballad flood
FOUND IN: US(MW,SE)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Scarborough-NegroFS, p. 181, (no title) (1 text)
BrownIII 544, "Noah's Ark" (2 short texts, both of the "Gideon's Band" type)
Eddy 75, "Old Uncle Noah" (1 text)
Courlander-NFM, pp. 44-45, (no title) (partial text, which may go here or elsewhere); pp. 246-247, "Noah, Noah" (1 tune, partial text, same as the reference on p. 44)
ST E075 (Partial)
Roud #5355
RECORDINGS:
Al Hopkins & His Buckle Busters, "Gideon's Band" (Brunswick 295, 1929; rec. 1928)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "One More River" (lyrics)
cf. "Who Built the Ark?" (subject)
cf. "Old Noah Built an Ark" (subject)
cf. "Noah Built the Ark" (subject)
cf. "In Frisco Bay (A Long Time Ago; Noah's Ark Shanty)" (subject)
NOTES: The account of Noah and the ark occupies Genesis 6-8. One should perhaps note that, while Genesis 6:20 records that Noah took two of every animal, 7:2 tells Noah to take SEVEN pairs of all clean animals.
The Bible also records that Noah "was the first to plant a vineyard" (Gen. 9:20 -- after the flood, one might note). 9:21 records his first episode of drunkenness -- but there is no record of his wife ever drinking; indeed, she is never mentioned in the Bible except in references to Noah's whole family.
The "Gideon's Band" subfamily (marked by the chorus "Do you belong to Gideon's Band, Here's my heart and here's my hand") is quite distinct and may contain verses not about Noah (as, e.g., in the Buckle Busters recording), but since it seems always to include the Noah's Ark verses also, it can't really be split off. - RBW
File: E075

Old Virginny Never Tire

DESCRIPTION: Floating verses: "There is a gal in our town... The hollow of her foot makes a hole in the ground." "As I was walking... I met a terrapin and a toad." Chorus: "Old folks, young folks, clear the kitchen (x2), Old Virginny never tire."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1925 (Scarborough)
KEYWORDS: animal floatingverses nonballad
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
BrownIII 413, "Clare de Kitchen" (1 text)
Scarborough-NegroFS, p. 109, "Ol' Virginny Never Tire" (1 text, 1 tune); also some fragments (of this or something) on p. 110; also pp. 110-112 (no title) (1 unusually long text, attributed to T. Rice; curiously, this appears to be identical except for orthography to the version in Hazel Felleman, _The Best Loved Poems of the American People_, pp. 466-467)
Roud #751
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Old Gray Mare (I) (The Old Gray Horse; The Little Black Bull)"
cf. "Charleston Gals" (style)
cf. "Poor Old Man (Poor Old Horse; The Dead Horse)" (floating lyrics)
cf. "Turkey in the Straw" (floating lyrics)
NOTES: This, like "Charleston Gals," is one of those hard-to-assess songs, since nearly ever word floats. Roud lumps it with the even more amorphous "The Old Gray Mare (I) (The Old Gray Horse; The Little Black Bull)" family. It appears to me, though, that the chorus is distinct enough and widespread enough that the two should be kept separate. - RBW
File: ScaNF109

Old Wether's Skin, The

See The Wife Wrapt in Wether's Skin [Child 277] (File: C277)

Old Widow's Broom, The

See Courting the Widow's Daughter (Hard Times) [Laws H25] (File: LH25)

Old Wife of Slapsadam, The (The Wily Auld Carle; The Old Woman in Dover; etc.)

See Marrowbones [Laws Q2] (File: LQ02)

Old Wife, The

See Auld Wife beyont the Fire, The (File: CW128)

Old Woman

See Crockery Ware (File: Pea257)

Old Woman All Skin and Bones, The

See Skin and Bones (The Skin and Bones Lady) (File: R069)

Old Woman and Her Pig, The

See There Was an Old Woman and She Had a Little Pig (File: E068)

Old Woman and the Devil, The

See The Farmer's Curst Wife [Child 278] (File: C278)

Old Woman and the Little Pig, The

See There Was an Old Woman and She Had a Little Pig (File: E068)

Old Woman and the Little Pigee, The

See There Was an Old Woman and She Had a Little Pig (File: E068)

Old Woman and the Pig, The

See There Was an Old Woman and She Had a Little Pig (File: E068)

Old Woman from Boston, The

See Marrowbones [Laws Q2] (File: LQ02)

Old Woman in Dover, The

See Marrowbones [Laws Q2] (File: LQ02)

Old Woman of Blighter Town, The

See Marrowbones [Laws Q2] (File: LQ02)

Old Woman Who Went to Market, The (The Old Woman and the Pedlar)

DESCRIPTION: "There was a little woman, as I've heard tell, Fol loll, diddle diddle dol, She went to market her eggs for to sell." She falls asleep along the road. A peddlar cuts off her skirts at the knee. Panic ensues when she awakens
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1784 (Wallis, according to Opie-Oxford2)
KEYWORDS: humorous drink theft thief disguise
FOUND IN: US(NE)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Linscott, pp. 258-259, "The Old Woman Who Went to Market" (1 text, 1 tune)
Opie-Oxford2 535, "There was a little woman" (1 text plus a text of "The Wee Wifikie")
Baring-Gould-MotherGoose #257, p. 159, "(There was an old woman, as I've heard tell)"
Roud #3740
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 28(253), "The Little Woman and Her Eggs," J.Crome (Sheffield), c.1817
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Wee Wifikie" (theme, lyrics)
NOTES: This has to be related somehow to "The Wee Wifikie." But the nature and direction of the dependence is unclear. If I had to guess, I'd say this came first, because the idea of a peddlar cutting off the woman's *skirt* (which obviously has sexual implications) might be softened by having him cut off her hair. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: Lins258

Old Woman, Old Woman

See The Deaf Woman's Courtship (File: R353)

Old Woman, Old Woman, Shall We Go A-Shearing?

See The Deaf Woman's Courtship (File: R353)

Old Woman, The

See Marrowbones [Laws Q2] (File: LQ02)

Old Woman's Blind Husband, The

See Marrowbones [Laws Q2] (File: LQ02)

Old Woman's Story, An

See Marrowbones [Laws Q2] (File: LQ02)

Old Yellow's Dead

DESCRIPTION: "Allen says, 'Ma, bring here a pry, I think Old Yellow's a-going to die.' Louis says, 'What'll I eat with bread, For they tell me that Old Yellow is dead.'" The crew sets out to skin the animal; Allen blisters his hands tanning it; they haul the hide away
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1931 (Fuson)
KEYWORDS: animal death
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Fuson, pp. 102-103, "Old Yellow's Dead" (1 text)
ST Fus102 (Partial)
Roud #4285
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Jawbone Song" (chorus form)
NOTES: I have a strange feeling that this is somehow related to a historical event -- perhaps a political piece. But the references are too local for me even to hazard a guess as to what. It's one of those pieces that makes nonsense out of context.
If it is a political piece, it was probably built around "The Jawbone Song." - RBW
File: Fus102

Old Zip Coon

DESCRIPTION: "Ole Zip Coon he is a larned scholar (x3), Sings possum up a gum tree an coony in a holler." Chorus: "O Zip a duden duden duden zip a duden day (x4)." The remaining verses are quatrains about the people and animals of the south
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1834 (five different sheet music editions)
KEYWORDS: animal humorous nonballad
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Jan 8, 1815 - Battle of New Orleans. Americans under Andrew Jackson defeat British troops under Pakenham (the event is referred to obliquely in stanza 6 of the sheet music)
FOUND IN: US(NE,SE,So)
REFERENCES (7 citations):
RJackson-19CPop, pp. 258-260, "Zip Coon" (1 text, 1 tune)
Linscott, pp. 101-103, "Old Zip Coon" (1 tune plus dance instructions)
BrownIII 418, "Old Zip Coon" (1 text plus mention of 1 more)
Belden, pp. 505-506, "Zip Coon" (1 text, minus the chorus but with the other characteristics of the piece)
Lomax-FSNA 49, "Turkey in the Straw" (2 text, 1 tune, the second being "Zip Coon")
Spaeth-ReadWeep, pp. 17-19, "Zip Coon" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fuld-WFM, pp. 591-592, "Turkey in the Straw (Zip Coon)"
ST RJ19258 (Full)
Roud #4358
RECORDINGS:
Arkansas Charlie [pseud. for Charlie Craver], "Old Zip Coon (Vocalion 5384, c. 1930)
Hindermyer & Tuckerman [Goldy & Dusty], "Zip Coon" (Edison 51830, 1926)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Turkey in the Straw" (tune & meter) and references there
cf. "The Old Tobacco Box (There Was an Old Soldier)" (tune, floating lyrics)
cf. "The Ould Bog Hole" (tune)
NOTES: Generally regarded as a the forerunner of "Turkey in the Straw." And its lyrics are absurd enough to make "Turkey" seem eminently sensible.
At least three people have claimed authorship of the song: George Washington Dixon (mentioned but not credited on the earliest sheet music), George Nichols, and Bob Farrell. All three were early blackface performers of the piece (Farrell was actually called "Zip Coon," and is reported to have sung the song in 1834). The dispute over authorship probably cannot be settled at this time. - RBW
File: RJ19258

Old Zip Coon (II)

DESCRIPTION: "White man in his cotton field, doin' pretty well; Nigger in his melon patch, givin' his melons -- Hallelujah, Old Zip Coon, keep singin'...." "Lord made Adam and Eve, An' they done pretty well, Soon as he turned his back on Eve, she gave them apples --"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1942 (Randolph)
KEYWORDS: nonballad animal religious wordplay
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Randolph 293, "Old Zip Coon" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #4358
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Hallelujah" (technique)
File: R293

Old-Time Cowboy

See Old Time Cowboy (Melancholy Cowboy) (File: TF19)

Old-Time Sealing Fleet, The

DESCRIPTION: "Newfoundland has many stories that can make a heart beat fast." The singer recalls how the sealing fleet excited him as a boy. He tells how seeing seals inspired them, and of past disasters. He says that Newfoundlanders can still dream of heroic deeds
AUTHOR: A. R. Scammell
EARLIEST DATE: 1945 (Scammell, Songs of a Newfoundlander)
KEYWORDS: hunting ship disaster
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Ryan/Small, pp. 140-141, "The Old-Time Sealing Fleet" (1 text, 1 tune)
File: RySm140

Olden Days

DESCRIPTION: Kate is married in "1602." There's a dance followed by drink, partying, and a friendly fight.
AUTHOR: Chris Cobb
EARLIEST DATE: 1952 (Peacock)
KEYWORDS: wedding fight dancing drink music party humorous
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Peacock, pp. 79-80, "Olden Days" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #9951
NOTES: Peacock writes "Chris Cobb is, of course, kidding about the date '1602.' The wedding party actually took place in Barred Islands, and Cris composed this song to commemorate the event and to entertain the people who had been there." - BS
File: Pea079

Olden Memories

DESCRIPTION: The singer recalls "thrilling stories of the past." "Round the cairns where great ones lie, Their bold requiem, 'No Surrender' lives while soulless slanderers die" Past heroic deeds are like seedlets that may flower in the present.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1987 (OrangeLark)
KEYWORDS: Ireland nonballad patriotic
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
OrangeLark 1, "Olden Memories" (1 text)
NOTES: OrangeLark: "As the original air was unknown this song has been set to the Hornpipe, 'The Humours of Enniskean.'" OrangeLark does not cite sources. It may not have been sung.
For the reference to "No Surrender," see "No Surrender (I)." - BS
(See also "The Siege of Derry," about the event which inspired the slogan. - RBW)
File: OrLa001

Ole Aunt Kate

See Old Aunt Kate (File: ScaNF099)

Ole Banghum

See Sir Lionel [Child 18] (File: C018)

Ole from Norway

DESCRIPTION: Dialect song in which Ole describes coming to the north woods and gives a few details of how he works driving logs down the river. "Ay yus come down from Minnesota/Ay been in this part 'bout three year" but protests that Ole is not his name.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1926 (Rickaby)
KEYWORDS: lumbering work humorous
FOUND IN: US(MW,Ro)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Rickaby 36, "Ole from Norway" (1 text)
Beck 8, "Ole from Norway" (1 text)
ST Be008 (Partial)
Roud #8867
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Swede from North Dakota" (theme)
NOTES: Without a tune it's impossible to be sure, but the verses suggest that this is a variant of "The Swede from North Dakota" with an added chorus. - PJS
I thought the same thing upon seeing it, but the version in Rickaby doesn't quite fit the tune of "The Swede." It may also be older; Rickaby's informant claimed to have learned it c. 1895. If anything, I suspect the dependence goes the other way. - RBW
File: Be008

Ole Lady

See Four Nights Drunk [Child 274] (File: C274)

Ole Mars'r Had a Yaller Gal

See Don't Get Weary Children (Massa Had a Yellow Gal) (File: BAF904)

Ole Marse John

See Mourner, You Shall Be Free (Moanish Lady) (File: San011)

Ole Massa's Going Away

DESCRIPTION: "Ole Massa's goin' away, boys, He's goin' to see his brother. We'll wait till he gets out of sight, Then we'll throw down the hoe and shovel."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1952 (Brown)
KEYWORDS: work slave brother
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
BrownIII 215, "Ole Massa's Going Away" (1 fragment)
NOTES: Despite the fact that this seems to be spoken by slaves, I suspect this is a minstrel tune. Most slaves on a plantation large enough to have multiple field workers would be bossed by overseers, not the master. - RBW
File: Br215

Ole Mister Rabbit (I'll Get You Rabbit)

DESCRIPTION: "Ole Mister Rabbit, You're in a mighty habit, Gwine in mah garden, Cuttin' down mah cabbage. Um-hum -- um-hum." "Ole Mister Rabbit, Your hair look brown, You'se gwine so fas', You'se hittin' de groun'." The singer tries to get back at the rabbit
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1925 (Scarborough)
KEYWORDS: animal food nonballad
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Scarborough-NegroFS, pp. 174-175, "Ole Mister Rabbit" (2 short texts, 1 tune)
ST ScaNF174 (Full)
Roud #10058
NOTES: Roud links together several rabbit songs under one number: "Mister Rabbit," "Ole Mister Rabbit (I'll Get You Rabbit)," even "Rabbit Hash." All are about rabbits raiding gardens (something they certainly do) and the attempts to punish them for it (rarely successful, even with modern technology). But the forms are quite distinct, so I split them. - RBW
File: ScaNF174

Oleana

See Oleanna (File: LoF042)

Oleanna

DESCRIPTION: The singer sings the praises of "Ole, Oleanna," where "land is free," the crops grow themselves, the livestock cooks itself, and "the poorest wretch... becomes a king in a year or so."
AUTHOR: Norwegian Words: Ditmar Meidell (English words by Pete Seeger and others)
EARLIEST DATE: 1853 (Krydseren, March 5 issue)
KEYWORDS: emigration farming money talltale nonballad
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Lomax-FSNA 42, "Oleanna" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber-FSWB, p. 47, "Oleanna" (1 text)
DT, OLEOLEAN*
ADDITIONAL:Theodore Blegen and Martin B. Ruud, editors & Translators, _Norwegian Emigrant Songs and Ballads_, University of Minnesota press, 1936/Arno Press, 1979, pp, 187-197, "Oleana" (1 Norwegian text with literal English translation, 1 tune)
Rochelle Wright and Robert L. Wright, _Danish Emigrant Ballads and Songs_, Southern Illinois University Press, 1983, #105, pp. 222-223, 274-275, "I Oleana Der Er Det Godt at Vaere" (1 Danish text with literal English translation, 1 tune)
RECORDINGS:
Pete Seeger, "Oleanna" (on PeteSeeger10) (on PeteSeeger12)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Darling Neddeen" (absurdist sorts of claims for the town)
NOTES: Ole Bull was a Norwegian fiddler who tried to found a colony in Pennsylvania. Despite his extravagant hopes for the settlement (satirized in this song), it was too poor and too far from transportation arteries, and eventually failed.
Bull, incidentally, was quite a character, playing both violin for classical pieces and hardanger fiddle for folk dances. He was a fervent Norwegian patriot, and Oleana (the usual spelling) was not his only attempt to help other Norwegians find a better life, though it was the most spectacular.
Bull inspired several books; the most recent, as far as I know, is Einar Haugen and Camilla Cai, Ole Bull: Norway's Romantic Musician and Cosmopolitan Patriot, University of Wisconsin Press, 1993. It devoted 22 pages to the short life of the Oleana colony, which theoretically was active from 1852 to 1857 but which really existed only for part of 1853.
The original tune to this was apparently called "Rio Janeiro" (so Wright/Wright), but there are several tunes -- e.g. the one you've probably heard from Pete Seeger or his imitators is not the same as the one in Blegen, though they started from the same roots. The Danish tune in Wright/Wright diverges even more, to my ears. - RBW
The town now calls itself "Oleona," and contains a museum celebrating the colony. - PJS
File: LoF042

Oliver's Advice (Barossa)

DESCRIPTION: As storm, night, and the enemy approach, the soldiers are advised, "Put your trust in God, my boys, and keep your powder dry." The soldiers are reminded of all God did for the Israelites. They should trust in God also
AUTHOR: Words: William Blacker ?
EARLIEST DATE: 1834 (Duffy)
KEYWORDS: soldier religious nonballad Spain
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
March 5, 1811 - Battle of Barrosa
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (7 citations):
SHenry H98a, p. 64, "Barossa/Oliver's Advice" (1 text, 1 tune)
OLochlainn-More 72B, "Oliver's Advice" (1 text, 1 tune)
Moylan 134, "Oliver's Advice" (1 text, 1 tune)
OrangeLark 20, "Oliver's Advice" (1 text, 1 tune)
Healy-OISBv2, pp.35-38, "Oliver's Advice" (1 text; tune on p. 20)
ADDITIONAL: Charles Gavan Duffy, editor, The Ballad Poetry of Ireland (1845), pp. 83-86, "Oliver's Advice"
H. Halliday Sparling, Irish Minstrelsy (London, 1888), pp. 453-456, 495-496, "Oliver's Advice"
Roud #2182
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Battle of Barossa" (subject)
cf. "Barrosa Plains" (subject)
cf. "The Maid of Castle Creagh" (tune, according to Moylan)
NOTES: The "battle" of Barrosa was more of a skirmish; the forces involved were small, though the British won a clear victory. Most short histories of the Napoleonic Wars don't seem even to mention it.
The 87th Royal Fusiliers (the regiment allegedly described in the song, though there isn't a single specific reference in the piece) was raised in 1793; its separate history ended when it was combined with the 89th foot in 1881 to form the Royal Irish Fusiliers. Barrosa was its second battle honor, and a tune called "Barossa" remains one of the Royal Irish Fusiliers' official quick marches.
The song is called "Oliver's Advice" because Oliver Cromwell is reported to have said, "Put your trust in God, but mind to keep your powder dry."
The song contains assorted Biblical references to God going before the Israelites as a "pillar of cloud... by day... and a pillar of fire... by night"; see, e.g., Exodus 13:41. For parting the Red Sea, see Exodus 14:21-29. - RBW
Nobody seems to attribute this to anyone except Colonel Blacker (1777-1855). Duffy and, probably as a result, Sparling date this "Orange Ballad" 1834. - BS
File: HHH098a

Oma Wise

See Poor Omie (John Lewis) (Little Omie Wise) [Laws F4] AND Naomi Wise [Laws F31] (File: LF04)

Omagh Town and the Bards of Clanabogan

DESCRIPTION: The singer "caroused and gambled" many places but his "heart was achin' for Omagh Town!" Even wined and dined in London and New York City he longs for Omagh Town. "When life is over ... I'll never grumble If Heaven's as charmin' as Omagh Town!"
AUTHOR: Michael Hurl (source: Tunney-SongsThunder)
EARLIEST DATE: 1976 (OBoyle)
KEYWORDS: homesickness rambling drink nonballad rake
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Tunney-SongsThunder, pp. 66-68, "Omagh Town and the Bards of Clanabogan" (1 text)
OBoyle, p. 26, "Sweet Omagh Town" (1 fragment)
Roud #3383
RECORDINGS:
Robert Cinnamond, "Sweet Omagh Town" (on IRRCinnamond03)
NOTES: Omagh is in County Tyrone. - BS
File: TST066

Omie Wise

See Poor Omie (John Lewis) (Little Omie Wise) [Laws F4] AND Naomi Wise [Laws F31] (File: LF04)

Ommie Wise

See Poor Omie (John Lewis) (Little Omie Wise) [Laws F4] AND Naomi Wise [Laws F31] (File: LF04)

On a Bright and Summer's Morning

See The Sally Buck (File: SKE70)

On a Cold Frosty Morning

DESCRIPTION: "On a cold frosty morning a nigger feels good; He shouldered up his axe and went off to the wood." He all but freezes in the cold. (Various other observations about his life.)
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1941 (Randolph)
KEYWORDS: nonballad Black(s)
FOUND IN: US(SE,So)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Randolph 283, "On a Cold Frosty Morning" (2 texts, 1 tune)
BrownIII 474, "Cold Frosty Morning" (1 fragment)
Roud #3439
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Old Jesse" (lyrics)
File: R283

On a Cold Winter's Eve

DESCRIPTION: "On a cold winter's eve when the snow was fast falling, In a small humble cottage a poor mother lay, Although wracked with pain, she lay there well-contented, WIth Christ as her friend...." She bids farewell and says her family will meet again
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1932 (Henry)
KEYWORDS: death religious nonballad
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Cambiaire, p. 33, "On a Cold WInter's Eve" (1 text)
MHenry-Appalachians, p. 203, "On a Cold Winter's Eve" (1 text, probably from the same source as Cambiaire's)
Roud #12637
ALTERNATE TITLES:
One Cold Winter's Eve
File: Camb033

On a Dark and Doleful Night

DESCRIPTION: "'Twas on a dark and doleful night, When power of hell and earth arose... And friends betrayed him to his foes." "Before the mournful scheme began, He took the bread...." "This is my body broke[n] for sin." "[He] took the cup...."
AUTHOR: Isaac Watts?
EARLIEST DATE: 1930 (Brown); fragment in the Missouri Harmony (1840)
KEYWORDS: religious Jesus Bible food drink
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
BrownIII 626, "On a Dark and Doleful Night" (1 text)
Roud #11927
NOTES: The story of the Last Supper is told in all four gospels, but the institution of the Eucharist is described only in Matthew, Mark, and Luke (with a partial parallel in 1Corinthians 11:23ff.) with significant verbal variations, often with variations from what we read here.
In Matthew 26:26f., Jesus's words over the bread were simply, "Take, eat, this is my body." Of the cup, the King James version says, "Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament" (i.e. "covenant," as the song renders is, but the best manuscripts omit "new") "which is shed for many, for the remission of sins."
Mark 14:22f. is closely parallel to Mark: "This is my body... This is my blood of the covenant [again, the KJV reads"new testament," based on late manuscripts] which is shed for many."
In Luke 22:19f, we find the phrasing "This is my body which is given for you." (Note that, even here, it's not given "for sin.") The cup is "the new covenant in my blood."
In the Missouri Harmony, the first verse of this appears with the tune "Bourbon."
For more on Isaac Watts, see the notes to "O God, Our Help in Ages Past." - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: Br3626

On a Monday

See Almost Done (File: LxU094)

On Board of a Man-of-War (Young Susan)

DESCRIPTION: The singer overhears "a maid complain for the losing of her dear," gone to sea aboard a man-of-war. She dresses as a sailor to follow him. After seven years they come home and live happily ever after
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1934 (Sam Henry collection)
KEYWORDS: sailor separation love cross-dressing disguise
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
SHenry H556, p. 326, "On Board of a Man-of-War" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #1533
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The British Man-of-War" (theme, lyrics)
NOTES: This is closely related to the songs of the "British Man-of-War" family, and almost certainly derives from the same sources. But the two songs don't share many actual words, and this is one of several versions in which the girl dresses herself as a sailor to follow her love. I decided this was reason enough to split them. - RBW
File: HHH556

On Board of a Ninety-eight

DESCRIPTION: The singer was a rake at sixteen when his parents, afraid he would waste all their money, ship him on a man-of-war. When battle begins, he wishes he could run away but at Trafalgar he fights well. Now "I'm too old to sail, for I'm almost ninety-eight"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1839 (broadside, Bodleian Harding B 11(2843))
KEYWORDS: age battle navy war father mother rake sailor
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1805 - Battle of Trafalgar ends Napoleon's hopes of invading Britain
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Peacock, pp. 1012-1013, "On Board of the Ninety-eight" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #1461
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 11(2843), "On Board of a Ninety-Eight," J. Catnach (London), 1813-1838; also Johnson Ballads 2728[a few words illegible], Firth c.12(398), "On Board of a Ninety-Eight"
NOTES: "Ninety-eight" refers to the number of guns carried by the ship. For example, at Trafalgar, Nelson's flagship Victory, with 100 guns, led but with two ninety-eight gun ships, Temeraire and Neptune, in close support. Source: Horatio Nelson by Tom Pocock, quoted on The Nelson Society site. - BS
(We should note, incidentally, that the number of guns on a ship was somewhat nominal, with light guns, e.g., being under-counted; an official "98" might have in excess of 110 actual weapons. In addition, ships came in nominal rates -- 64 guns, 74 guns, 98 guns, etc. The 100 guns of Victory made it a heavy man-of-war, but there were more heavily-armed ships. Though usually not very seaworthy ones....) - RBW
File: Pea1012

On Board of the Victory

DESCRIPTION: "I am a young girl whose fortune is great." Her father has her lover, "below my degree," impressed. After a fight with the press-gang he is shipped aboard the Victory. She dreams of being with him on board and prays for his return.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1839 (broadside, Bodleian Firth c.13(280))
KEYWORDS: courting war ship father mother sailor pressgang grief loneliness love navy separation sea lover nobility
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Oct 21, 1805 - Battle of Trafalgar, the greatest naval engagement of the Napoleonic Wars. H.M.S. _Victory_ is Nelson's flagship in that battle.
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar,Newf) US(MW)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Peacock, pp. 484-485, "On Board of The Victory" (1 text, 1 tune)
Leach-Labrador 41, "Victory" (1 text, 1 tune)
Creighton-Maritime, p. 42, "On Board of the Victory" (1 text, 1 tune)
Dean, pp. 95-96, "On Board the Victory" (1 text)
Roud #2278
RECORDINGS:
Grace Clergy, "On Board of the Victory" (on MRHCreighton)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Firth c.13(280), "On Board the Victory," J. Catnach (London), 1813-1838; also Harding B 11(898), Firth c.12(220), Harding B 11(1911), Harding B 11(2901), Harding B 26(474), "On Board the Victory[!!]"; Harding B 25(1420), Harding B 11(2846), Firth c.12(222), "On Board of the Victory"; Harding B 20(178), "The Victory"
NOTES: Ironically, Mr. Clergy's family is of French descent. - PJS
HMS Victory was launched in 1765, commissioned in 1778, and served in the wars with France associated with the American Revolutionar. She served in the Mediterranean during the early phases of the French revolution. She was withdrawn from sea service in 1812, and dry-docked in 1922. It will be evident that many young men served on her at battles other than Trafalgar -- but, as most Napoleonic songs mention Waterloo, so most naval songs of the era seem to assume a setting at Trafalgar. - RBW
[In] broadside Harding B 20(178), [the girl's] sweetheart is killed with Nelson at Trafalgar. - BS
File: Peac484

On Board the Bugaboo

DESCRIPTION: Singer joins the Bugaboo at the James's Street canal. They "plow the raging surf ... to get a full load of turf." In a storm the captain, smoking in bed, starts a fire. The helmsman, asleep, lets the fire burn. The ship sinks with 1000 sods and 60000 men
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1965 (OLochlainn-More)
KEYWORDS: canal commerce ship fire storm wreck humorous talltale sailor
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
OLochlainn-More 17A, "On Board the Bugaboo" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #9775
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The E-ri-e" (theme) and references there
File: OLcM017A

On Board the Gallee

See The Lover's Curse (Kellswater) (File: HHH442)

On Board the Kangaroo

See The Good Ship Kangaroo (File: MA060)

On Board the Victory

See On Board of The Victory (File: Peac484)

On Buena Vista's Battlefield

DESCRIPTION: "On Buena Vista's battlefield A dying soldier lay, His thoughts was on his mountain home Some thousand miles away." The wounded soldier bids farewell to (family and) sweetheart and prepares for the end
AUTHOR: Words: Colonel Henry Petriken/Music: Albert G. Emerick
EARLIEST DATE: 1848 (Emrick's Songs for the People)
KEYWORDS: death war battle
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Feb 22-23, 1847 - Battle of Buena Vista. 5000 troops under Zachary Taylor defeat 15,000 Mexicans under Santa Anna
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Belden, pp. 340-341, "Buena Vista" (1 text, fragmentary)
Randolph 225, "The Battle of Vicksburg" (the second, fragmentary, text is "On Buena Vista's Battlefield")
Roud #2829
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Battle of Vicksburg" (tune & meter, theme)
File: R225A

On Christmas Day It Happened So

DESCRIPTION: A farmer goes out to plow on Christmas day. Jesus meets him there and asks him what he is doing. The farmer nervously says that he needs to work. Obviously this is not acceptable; the farmer is swallowed up by the ground and his family dies
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1911 (Gillington, Songs of the Open Road)
KEYWORDS: religious work Jesus curse
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
PBB 6, "In Dessexshire As It Befel" (1 text)
ST PBB006 (Partial)
Roud #1078
NOTES: Yet another example of fine Christian charity. This one, fortunately, is apocryphal, with almost no parallel in scripture. There is one instance of the earth swallowing up people (Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, Numbers 16:28-32). The rest has no parallel at all, except a curious passage in the early but periphrastic Gospel manuscript Codex Bezae (D/05). After Luke 6:4 it adds, "That same day, seeing someone working on the Sabbath, [Jesus] said to him, 'Fellow, if you know what you are doing, you are blessed, but if you don't know, you are cursed and a transgressor of the law.'"
I wonder if this didn't somehow arise out of the Puritan movement. During the commonwealth era in England, it was declared that Christmas was a work day, and those NOT working on that day would be punished. This produced a great deal of resentment -- but the policy long continued; Dickens wrote "A Christmas Carol" partly in response to this.
Not all such stories are associated with Jesus himself. In Ireland, there is a field associated with the Irish St. Maeve. A ploughman once vowed he would plow the field despite its association with the saint. The ground is said to have swallowed horse, plough, and man, burying them in a depression still visible today. - RBW
File: PBB006

On Gravelly Bay

DESCRIPTION: "I was a handsome nice young man... And all day long I'd sport and play... Till I was sent to Gravelly Bay To work upon a dredge." He meets a girl. Her mother dislikes him. He concludes that the girl flirts to get gifts from many men
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1952 (collected from E. J. Buzzard by Walton)
KEYWORDS: sailor love courting rejection gift mother
FOUND IN: Canada(Ont)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Walton/Grimm/Murdock, pp 109-110, "On Gravelly Bay" (1 text)
File: WGM109

On Ilkla Moor Bah T'at

DESCRIPTION: On the dangers of visiting the moor without a hat: One singer tells the other he has been (courting) on the moor without a hat. He is told he'll die of cold. They will bury him, and worms will eat him; ducks will eat them, people eat ducks, and so it goes
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1917
KEYWORDS: clothes courting disease death
FOUND IN: Britain(England(North),Wales)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Kennedy 303, "On Ilkla Moor Bah T'at" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber-FSWB, p. 26, "Ilkley Moor Baht 'At" (1 text)
DT, ILKLAMOR
Roud #2143
NOTES: Kennedy reports, "The author of this local dialect song is supposed to have been a Thomas Clark who wrote it in 1805 to the hymn tune Cranbrook. Who he was or how the song came to be are not known. Yorkshire men all the world over regard the song with ritualistic respect." - RBW
File: K303

On Jordan's Stormy Banks

See Bound for the Promised Land (File: LxU099)

On Lac San Pierre

See The Wreck of the Julie Plante (File: FJ174)

On Longside Road (Auld Lang Syne)

DESCRIPTION: "On Longside Road I've often trod... 'Twas there I spied another maid In the arms of my dear." The singer hisses her anger: "You think I that I could love you still?" She is resolved "to shun your company." But she would take old lovers into her home
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1906 (GreigDuncan6)
KEYWORDS: love betrayal
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Greig #97, p. 2, "On Longside Road"; Greig #172, pp. 1-2, "Auld Lang Syne" (2 texts)
GreigDuncan6 1143, "Auld Lang Syne" (3 texts, 2 tunes)
Ord, p. 172, "On Longside Road; or The False Lover" (1 text)
Roud #5583
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Auld Lang Syne" (some lines) and references there
NOTES: In the course of the song, the girl says she would not forgive her false love were he "fair as Absalom." According to 2 Samuel 14:25, David's son Absalom was the most beautiful man in Israel. - RBW
GreigDuncan6: "Learnt in Culsalmond sixty years ago. Noted September 1906." - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: Ord172

On Meesh-e-gan

DESCRIPTION: French-Canadian dialect song. Singer reports work in the Michigan lumber camps, but it's exhausting, the pay is irregular, there are diseases and snakes. Chorus: "Come all you great beeg Canada man/Who want fin' work on Meesh-e-gan...."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1941 (Beck)
LONG DESCRIPTION: French-Canadian dialect song. Singer tells fellow Frenchmen there's work in the Michigan lumber camps, but it includes the exhausting job of "sacking", the pay is irregular, there are diseases and snakes. Chorus: "Come all you great beeg Canada man/Who want fin' work on Meesh-e-gan/Dere's beeg log drive all troo our lan';/You sure fin' work on Meesh-e-gan."
KEYWORDS: lumbering work logger hardtimes
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Beck 72, "On Meesh-e-gan" (1 text)
Lomax-ABFS, pp. 334-335, "On Meesh-e-gan" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #8856
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Don't Come to Michigan" (theme)
File: Be072

On Monday Morning

See The Holly Twig [Laws Q6]; also The Wife Wrapped in Wether's Skin [Child 277] (File: LQ06)

On My Journey

See Don't You Weep After Me (File: R262)

On My Journey (II) [Mount Zion]

DESCRIPTION: Song of religious ecstasy. "On my journey now, Mount Zion/Well I wouldn't take nothing, Mount Zion/For my journey now." Singer is walking along, the "elements opened and the love come down"; he goes to the valley; "my soul got happy/And I stayed all day."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1926 (recording, Paul Robeson)
KEYWORDS: religious floatingverses
FOUND IN: US
RECORDINGS:
Paul Robeson, "On Ma Journey" (Victor 20013, 1926; Victor 25547, 1937)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Jesus Says 'You Goes and I Goes Wid You'" or "Jesus Says Go" (floating verse)
cf. "Hold the Wind" (floating verse)
NOTES: Just enough of a narrative that I didn't use "nonballad." - PJS
File: RcOMJMZ

On My Journey Home (I)

DESCRIPTION: Chorus: "I feel like, I feel like I'm on my journey home." Verses are floating: "When I can read my titles clear...." "Should earth against my soul engage...." "Let cares like a wild deluge come...."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1938
KEYWORDS: religious nonballad
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Lomax-FSNA 126, "On My Journey Home" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #6679
NOTES: This appears to be a different song from "I'm On My Journey Home," which appears in various editions of The Sacred Harp. - PJS
File: LoF126

On My Way to Mexico

DESCRIPTION: "Well I woke up early this mornin', I was a-feelin' mighty wrong... that black gal, she had done gone." "She's gone to her mama." 'I knocked on Mama's door." "She said, 'Get away you mistreater.'" "On my way to Mexico" "I got arrested."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1964 (recorded from Jesse Lee Warren by Jackson)
KEYWORDS: separation abuse prison
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Jackson-DeadMan, pp. 302-303, "On My Way to Mexico" (1 text, 1 tune)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Black Gal (I)" (lyrics)
NOTES: Like so many prison songs, this seems to have had very fluid lyrics; Jackson mentions that he often heard it mixed with "Stewball" (but does not print any variants). I suspect that the original plot may have run something like this: The man wakes up and finds his girl gone. He traces her to her mother's house. The mother tells him to leave. He tries to break in, then flees when the police are called. He tries to escape to Mexico, but is caught and sent to prison.
The versions in Jackson, however, have done enough lyric-swapping that it is hard to be sure. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.4
File: JDM302

On Patrick's Day in the Morning

DESCRIPTION: The singer, 20, meets a spinster, 70. He says he's wealthy. She proposes, having money of her own. On the way to a dentist to fix her only tooth they stop for a drink, jump into the river, "and I lost her forever, On Patrick's day in the morning"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1970 (Morton-Ulster)
KEYWORDS: courting marriage drink humorous oldmaid youth age river
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Morton-Ulster 5, "On Patrick's Day in the Morning" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #2895
NOTES: May-December romances in which the man is the older (and usually incapable of performance) are common in folklore; (See, e.g., the various cross-references under "Maids When You're Young Never Wed an Old Man"). Old maid songs are also common. There aren't many where the old woman finds a young man, though.
Of course, he may have just been kidding her along. Or -- perhaps more likely -- going for her money. This phenomenon is relatively well-attested; an English example comes from the reign of Edward IV: "Sir John Woodville [the brother of Edward's wife Elizabeth Woodville] was given a marriage that even in that opportunistic age created a scandal: still in his teens, he wedded the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, a lady venerable enough to be his grandmother, but very rich" (Kendall, p. 61).
Ross-Edward, pp. 92-93, explains that this took place soon after King Edward married Elizabeth Woodville (itself a marriage which shocked Europe, since her social status was so far below his -- and he had married her secretly). She came from a rather poor family, and the best way to increase their wealth was aristocratic marriages. Most of Elizabeth's brothers and sisters were married to eligible heirs. The case of John Woodville was the most extreme probably because it was the first of the men to bewed -- he married Katherine Neville only about half a year after Elizabeth's marriage to Edward IV was announced. It would seem Duchess Katherine was the first heiress available.
The details of this marriage are a little vague; Jenkins, p. 31, says that Woodville was twenty and the Dowager Duchess between seventy and eighty. Wilkinson, p. 291 says that the groom was twenty and calls the bride "the octogenarisn duchess of Norfollk." Ross-Wars, p. 60, says that she was "well into her sixties" and was "compelled to accept in matrimony one of the queen's brothers, John Woodville, who was still in his teens."
It appears the confusion arises in the original source, a Latin miscellany sometimes attributed to William Worcester and known as the Annales Rerum Anglicarum. Dockray, p. 48, translates the passage as follows: "In the month of January [1465] Catherine, Duchess of Norfolk, a slip of a girl of about eighty years old, was married to John Woodville, the queen's brother, aged twenty years; a diabolical marriage." The Annales, however, is very loose with numbers; it seems clear that the author did not know the actual age of Katherine Neville.
Still, there is no doubt that she was too old to bear children; Hicks, p. 129, says that Katherine Neville's first husband had died in 1432, more than thirty years before she married John Woodville; even their son and heir was dead by then. She had apparently been married twice since. Hence there can be little doubt that John Woodville was in it for the money. According to Jenkins, p. 53, Woodville eventually was executed for his behavior (by the Earl of Warwick, the nephew of the Dowager Duchess).
Thus, ironically, the Dowager Duchess outlived her strapping young husband. By more than half a decade, in fact; in the late 1470s, she was negotiating to marry her granddaughter Anne Mowbray (the heir to the Norfolk dukedom) to Richard of York, the younger son of Edward IV (Jenkins, p. 113). Which implies that the Dowager Duchess was still of sound mind. (Which makes me wonder if she might not have been a little younger than everyone thinks -- indeed, Dockray, p. 42, says only that she was "at least 65"; Ross-Edward, p. 93, also says that she was "at least sixty-five." There can be no question, however, that she was old enough to be her husband's grandmother.)
For additional cases of a younger man being involved with an older woman, see the examples cited in "A-Growing (He's Young But He's Daily A-Growing)" [Laws O35]. In that song, however, the age gap is much smaller than in this. - RBW
Bibliography

Dockray: Keith Dockray, Edward IV: A Source Book, Sutton, 1999
Hicks: Michael Hicks, Edward V: The Prince in the Tower, Tempus, 2003
Jenkins: Elizabeth Jenkins, The Princes in the Tower, Coward McCann, & Geoghan, 1978
Kendall: Paul Murray Kendall, Richard the Third (Norton, 1955, 1956)
Ross-Edward: Charles Ross, Edward IV, 1974 (I use the 1997 paperback edition in the Yale English Monarch series with a new introduction by R. A. Griffiths)
Ross-Wars: Charles Ross, The Wars of the Roses, 1976 (I use the 1977 Thames and Hudson paperback edition)
Wilkinson: B. Wilkinson, The Later Middle Ages in England, 1216-1484, Longmans, 1969 (I use the 1980 paperback edition)

Last updated in version 2.5
File: MorU005

On Saturday Night Shall Be My Care

See Next Monday Morning (File: ShH38)

On Some Foggy Mountain Top

See Foggy Mountain Top (File: CSW042)

On Springfield Mountain

See Springfield Mountain [Laws G16] (File: LG16)

On That Other Bright Shore

See The Other Bright Shore (File: R611)

On the 16th o' October

See On the Sixteenth o' October (File: GrD3383)

On the Banks of Allan Water

See The Banks of Allan Water (File: DTalanwa)

On the Banks of Sweet Dundee

See The Banks of Dundee (Undaunted Mary) [Laws M25] (File: LM25)

On the Banks of the Murray

DESCRIPTION: "In a neat little cot on the banks of the Murray Lived a wife of a family with children so poor." One lad is sent to the Dardanelles and fatally wounded. He makes his will and dies; his little daughter and the entire family grieve
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1968
KEYWORDS: Australia war death lastwill
FOUND IN: Australia
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Meredith/Anderson, pp. 258-259, "On the Banks of the Murray" (1 text, 1 tune)
Meredith/Covell/Brown, pp. 267-268, "The Banks of the Murray" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #5476
File: MA258

On the Banks of the Ohio

See Banks of the Ohio [Laws F5] (File: LF05)

On the Banks of the Old Omaha

DESCRIPTION: "I will sing you a song of sweet Julia... I never shall forget the first time we met On the banks of the old Omaha...." One day she heard a knocking at the door, and died that night. The singer's heart is still by her grave in that far-off valley
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1968
KEYWORDS: death separation love burial
FOUND IN: Australia
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Meredith/Anderson, pp. 260-261, "On the Banks of the Old Omaha" (1 text, 1 tune)
File: MA261

On the Banks of the Old Pedee

See Banks of the Ohio [Laws F5]
(File: LF05)

On the Banks of the Old Tennessee

DESCRIPTION: If the singer were a bird, he would fly to his love; if a fish, he would take her hook. But now she is dead and buried, and he is no longer willing to stay "on the banks of the old Tennessee."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1928 (Randolph)
KEYWORDS: love courting animal death burial separation family
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Randolph 700, "On the Banks of the Old Tennessee" (4 texts, 1 tune)
Randolph/Cohen, pp. 515-516, "On the Banks of the Old Tennessee" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 700A)
MWheeler, p. 117, "On the Bank uv the Old Tennessee" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #7374
RECORDINGS:
[G. B.] Grayson & [Henry] Whitter, "On the Banks of Old Tennessee" (Victor V-40235/Bluebird 7072/Zonophone 4329, 1929; on GraysonWhitter01)
NOTES: Randolph's four texts are rather confused, and not one tells the full story. The only common element is the line "on the banks of the old Tennessee." The chorus varies (one even borrows lines from "My Sweet Sunny South"!), as do the presence of the floating-verse-like stanzas about being beast or bird. Cohen thinks the "A" and "D' texts are one song, and "B" and "C" another, probably related to "Free Little Bird."
The Grayson & Whitter recording doesn't help much; the verses are stereotyped: "I have no (brother/sister/true lover/mother) in this world (x2), (He's) sleeping tonight where the moon shines so bright, On the banks of old Tennesee (x3), He's sleeping tonight... On the banks..."
Wheeler's version is just a fragment, and adds nothing to the discussion.
In other words, it's possible that this is more than one song. But I think it all goes back to one piece, with a lot of importation and forgetfulness along the way. - RBW
File: R700

On the Banks of the Pamanaw [Laws H11]

DESCRIPTION: The singer sees an Indian girl sitting alone but unafraid. She explains that her family is dead and her lover has abandoned her. He offers to take her "to a better land, to a pale-face countree." She will not come; she has vowed to stay there
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1931
KEYWORDS: Indians(Am.) promise abandonment home family grief seduction lie lover
FOUND IN: US(MW) Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (6 citations):
Laws H11, "On the Banks of the Pamanaw"
Lomax-ABFS, pp. 451-452, "The Banks of the Pamanaw" (1 text)
Beck 46, "On the Banks of the Pamanaw" (1 text, 1 tune)
Peacock, pp. 424-426, "The Banks of Penmanah" (1 text, 2 tunes)
Leach-Labrador 95, "Banks of Panama" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT 792, PAMANAW
Roud #2196
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Banks of Pondamah
NOTES: Just to prevent mistakes: Yes, that is "Pamanaw," not "Panama." - RBW
Labrador-Leach is indeed "Panama," not my typo.
The "Baltic Line" may refer to Admiral Charles Napier's Baltic excursion against the Russians in the Crimean War [cf. broadside Bodleian, Harding B 13(181), "Bold Napier," E.M.A. Hodges (London), 1855-1861; tune: "Low-Back'd Car"] - BS
File: LH11

On the Banks of the Sacramento

See Ho for California (Banks of Sacramento) (File: E125)

On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away

DESCRIPTION: "'Round my Indiana homestead wave the cornfields... But one thing there is missing from the picture, Without her face it seems so incomplete." The singer misses his mother and his sweetheart Mary, left in the graveyards of his home on the Wabash
AUTHOR: Paul Dresser (1857-1906)
EARLIEST DATE: 1899 (sheet music)
KEYWORDS: death mother love separation home rambling
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Dean, p. 117, "Banks of the Wabash" (1 text)
Silber-FSWB, p. 45, "On the Banks of the Wabash" (1 text)
Geller-Famous, pp. 166-169, "On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #9595
NOTES: This piece is now Indiana's state song. Dresser (originally Dreisser; he was Theodore Dreisser's brother), who ran away to join a medicine show rather than enter the priesthood, was also the author of "The Letter That Never Came" and "The Pardon Came Too Late."
According to Sigmund Spaeth, A History of Popular Music in America, pp. 276-277, Dresser was "widely remembered as one of the most lovable characters in the history of Tin Pan Alley. A huge mountain of a man, with a heart as big as his body, his generosity was notorious. Whatever he had he shared with others, and most of his debtors never paid him back.... Like most of the songwriters of his day, Paul Dresser had a throroughly naive outlook on life.... He believes the sentimentalities he put into his songs."
Spaeth considers 1895 to be the peak of his career; in that year he produced "Just Tell Them That You Saw Me," described as "enormously popular" though it has had little impact on tradition.
It was Theodore Dreisser who suggested to his brother that he write a river song about Indiana, and this was the result.
Spaeth, p. 281, says that "by 1903 the Dresser gift had definitely declined," and he started to try to work the business end of the music trade. But Dresser, no businessman, managed to die in poverty in 1906 despite many hits. Spaeth, p. 282, cleaims that he died "at the home of his sister in Brooklyn, where he had been living for some time in obscurity. Regardless of any physician's diagnosis, hismalady was a broken heart." - RBW
File: FSWB045

On the Bluff (Alligator Song)

DESCRIPTION: "'Twas on the bluff In the state of Indiana, Dat's where I useter lib." The singer is a good fisherman, but partial to drink; he fights with an alligator, only to find it is a log. He hides from a white man by playing a mile-post. At last he buries master
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1925 (Scarborough)
KEYWORDS: river fishing drink slave humorous burial
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Scarborough-NegroFS, p. 72, "'Twas on de Bluff" (1 text)
ST ScaNF072 (Partial)
Roud #7493
NOTES: There is a song in the Edith Fowke collection which appears to be a version of this, so it appears to have been known in Canada as well as wherever it was that Scarborough located it. But I can't absolutely prove it at this time.
It might be objected that Indiana is not a slave state, and this is true -- but it was also quite anti-Negro, and locals might have looked the other way at a slaveholder. Or, of course, the actual location of the song might have been Kentucky, across the river from Indiana. Though it's hard to imagine alligators on the Ohio River.
In any case, this looks more like a minstrel piece than a real folk song. - RBW
File: ScaNF072

On the Charlie So Long

See Joseph Mica (Mikel) (The Wreck of the Six-Wheel Driver) (Been on the Choly So Long) [Laws I16] (File: LI16)

On the Dummy Line

See The Dummy Line (II) (File: LSRai485)

On the Eighth Day of November

See Saint Clair's Defeat (File: E116)

On the First Day of Christmas

See The Twelve Days of Christmas (File: FO213)

On the First of November

DESCRIPTION: "On the first of November last, My love and I was parted." He goes to fight the French. Even as she begs to come with him, he is killed. "Then she took up his armour bright." She kills the man who slew her lover, and leads the English troops to victory
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1913 (Butterworth collection)
KEYWORDS: love death soldier war clothes
FOUND IN: Britain(England(Lond))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Butterworth/Dawney, pp. 30-31, "On the First of November" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #1397
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Mary Ambree" (plot: lover becomes officer)
cf. "The Female Warrior (Pretty Polly)" [Laws N4] (plot: lover becomes officer)
File: ButD030

On the Green Carpet

See Green Carpet; also Oats and Beans (File: Lins46)

On the Lake of the Poncho Plains

See The Lake of Ponchartrain [Laws H9] (File: LH09)

On the Lakes of Ponchartrain

See The Lake of Ponchartrain [Laws H9] (File: LH09)

On the Plains of Manassas

See The Red, White, and Red (File: Wa022)

On the Plains of Mexico

See Santy Anno (File: Doe078)

On the Road Again

DESCRIPTION: Singer comes home, finds the window propped, the door locked, and another man in his bed. He fires a shotgun; the man runs off. Another man arrives. Chorus: "(S)he's on the road again (just as sure as you're born)/Nat'chl born easeman on the road again"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1928 (recording, Memphis Jug Band)
LONG DESCRIPTION: Singer says his woman's evil. He comes home, finds the window propped, the door locked, and another man in his folding bed. He fires a shotgun through the glass, and the man takes off running. Another man comes to call, the wife tells him her husband's on the way to the pen. Chorus: "(S)he's on the road again (just as sure as you're born)/Nat'chl born easeman on the road again"
KEYWORDS: jealousy adultery infidelity sex violence prison wife
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
RECORDINGS:
Memphis Jug Band "On the Road Again" (Victor V-38015, 1929; rec. 1928; on TimesAint01)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Joseph Mica (Mikel) (The Wreck of the Six-Wheel Driver) (Been on the Choly So Long) [Laws I16]," especially the "Kassie Jones" text (floating verses)
cf. "Skinner's Song" (form)
File: RcOtRAg

On the Road to Bethlehem

DESCRIPTION: A "merry company" comes to Bethlehem to obey the decree of "the governor." Mary and Joseph seek the inn, but there is no room. They go to a stable, where the baby Jesus is born. Eastern kings and shepherds come to visit
AUTHOR: Words: Robert Hugh Benson / Music: Sir R. R. Terry
EARLIEST DATE: 1924 (Sam Henry collection)
KEYWORDS: religious Bible childbirth
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
SHenry H59, p. 76, "On the Road to Bethlehem" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #9052
NOTES: With the sole exception of the reference to "Eastern kings," every item mentioned in this song comes from the Gospel of Luke (chapter 2).
The form of this song, and the first couple of verses, don't seem quite suitable for the content; I wonder if the author didn't fix up a non-religious poem. - RBW
File: HHH059

On the Road to Gundagai

See Lazy Harry's (Five Miles from Gundagai) (File: DTgundag)

On the Road to Mandalay

See Mandalay (File: Fuld415)

On the Schooner Africa

DESCRIPTION: "We wallowed Lake Superior through, And then we reached Marquette, Where Billy Clark, our singing friend, By Charlie Turpin was shot." With Clark in the hospital and two other sailors ashore, the captain has to use the cook as a sailor and hire a woman
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1933 (collected from J. Sylvester Ray by Walton)
KEYWORDS: sailor ship cook injury
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Walton/Grimm/Murdock, p. 111, "On the Schooner Africa" (1 fragment)
File: WGM111

On the Schooner Hercules

DESCRIPTION: "On the eighth day of November In the year of ninety-one, The schooler Hercules set sail For the port of Parry Sound." The ship leaves Sarnia. The song describes the voyage and a storm. He names the sailors and bids good luck to captain Glass and crew
AUTHOR: probably Jimmie McQuarie
EARLIEST DATE: 1949 (collected from John McDonald and Joseph Glass by Walton)
KEYWORDS: ship travel cook storm
FOUND IN: Canada(Ont)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Walton/Grimm/Murdock, pp. 142-143, "On the Schooner Hercules" (1 text)
File: WGM142

On the Schooner John Joe

DESCRIPTION: "Beware of George Farrin his schooner John Joe." Breakfast and dinner is fish soup. Supper is "thin hard bread." The singer had to fight George to get a decent meal from the cook. But, when he gets home it's back to "hard bread."
AUTHOR: Tom Evans (ca 1890 per Peacock)
EARLIEST DATE: 1952 (Peacock)
KEYWORDS: fight fishing sea ship food ordeal hardtimes
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Peacock, pp. 140-141, "On the Schooner John Joe" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #9966
File: Pea140

On the Shores of Havana

DESCRIPTION: "Many hearts were filled with sorrow and with sadness, Many hearts were torn with anguish and pain... for the heroes of our battleship, the 'Maine.'" A brief account of the destruction of the Maine, with comments about the lives of the sailors killed
AUTHOR: Andrew B. Sterling
EARLIEST DATE: 1898 (broadsides & songbooks)
KEYWORDS: sea disaster ship
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1895 - Cubans rebel against Spain
Feb 15, 1898 - Explosion of the battleship "Maine" in Havana harbor
April 25, 1898 - Congress declares war on Spain
FOUND IN: US(MA,MW,SE)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
FSCatskills 21, "On the Shores of Havana" (1 text, 1 tune)
BrownII 235, "The Battleship Maine (I)" (1 text)
ST FSC021 (Partial)
Roud #4615
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "On the Banks of the Wabash Far Away" (tune & meter)
cf. "My Sweetheart Went Down with the Maine" (subject) and references there
NOTES: When the Cubans rose in revolt against inept Spanish rule, the U.S. government -- spurred on by William Randolph Hearst's newspapers -- took a keen interest. Eventually the U.S.S. Maine, a rather rickety coastal defense vessel, was sent to apply pressure to the Spanish. (The Maine, it should be noted, was not a battleship; originally designed as an armored cruiser, it lacked the coal capacity for that role and wound up as an unsatisfactory battleship/cruiser hybrid.)
When the Maine blew up with a large loss of life, Hearst and his minions pounced quickly. Never mind that the Spanish had nothing to gain from destroying the ship. Never mind that the most likely cause of the disaster was an internal explosion. Spain had to be punished!
The Spanish did all they could to avoid war; after brief delays to save face, they gave in to every American demand. The Americans would have none of it. On April 11, President McKinley asked for a declaration of war; on April 25, he received it. Americans set out to "free" Cuba and the Philippines. (The Philippines, in particular, were so thoroughly "freed" that they did not achieve independence until 1947.) "Remember the Maine" went the battle cry.
The U.S. army was pitifully small and ill-organized; the vast majority of its losses in the war were caused by disease and supply problems -- but so bad were the Spanish forces that by the end of the summer both the Philippines and Cuba were under U.S. control. In December the humiliated Spanish were forced to accept the equally humiliating Treaty of Paris, and the war ended. The U.S. was now an imperialist power -- and all because of songs like this one and Hearst's headlines. - RBW
File: FSC021

On the Sixteenth o' October

DESCRIPTION: A day of work: plowing in the morning, bundling straw, eating, then cleaning the horses and plowing again in the rain. "Noo my day's wark is finisht, and I'll hae a smoke, An' I'm boun' for my bed, for it's past nine o'clock"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1910 (GreigDuncan3)
KEYWORDS: farming work horse
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Greig #153, p. 2, ("On the 16th October in the year 58") (1 text)
GreigDuncan3 383, "On the 16th o' October" (2 texts)
Roud #5920
NOTES: Greig: "The Rev. Dr Forrest, Lonmay, sends me a copy of some lines that were found written on the walls of the men's chaumer at Crichnalade in the parish of Fyvie, more than 50 years ago" [1910]. - BS
Last updated in version 2.4
File: GrD3383

On the Spree

DESCRIPTION: Mrs. Brown locks the doors and keeps the keys to keep the boys away from Maggie. Drunk Johnny comes down the chimney but gets stuck on the bar that holds the chain and pothook. He takes the chimney apart to escape. Beware of that bar.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1914 (GreigDuncan7)
KEYWORDS: courting escape warning ordeal humorous
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan7 1509, "On the Spree" (1 text)
Roud #7170
File: GrD71509

On the Steps of the Dole Office Door

DESCRIPTION: "The songs that we sang were about old Jack Lang On the steps of the Dole Office door. He closed up the banks, it was one of his pranks, And he sent us to the Dole Office door. We molested the police till they gave us relief..."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1968
KEYWORDS: unemployment hardtimes
FOUND IN: Australia
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Meredith/Anderson, p. 225, "On the Steps of the Dole Office Door" (1 text, 1 tune)
Meredith/Covell/Brown, pp. 138-139, "Clem Murphy's Door" (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES: On the face of it, it is hard to equate the two Meredith versions of this song; all they have in common is a Depression setting. But Meredith, who has direct experience of the songs, thinks them one. Both fragments describe how people survived the depression and attempted to get by on the dole. - RBW
File: MA225

On the Trail to Mexico

See Boggy Creek or The Hills of Mexico [Laws B10b] (File: LB10B)

On the Twenty-First of May

See The Bold Pirate [Laws K30] (File: LK30)

On the Wallaby Track

See The Springtime It Brings on the Shearing (On the Wallaby Track) (File: MA186)

On This Hill

See The Rattling Bog (File: ShH98)

On to Glory

DESCRIPTION: "Oh come my brethren and sisters too, We're going to join the heavenly crew, To Christ our savior let us sing And make our loud hosannas ring. O, hallelujah...." "Oh, there's (Bill Thomas), I know him well...." (The singer lists sinners and their sins)
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1867 (Allen/Ware/Garrison)
KEYWORDS: religious nonballad
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Allen/Ware/Garrison, p. 66, "On to Glory" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #12022
NOTES: The notes to this song in Allen/Ware/Garrison question whether this is of Negro origin but say that it "illustrat[es] the pressure brought to bear upon the wavering." I don't know about you, but if a preacher started picking on *me* that way, I'd walk out of the congregation. So I have to suspect the audience was, in some sense or other, captive. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.4
File: AWG066

On to Richmond (II)

See We Have the Navy (File: R212)

On to the Morgue

DESCRIPTION: "On to the morgue, that's the only place for me (x2). Take it from the head one, he sure is a dead one. On to the morgue...." "Where will we all be one hundred years from now? (x2) Pushing up the daisies (x2), That's where we'll all be...."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (Sandburg)
KEYWORDS: death parody
FOUND IN: US(MA)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Sandburg, p. 199, "On to the Morgue" (1 short text, 1 tune)
Roud #13614
NOTES: Sandburg calls this a "travesty on the Chopin funeral march." - RBW
File: San199

On Tom Big Bee River

See The Gum Tree Canoe (File: R787)

On Top of Old Smokey

DESCRIPTION: "On top of old Smokey, All covered with snow, I lost my true lover, From courting too slow." The singer laments (her) lover's infidelity, saying that a "false-hearted lover is worse than a thief." (She) claims one cannot trust one in a thousand
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1911 (Belden)
KEYWORDS: courting love rejection lyric warning floatingverses
FOUND IN: US(Ap,So)
REFERENCES (23 citations):
Belden, pp. 473-476, "The Unconstant Lover" (3 texts, 1 tune, none of which mention Old Smokey; the second mixed with "The Cuckoo" and the third short enough that it might be any of the "never place your affection on a green willow tree" songs)
BrownIII 253, "Old Smoky" (2 texts plus 3 excerpts and mention of 3 more); also 248, "The Inconstant Lover" (5 texts plus a fragment, admitted by the editors to be distinct songs but with many floating items; "A," "B," and "C" are more "On Top of Old Smokey" than anything else, though without that phrase; "D" is primarily "The Broken Engagement (II -- We Have Met and We Have Parted)," "E" is a mix of "Old Smokey" and "The Cuckoo," and the "F" fragment may also be "Old Smokey")
Hudson 50, p. 166, "Jimmy" (1 text, more this than anything else but starting with "A-walking, a-talking, a-walking foes I, To meet pretty Jimmy, he'll be here by and by" and continuing with many floating verses, e.g. "The cuckoo is a pretty bird," "If I am forsaken, I am not foresworn, And he is mistaken who thinks I will mourn")
Randolph 49, "The Cuckoo" (4 texts, of which "A" is about half "Inconstant Lover/Old Smokey" verses and "B" never mentions the cuckoo and appears to be mostly floating verses; 1 tune)
Randolph/Cohen, pp. 117-118, "The Cuckoo" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 49A)
Cambiaire, p. 38, "Sweet Willie" (1 text, six verses derived from at least two and probably three or four songs; the largest portion is "On Top of Old Smokey" but there is a bit of "Farewell Ballymoney (Loving Hannah; Lovely Molly)" and something from one of amorphous the "courting is a pleasure" group)
MHenry-Appalachians, pp. 2-3, "Old Smoky" (1 text, starting with a full "On Top of Old Smokey" text and then including a long set of verses from "The Roving Gambler" or perhaps "The Wagoner's Lad"); pp. 18-19, "Pretty Polly, Pretty Polly, I'm Going Away" (with five verses of "Old Smokey" preceded by two "Roving Gambler"-type floaters); p. 33, "Advice to Girls" (a pure "Old Smokey" version)
Scarborough-SongCatcher, pp. 272-282, "The Waggoner's Lad" (9 texts, 6 tunes on pp. 428-431, but the entry combines many songs; A (no title), B ("My Fortune's Been Bad"), and E ("My Horses Ain't Hungry") are extended versions of "The Wagoner's Lad"; C ("The Last Farewell") is a short text probably of "The Wagoner's Lad"; D ("Old Smokie") combined one "Smokey" verse with three "Wagoner's Lad" verses; "F" ("Old Smoky") is a very long "Old Smokey" text which seems to have gained parts of other songs; G ("A False Lying True Love") is "Old Smokey" minus the first verse; H ("I'll Build My Cabin on a Mountain So High" is "Old Smokey" with a first verse from a drunkard song and a final floating verse supplying the title; I (no title) is a fragment probably of "Old Smokey")
SharpAp 78, "I'm Going to Georgia" (2 texts, 2 tunes; as with many pieces listed above, I've filed the SharpAp "I'm Going to Georgia" songs here for want of a better place for them, using the "never place your affections" line as the delineator. - PJS)
Brewster 89, "The Unconstant Lover" (1 text, with no mention of Old Smokey and many floating verses)
Leach, pp.738-740, "The Wagoner's Lad" (2 texts, with the "B" text being a composite of "Wagoner's Lad" and "Old Smokey" verses)
Wyman-Brockway II, p. 1, "An Inconstant Lover" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fuson, pp. 119-120, "Old Smoky" (1 text)
Lomax-FSUSA 18, "Old Smoky" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax-FSNA 112, "Old Smokey" (1 text, 1 tune)
PSeeger-AFB, p. 60, "On Top Of Old Smoky" (1 text, 2 tunes)
Silber-FSWB, p. 165, "On Top Of Old Smoky" (1 text)
JHCox 143, "A Forsaken Lover" (1 text, which appears to be a compound: Three verses of a forseken lover song, followed by an Old Smokey text less the first verse)
JHCoxIIB, #13, pp. 151-152, "Old Smoky" (1 text, 1 tune)
Opie-Oxford2 121, "The cuckoo is a merry bird" (text 2 is "The Forsaken Lover" which omits the "Old Smokey" lines; dated c.1780 (The Merry Gentleman's Companion, according to Opie-Oxford2))
Fuld-WFM, p. 416, "On Top of Old Smokey"
DT, OLDSMOKY
ADDITIONAL: [no author listed], Scenes & Songs of the Ohio-Erie Canal, Ohio Historical Society, 1971, "Johnny and Mollie" (1 text, 1 tune, from Pearl R. Nye; it never mentions Old Smokey and appears to have several stanzas added by Nye, but more of the many floating lines appear to belong here than anywhere else)
Roud #414
RECORDINGS:
Bob Atcher, "Old Smokey" (Columbia 20484, 1948; rec. 1947)
Cramer Brothers, [pseud. for Vernon Dalhart and -- probably -- Carson Robison] "On Top of Old Smokey" (Broadway 8071, c. 1930)
Gerald Duncan et al, "On Top of Old Smokey" (on MusOzarks01)
I. G. Greer, "Old Smoky" (AFS; on LC14)
Roscoe Holcomb, "Old Smoky" (on Holcomb-Ward1, HolcombCD1)
Buell Kazee, "On Top of Old Smoky" [fragment] (on Kazee01)
Bradley Kincaid, "On Top of Old Smokey" (Supertone 9566, 1929)
George Reneau, "On Top of Old Smokey" (Vocalion 15366, 1926)
Pete Seeger, "On Top of Old Smoky" (on PeteSeeger17) (on PeteSeeger23)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Wagoner's Lad"
cf. "The Little Mohee" [Laws H8] (tune)
cf. "Lee's Hoochie" (tune)
cf. "I'm Sad and I'm Lonely" (floating lyrics)
cf. "The Blackbird and Thrush" (floating lyrics)
cf. "I Shot My Poor Teacher (With a Big Rubber Band)" (tune)
cf. "Sailing Out on the Ocean" (floating lyrics)
cf. "A Warning to Girls" (floating lyrics)
cf. "Once I Loved a Bonny Boy" (floating lyrics)
cf. "Courtin' Owre Slow" (theme: lover lost by courting too slowly)
cf. "William and Nancy (II) (Courting Too Slow)" [Laws P5] (theme: lover lost by courting too slowly)
SAME TUNE:
Up in Old Loray (by Odell Corley; Greenway-AFP, pp. 135-136)
I Shot My Poor Teacher (With a Big Rubber Band) (File: PHCFS093)
The Little Mohee (File: LH08)
Lee's Hoochie (File: EM407)
On Top of Old Smoky (Davy Crockett) (Pankake-PHCFSB, p. 111)
On Top of Old Smokey (All Covered with Blood) (Pankake-PHCFSB, p. 126)
On Top of My Headache (Pankake-PHCFSB, p. 111)
On Top of Old Baldy (Pankake-PHCFSB, p. 144)
On Top of Spaghetti (by Tom Glazer) (DT, OLDSMOK2 -- but if this is the Tom Glazer version, I've actually heard a folk-processed form -- RBW)
NOTES: The relationship between this song and "The Wagoner's Lad" is problematic. The two are occasionally listed as one song (e.g. by Leach, Scarborough, and implicitly by Shellans; also, at least in part, by Roud); indeed, this was done in early versions of this Index. This was done under the influence of the Lomaxes, who classify the songs together.
Further study, however, seems to show that almost all versions which have common material are derived from the Lomaxes, and the minor exceptions are usually fragments of floating verses. The plots of the two songs are different, their tunes are distinct, and there does not seem to have been any overlap in ordinary versions. It would appear that the identification of the two is purely the result of the sort of editorial work the Lomaxes so often committed.
Due to this inconsistency, it is suggested that the reader check all versions of both songs, as well as both sets of cross-references, to find all related materials.
It also appears that certain key lines, beginning "A meeting's a pleasure, a parting's a grief, And an (unconstant young man) is worse than a thief," predate this song, as they appear in several British texts which otherwise bear little resemblance to "Old Smokey." For the moment, these British Isles variations are filed under "The Blackbird and Thrush," at least until I find a more authoritative source.
Another interesting question: Does this song refer to the Great Smoky Mountains, which run along the North Carolina/Tennessee border? This seems reasonable based on the geographical distribution. The flip side is, the highest peak in the Great Smoky Mountains is Clingmans Dome, 6643 feet/2025 meters, the highest point in Tennessee. My information is that it is not snow-covered in summer; it is low enough and far enough south that the snow melts every year. Hardly anyone lives near Clingman's Dome, but if it's the highest point in the Smokys, what are the odds of year-round snow on some other peak in the range? Of course, the song could have taken place in winter, when there is snow in the Smokys, but it seems an odd way of identifying the place. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: BSoF740

On Top of Old Smokey (II)

See The Wagoner's Lad (File: R740)

On Yonder Hill There Sits A Hare

DESCRIPTION: A worried hare sits "o'er her lodgings." A huntsman sets his dogs on the hare. She escapes from the best dog. "Merrily as she trips the plain, And may she live to run again."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1977 (recording, Geordie Hanna)
KEYWORDS: escape hunting animal dog
FOUND IN: Ireland
Roud #5173
RECORDINGS:
Geordie Hanna, "On Yonder Hill There Sits A Hare" (on Voice18)
File: RcOYHTSH

Once I Had a Daughter

DESCRIPTION: Father has a daughter who leaves for Germany and returns and says "I have my sweetheart here." Father replies "I have no time to chat And I have no time to talk And I do not like the vagabond Who by your side does walk."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1960 (Creighton-SNewBrunswick)
KEYWORDS: love war soldier cross-dressing separation Germany
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Creighton-SNewBrunswick 106, "Once I Had a Daughter" (1 text fragment, 1 tune)
Roud #2778
NOTES: The current description is based on the Creighton-SNewBrunswick fragment. - BS
File: CrSNB106

Once I Had a Feather Bed

DESCRIPTION: "Once I had a feather bed And curtains a' roon But noo I have tae lie upon A chaff shakie doon [bed stuffed with chaff]"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1910 (GreigDuncan6)
KEYWORDS: nonballad hardtimes
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Greig #115, p. 3, ("Once I had a feather bed") (1 fragment)
GreigDuncan6 1083, "Once I Had a Feather Bed" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
Roud #1703
NOTES: The current description is all of the GreigDuncan6 fragment. - BS
Perhaps related to the "Katie Cruel (The Leeboy's Lassie; I Know Where I'm Going)" family? Obviously we need more text to be able to tell. Roud makes it part of an "Adieu to Old England" family, but it is not clear what defines this family. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: GrD61083

Once I Had a Sweetheart (I)

DESCRIPTION: "Once I had a sweetheart, A sweetheart brave and true, His hair was dark and curly, His cunning eyes were blue." But her sweetheart wanted to roam; he gave her a ring and departed (to become a soldier). He is killed far from home
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1952 (Brown)
KEYWORDS: love separation mourning soldier battle death war
FOUND IN: US(Ap,SE,So)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
BrownII 140, "Once I Had a Sweetheart" (1 text)
[Randolph 796, "Once I Had a Sweetheart" -- deleted in the second printing]
Randolph/Cohen, pp. 527-528, "Once I Had a Sweetheart" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 796A)
Roud #4477
RECORDINGS:
Jimmie Rodgers, "The Soldier's Sweetheart" (Victor V-20864, 1927 -- a World War I adaption)
NOTES: A generic plot, and floating lyrics too! But it seems to be a separate song -- though it's hard to believe it originated in the U. S., as the notes in Brown imply. - RBW
File: BrII140

Once I Had a Sweetheart (II)

See As Sylvie Was Walking (File: VWL014)

Once I Had Plenty of Thyme

See In My Garden Grew Plenty of Thyme (File: R090)

Once I Loved a Bonny Boy

DESCRIPTION: The singer and her lover vowed to marry but "all vows and protestations between us he broke." He's on the ocean and, though some say he'll not prosper, she wishes him "safe sailing and a fair wind to blow." Meeting is pleasure, parting grief, and so on.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1955 (IRRCinnamond03)
KEYWORDS: courting love parting warning floatingverses
FOUND IN: Ireland
Roud #6998
RECORDINGS:
Robert Cinnamond, "Once I Loved a Bonny Boy" (on IRRCinnamond03)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "On Top of Old Smoky" (floating verses)
File: RcOILaBB

Once I Was Happy

See The Flying Trapeze (File: RJ19069)

Once I Was Young and Hadna Muckle Wit

DESCRIPTION: The singer says when she was young she "hadna muckle wit." Now, older, she "hinna muckle yet." She promises to get worse as she gets older "until I get some bonnie laddie tae lie langside o' me"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1914 (GreigDuncan7)
KEYWORDS: age sex nonballad
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan7 1341, "Once I Was Young and Hadna Muckle Wit" (1 text)
Roud #7223
File: GrD71341

Once More a-Lumb'ring Go

See Once More A-Lumbering Go (File: Wa031)

Once More A-Lumbering Go

DESCRIPTION: The singer calls on "all you sons of freedom" to "range the wild woods over and once more a-lumbering go." He briefly describes the work of cutting the trees, the sleighing and hunting, and the joyful return to their families
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1851 (Springer's _Forest Life and Forest Trees_, according to Gray)
KEYWORDS: logger work lumbering
FOUND IN: US(MA,MW,NE) Canada(West)
REFERENCES (6 citations):
Warner 31, "Once More A-Lumbering Go" (1 text, 1 tune)
Gray, pp. 18-21, "The Logger's Boast" (1 text)
Lomax-FSUSA 48, "Once More a-Lumb'ring Go" (1 text, 1 tune)
Beck 4, "Once More a-Lumbering Go" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fowke-Lumbering #4, "A-Lumbering We Go" (1 text, 1 tune, a mixed text starting with two stanzas of "Once More A-Lumbering Go" and continuing with a version of "Bung Yer Eye" minus the chorus)
DT, LUMBERN* LUMBRIN2*
Roud #591
RECORDINGS:
Carl Lathrop, "Once More A-Lumbering Go" (AFS, 1938; on LC56)
Lawrence Older, "Once More A-Lumbering Go" (on LOlder01)
Pete Seeger, "Once More A-Lumbering Go" (on PeteSeeger29)
File: Wa031

Once There Lived a Captain

DESCRIPTION: A sea captain sails before he can marry. He returns and finds the girl has left her father's house for a nunnery. There he finds she has gone to an asylum. At the asylum he finds she died the previous night. At her side he kills himself with his sword.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1967 (recording, John Reilly)
KEYWORDS: courting return separation death suicide father sailor
FOUND IN: Ireland
Roud #3376
RECORDINGS:
Jean "Sauce" Driscoll, "The Sea Captain" (on IRTravellers01)
John Reilly, "Once There Lived a Captain" (on Voice17)
File: RcOTLACa

Once There Were Three Fishermen (The Three Jews)

DESCRIPTION: "Once there were three fishermen (x2), Fisher fisher men men men (x3) Once there were three fishermen." The three fishermen are named, and their voyages described
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1929 (Greenleaf/Mansfield)
KEYWORDS: fishing nonsense
FOUND IN: US(MW) Canada(Mar,Newf)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Greenleaf/Mansfield 176, "The Three Old Jews" (1 text, 1 tune)
Gardner/Chickering 185, "The Three Jews" (1 text)
Pankake-PHCFSB, p. 85, "Three Jolly Fishermen" (1 text, tune referenced)
Silber-FSWB, p. 240, "Once There Were Three Fishermen" (1 text)
Roud #3708 and 12776
NOTES: This is rather confusing, because the change of one word significantly changes the song. In several texts (Gardner and Chickering, Greenleaf and Mansfield), the three heroes are Jews. But in Pankake, as well as the version printed by Silber, they are fishermen. The latter version is very much a children's song, I've only encountered only two versions of this, and they differ in most particulars: In the Silber version, the sailors are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and they sail for Amsterdam (with resulting comments about naughty words); Ed McCurdy sings a version with different sailors, in which Halifax is the destination.
In this case, Roud splits the two versions. But the verse form, as well as the names of the characters, says they are the same. - RBW
File: FSWB240A

One and Twenty

DESCRIPTION: "My father was a farmer gay, With beef and corn in plenty, I hoed, I mowed, I held the plow, And I longed for one and twenty." Of age at last, the singer enlists. Army life makes him wish for home. He loses a leg, is captured, and goes home crippled
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1907 (GreigDuncan8)
KEYWORDS: farming youth soldier battle injury home disability
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber)) US(MW)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
GreigDuncan8 1761, "My Father Was a Farmer Good" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
Gardner/Chickering 96, "One and Twenty" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST GC096 (Partial)
Roud #3367
File: GC096

One Bottle More

DESCRIPTION: "Assist me, ye lads... To sing the praise of old Ireland's isle." England taunts our simplicity but we would share our last bottle. At Candy's six Irishmen had four bottles each, a fight brought a fifth and a resolve to have 12 bottles more the next night
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1815 (broadside, Bodleian Harding B 10(10))
KEYWORDS: virtue drink Ireland
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
O'Conor, p. 23, "One Bottle More" (1 text)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 10(10), "Irish Hospitality", J. Whittle and R. H. Laurie (London), 1815
LOCSinging, sb40474a, "One Bottle More", Louis Bonsal (Baltimore), 19C
SAME TUNE:
Town and Country (broadside Bodleian Harding B 10(10))
File: OCon023

One Bottle of Pop

DESCRIPTION: "One bottle (of) pop, Two bottles (of) pop, Three bottles (of) pop...." "Don't throw your junk in my back yard... my back yard's full." "Fish and chips and vinegar...." Composite children's round
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1988
KEYWORDS: nonballad food humorous
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Pankake-PHCFSB, pp. 232-233, "One Bottle Pop" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, POPBOTTL
NOTES: Obviously quite recent (at least with the current words), but it seems to qualify as a children's folksong. - RBW
File: DTpopbot

One Bottle Pop

See One Bottle of Pop (File: DTpopbot)

One Cold Winter's Morning

DESCRIPTION: Singer laments having to leave his love, perhaps never to return. (Friends try to persuade him to stay.) "When I lie down at night all for to take my rest/Trouble and sorrow still rolls across my breast." "O she is the only girl all in this world so wide"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1917 (Cecil Sharp collection)
LONG DESCRIPTION: Singer laments that he must leave his love and travel far away, perhaps never to return. (Friends try to persuade him to stay.) "When I lie down at night all for to take my rest/Trouble and sorrow still rolls across my breast." "For the first time I saw her I gained her by my charm/The second time I saw her I rolled her in my arms/O she is the only girl all in this world so wide/She is the only girl can ever be my bride"
KEYWORDS: grief loneliness courting love marriage sex parting travel lover
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
SharpAp 146, (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Roud #3626
NOTES: Yes, the plot is well-worn and found in multiple other songs, but this one seems distinct; significantly, Sharp lists no relatives or antecedents, but he did find two versions, both in Kentucky. - PJS
File: ShAp2146

One Day I Chanced to Rove

DESCRIPTION: The singer falls in love with a rich girl. Her friends slight him because he is poor. He says he is not interested in her gold. If she would agree "we'll live at our end aye each other please"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1881 (Christie)
KEYWORDS: courting love money nonballad
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Greig #23, p. 2, ("One day I chanced to rove"); Greig #158, p. 2, ("As one day I chanced to rove") (2 texts)
GreigDuncan5 965, "One Day I Chanced to Rove" (2 texts, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: W. Christie, editor, Traditional Ballad Airs (Edinburgh, 1881 (downloadable pdf by University of Edinburgh, 2007)), Vol II, pp. 228-229, "As One Day I Chanc'd to Rove" (1 tune)
Roud #6767
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Shady Grove
NOTES: Greig #23: .".. said to have been written by James Walker, Gonar Burn, and once popular in the New Pitsligo district. The first verse is as follows -- [text]. The stanza is the same as that of "Strichen's Plantins. I should not wonder if the tune was the same." Greig #158, quoting Christie's version in [Traditional] Ballad Airs [1876-1881]: "When we compare this ditty, which Christie takes to be incomplete, with "Brigtown's Plantins," we feel inclined to put the question -- Why should these two songs have so much likeness without having more?"
Christie: "The editor noted this Air, note for note, from the singing of 'Jennie Meesic' in 1851. The song given is what she sung to the Air. It appears to be a fragment." His version does not get beyond her disapproving friends. - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: GrD5965

One Day More

See One More Day (File: FSWB086B)

One Day of Turkey and Six Days of Hash

DESCRIPTION: Philosophical; for every silver lining there's a dark cloud. "For one faithful friend there are dozens who sneer/For one happy laugh there is always a tear...For one gentle dog there are dozens that bite...For one day of turkey there's six days of hash."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1941 (Beck)
KEYWORDS: warning humorous nonballad food dog
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Beck 92, "One Day of Turkey and Six Days of Hash" (1 text)
Roud #8848
NOTES: This cynical little masterpiece is worthy of Tom Lehrer. - PJS
File: Be092

One Dime Blues

DESCRIPTION: "I'm broke an' I ain't got a dime (x3) Ev'rybody gets in hard luck sometime." "You want your friend to be bad like Jesse James (x3) Git two six shooters, highway some passenger train." "One dime was all I had (x3) that was the meal before last."
AUTHOR: Blind Lemon Jefferson
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (recording, Blind Lemon Jefferson)
KEYWORDS: hardtimes poverty money
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Lomax-FSNA 310, "One Dime Blues" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, ONEDIME*
RECORDINGS:
Blind Lemon Jefferson, "One Dime Blues" (Paramount 12578, 1927)
File: LoF310

One Fine Day

DESCRIPTION: Floating verse song: "One fine day I went to mill, I got stuck on Badger's Hill; I hawed my horses... But to save my soul I couldn't get a start." "There was a frog lived in the spring." "The black cat spit in the white cat's eye." Etc.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1929 (Garnder/Chickering)
LONG DESCRIPTION: Floating verse song: "One fine day I went to mill, I got stuck on Badger's Hill; I hawed my horses... But to save my soul I couldn't get a start." "There was a frog lived in the spring." "The black cat spit in the white cat's eye." "Now maybe you think there's another verse To this here song, but there ain't." Chorus: "Oh where you come from, knock a nigger down, A wagon full of bum shells, knock...."
KEYWORDS: nonballad floatingverses
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Gardner/Chickering 201, "One Fine Day" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #3711
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Kemo Kimo" (floating lyrics)
cf. "Gray Cat on the Tennessee Farm" (floating lyrics)
NOTES: No, the tune is *not* "Turkey in the Straw." - RBW
File: GC201

One Fine Summer's Morning

See The Banks of the Clyde (File: HHH812)

One Fish Ball

See One Fish-Ball (One Meat Ball, The Lone Fish-Ball) (File: SRW074)

One Fish-Ball (One Meat Ball, The Lone Fish-Ball)

DESCRIPTION: A single man (who perhaps has abandoned his wife?) wanders into a restaurant, but finds he has only money for one (meat/fish) ball. Waiters and company abuse him, and he is told, "You get no bread with one fish ball"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1862 (parodied; see notes)
KEYWORDS: food poverty
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Spaeth-ReadWeep, pp. 74-75, "The Lone Fish-Ball" (1 text, 1 tune)
Botkin-NEFolklr, pp. 580-584, "The Lone Fish-Ball" (2 texts, 1 tune, plus assorted items on the same theme)
Pankake-PHCFSB, p. 22, "One Fish Ball" (1 text, tune referenced)
Silber-FSWB, p. 264, "One Fish Ball" (1 text)
NOTES: According to the Caxton Club (Chicago) edition of Il Pescoballo (1899), the one-act opera buffa with Italian words by Francis James Child and English translation by James Russell Lowell was first performed in 1862 to raise money for the Civil War Sanitary Commission (precursor to the Red Cross). The authors of the jeu d'esprit, to quote Charles Eliot Norton's introduction, were originally given only as "Maestro Rossibello-Donimozarti."
"One Fish Ball," upon which the opera buffa was based, was written by a Harvard Latin professor, identified by Norton only as "Lane." It was a "local ballad which had had great vogue, written not many years before." Norton asserts Lane based the song on "an adventure of his own."
The Caxton Club edition prints a tune, crediting it as a "volkslied." - EC
Lewis Becker adds that Loesser's Humor in American Song dates the song to about 1854 and claims it is "Founded on a Boston Fact."
Dick Greenhaus reports that the "One Meat Ball" version was popularized by Josh White in the 1940s. Popularized enough, in fact, that they taught it in my grade school! - RBW
File: SRW074

One for the Blackbird

DESCRIPTION: Folk wisdom: "One for the blackbird, Two for the crow, Three for the cutworm, An' the rest for to grow."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1923
KEYWORDS: harvest bird nonballad
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Randolph 275, "The Crow Song" (with only the "E" fragment belonging here)
File: R275E

One Forsaken, The

See The False Young Man (The Rose in the Garden, As I Walked Out) (File: FJ166)

One Horse Open Sleigh, The

See Jingle Bells (File: RJ19093)

One I Love, Two I Love

DESCRIPTION: Counting rhyme, usually for counting seeds or flower petals: "One I love, two I love, Three I love, I say. Four I love with all my heart, Five I cast away." And so forth, with different actions up to twelve or higher
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1883 (Newell, according to Opie-Ozford2)
KEYWORDS: nonballad love
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Opie-Oxford2 382, "One I love, two I love" (1 text)
NOTES: Jean Ritchie appears to have combined this with the lyrics of "I Love my Love (II)" t0 produce her song "One I Love." I am not sure this counting rhyme exists as a song on its own, but the connection to the Ritchie song was (just barely) enough reason to include it. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: OOx382

One Kind Favor

See See That My Grave Is Kept Clean (File: ADR92)

One Little Frog

DESCRIPTION: "One little frog a-settin' on a log, Waitin' for its brother, Its eyes were red from the tears it had shed, And it jumped right into the water." Repeat indefinitely: "Another little frog a-settin' on a log...." Etc.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1930 (Randolph)
KEYWORDS: animal brother separation nonballad
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Randolph 581, "One Little Frog" (1 text)
Roud #7668
File: R581

One Man Shall Mow My Meadow

DESCRIPTION: Singer states that various numbers of men shall mow her meadow and gather it together, as well as shear her sheep. The song is cumulative, hypnotic, and loaded with symbolism.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1909
KEYWORDS: cumulative nonballad
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South)) Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (6 citations):
Sharp-100E 100, "One Man Shall Mow My Meadow" (1 text, 1 tune)
Kennedy 291, "The Counting Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
Creighton-NovaScotia 90, "Me One Man" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, ONEMANMW
ADDITIONAL: Walter de la Mare, _Come Hither_, revised edition, 1928, notes to #218, ("One man shall mow my meadow") (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Maud Karpeles, _Folk Songs of Europe_, Oak, 1956, 1964, p. 50, "One Man Shall Mow My Meadow" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #143
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Mower" (imagery)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Me One Man
Mowing Down the Meadow
One Man Shall Shear My Wethers
NOTES: It's hard to decide whether there's a ritual element here, or whether the song itself is the ritual. -PJS
And here I thought it was just a dirty song covered with pastoral symbols.... - RBW
File: ShH100

One Man's Hands

DESCRIPTION: "One man's hands can't break a prison down, Two men's hands can't tear a prison down, But if two and two and fifty make a million, we'll see that day come 'round." Similarly, "One man's voice can't shout to make them hear," etc., with topical references
AUTHOR: Words: Alex Comfort / Music: Pete Seeger
EARLIEST DATE: 1962
KEYWORDS: political nonballad
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Scott-BoA, pp. 376-377, "One Man's Hands" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, (MANSHAND)
File: SBoA376

One May Morning

See Tripping Over the Lea [Laws P19] (File: LP19)

One Meat Ball

See One Fish-Ball (One Meat Ball, The Lone Fish-Ball) (File: SRW074)

One Misty, Moisty Morning

DESCRIPTION: Daniel courts Dolly, a milk maid. Before she will marry he must have her father and mother's consent. "Her parents being willing, all Parties was agreed, Her Portion thirtie shilling, they marry'd were with Speed" and have a public celebration.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1700 (Pills to Purge Melancholy, according to Opie-Oxford2); tune from 1650 (Playford's The Dancing Master, according to Chappell); the Opies say that a broadside, "The Wiltshire Wedding" was printed c. 1680
KEYWORDS: courting dowry wedding father mother
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Opie-Oxford2 359, "One misty, moisty, morning" (2 texts)
Baring-Gould-MotherGoose #140, p. 114, "(One Misty, Moisty Morning)"
Chappell/Wooldridge I, p. 286, "The Friar and the Nun" (1 tune, which is clearly this although no lyrics are printed)
DT, HOWDYEDO*
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Douce Ballads 2(256b), "The Wiltshire Wedding Between Daniel Do-well and Doll the Dairy-maid" ("All in a misty morning"), unknown, n.d.
NOTES: The description is from broadside Bodleian Douce Ballads 2(256b).
See "One Misty Moisty Morning" by Steeleye Span on "Parcel of Rogues." Chrysalis CHR 1046 (1973). - BS
The Digital Tradition notes that this tune is used in the Beggar's Opera. This appears to be a reference to Act II, Air 5, "Before the Barn Door Crowing," which has the tune "All in a misty morning" and ends with the lines
WIth how do you do, and how do you do,
And how do you do again. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: OO2359

One More Chance

DESCRIPTION: "Late last night, When the moon shone bright," the singer visits his honey. She declares she has gone to bed. He points out that he paid her rent, begs for one more chance, offers to take her to a ball. He then pulls out a ten dollar bill, and is admitted
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1925 (Scarborough)
KEYWORDS: sex courting home rejection money whore nightvisit
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Scarborough-NegroFS, pp. 274-275, (no title) (1 text)
File: ScNF274B

One More Day

DESCRIPTION: Shanty: "One more day, me johnnies, One more day, Come rock and row me over, Johnny, one more day." The voyage has been hard, the captain cruel, but the sailors are almost home and soon will be able to visit their girls
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1948 (Shay)
KEYWORDS: shanty sailor home hardtimes
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (8 citations):
Colcord, p. 115, "One More Day" (1 text, 1 tune)
Harlow, pp. 41-42, "One More Day" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hugill, pp. 489-491, "Only One More Day," "Rock 'n Row Me Over" (3 texts, 3 tunes) [AbEd, 362-365]
Sharp-EFC, XV, p. 18, "One More Day (1 text, 1 tune)
Shay-SeaSongs, p. 88, "One Day More" (1 text, 1 tune, which, despite Shay's title, has the usual chorus "One more day... only one more day")
Silber-FSWB, p. 86, "Rock 'N' Row Me Over " (1 text)
DT, ONEMRDAY*
ADDITIONAL: Captain John Robinson, "Songs of the Chantey Man," a series published July-August 1917 in the periodical _The Bellman_ (Minneapolis, MN, 1906-1919)."One More Day!" is in Part 3, 7/28/1917.
Roud #704
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Charlie, One More Day
File: FSWB086B

One More Kiss Before I Go

DESCRIPTION: "Such a happy girl am I, And I'll tell you the reason why:" She has a love who is always courting her and asking for "One more kiss before I go." They will marry soon. She tells boys that girls expect "a loving kiss And a word or two like this..."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1929 (Henry, from Mae Hardin)
KEYWORDS: love courting marriage
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
MHenry-Appalachians, pp. 168-169, "One More Kiss Before I Go" (1 text)
Roud #6375?
File: MHAp168

One More River to Cross

DESCRIPTION: Counting up the contents of Noah's Ark: "The animals went in one by one... two by two... three by three...," often with odd groupings listed. Chorus: "One more river, and that is the river Jordan, One more river (for) to cross."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1897
KEYWORDS: Bible animal nonballad
FOUND IN: US(SE,So)
REFERENCES (5 citations):
BrownIII 455, "One More River to Cross" (1 short text)
Randolph 294, "One More River" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Randolph/Cohen, pp. 250-252, "One More River" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 294A)
Silber-FSWB, p. 392, "One More River to Cross" (1 text)
DT, ONEMORER
Roud #4458
RECORDINGS:
Lt. Jim Europe's Four Harmony Kings, "One More Ribber to Cross" (Pathe 22187, 1919)
Uncle Dave Macon, "One More River to Cross" (Bluebird B-5842, 1935)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Old Uncle Noah" (lyrics)
cf. "Who Built the Ark?" (floating lyrics)
NOTES: Cohen notes that a piece, "Dar's One More Ribber for to Cross" was composed in 1881, with words by James Husey and music by Thomas P. Westendorf. I am unable to verify that this is the same as this song. - RBW
File: R294

One Morning Clear

See Searching for Lambs (File: LO09A)

One Morning in May (II)

See Bad Girl's Lament, The (St. James' Hospital; The Young Girl Cut Down in her Prime) [Laws Q26] (File: LQ26)

One Morning in May (III)

See The Rebel Soldier (File: R246)

One Morning in May (To Hear the Nightingale Sing) [Laws P14]

DESCRIPTION: A (soldier) and a pretty girl meet; they chat and he plays on the fiddle for her. When she asks him to play more, he says it is time to leave. She asks him to marry; he already has a wife and children
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1903 (Belden)
KEYWORDS: soldier courting separation marriage fiddle
FOUND IN: US(Ap,MA,MW,NE,SE,So) Britain(Scotland,England(Lond,South)) Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (30 citations):
Laws P14, "The Nightingale (One Morning in May)"
Belden, pp. 239-244, "The Nightingale" (3 texts plus 2 excerpts and a reference to 1 more, 2 tunes)
Randolph 58, "One Morning in May" (3 texts plus 1 fragment and 1 excerpt, 1 tune plus a fragment)
BrownIII 13, "One Morning in May" (1 text plus a fragment and mention of 2 more)
Scarborough-SongCatcher, pp. 310-311, "One Morning in May" (2 texts, with local titles "See the Waters Gliding," "One Morning, One Morning, One Morning in May"; 2 tunes on pp. 438-439)
Eddy 103, "One Morning in May" (1 text, 1 tune)
Flanders/Olney, pp. 164-165, "The Banks of Low Lee" (1 text, 1 tune)
Peacock, pp. 594-595, "The Soldier and the Lady" (1 text, 1 tune)
Karpeles-Newfoundland 77, "The Nightingale" (1 text, 2 tunes)
Leach, pp. 744-745, "One Morning in May (The Nightingale)" (1 text)
Wyman-Brockway I, p. 68, "The Nightingale" (1 text, 1 tune)
Cambiaire, p. 92, "The Nightingale" (1 text)
JHCoxIIA, #24A-C, pp. 94-98, "The Nightingale," "One Morning in May" (3 texts, 2 tunes)
FSCatskills 130, "A Bold, Brave Bonair" (1 text, 1 tune)
SharpAp 145, "The Nightingale" (5 texts, 5 tunes)
Sharp/Karpeles-80E 47, "The Nightingale" (1 text, 1 tune -- a composite version)
Ritchie-Southern, pp. 40-41, "See the Waters A-Gliding" (1 text, 1 tune)
Sandburg, pp. 136-138, "One Morning in May" (2 texts, 1 tune, but only the "A" text is this piece; the "B" text is "The Rebel Soldier")
Kennedy 185, "The Nightingales Sing" (1 text, 1 tune)
Copper-SoBreeze, pp. 210-211, "To Hear the Nightingales Sing" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax-FSNA 198, "The Wild Rippling Water" (1 text, 1 tune)
Cohen/Seeger/Wood, pp. 52-53, "Fiddling Soldier" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fife-Cowboy/West 3, "The Wild Rippling Water" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hodgart, p. 237, "The Wild Rippling Water" (1 text)
MacSeegTrav 45, "The Lady and the Soldier" (3 texts, 2 tunes)
Darling-NAS, pp. 137-138, "One Morning in May" (1 text)
Silber-FSWB, p. 166, "One Morning In May (The Nightingale)" (1 text)
BBI, ZN277, "As I went forth one Sun-Shining day"
DT 340, NTNGALE NTNGALE2* NTNGALE3* NTNGALE4
ADDITIONAL: _Sing Out_ magazine, Volume 22, #2 (1973), p, 18, "The Brave Volunteer" (1 text, 1 tune, the Bob Beers version)
Roud #140
RECORDINGS:
Raymond & John Cantwell, "The Soldier and the Lady" (on FSB2, FSB2CD)
Liam Clancy, "The Nightingale" (on IRLClancy01)
Coon Creek Girls, "The Soldier and the Lady" (Vocalion 05404, 1940)
Bill Cox, "Fiddling Soldier" (Melotone 7-08-70, 1937)
Betty Garland, "One Morning in May" (on BGarland01)
Mrs. Jack [Vera] Keating, "The Weaver" (on Ontario1)
Neil Morris, "The Irish Soldier and the English Lady" (on LomaxCD1707)
New Lost City Ramblers, "Soldier and the Lady" (on NLCR13)
Shorty & Juanita Sheehan, "The Soldier and the Lady" (on FineTimes)
Marvin Thornton & Fort Thomas group, "The Soldier and the Lady" (AFS, 1938; on KMM)
Doug Wallin, "The Nightingale" (on Wallins1)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Gentleman Soldier" (plot)
cf. "Across the Blue Mountains" (theme)
cf. "The Crystal Spring" (plot)
cf. "1913 Massacre" (tune)
cf. "Harbour Le Cou" (theme)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Bold Grenadier
The Nightingale's Song, or the Soldier's Rare Musick and Maid's Recreation
File: LP14

One Night As I Lay On My Bed

DESCRIPTION: Singer dreams of his love; the dreams torment him so much that he goes out and calls at her window, bidding her to let him in. She demurs, saying her parents will punish her. He says they're asleep and won't hear; she lets him in.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1803 (Scots Musical Museum)
KEYWORDS: courting sex nightvisit
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South),Scotland) Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Vaughan Williams/Lloyd, p. 79, "One Night as I Lay On My Bed" (1 text, 1 tune)
Karpeles-Newfoundland 81, "Go From My Window" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, LAYBED*
Roud #672
RECORDINGS:
Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, "One Night as I Lay On My Bed" (on ENMacCollSeeger02)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Drowsy Sleeper" [Laws M4]
cf. "Farewell to Bonny Galaway" (lyrics, theme).
cf. "Go From my Window, Go"
cf. "The Waters of Dee" (theme)
NOTES: [The earliest known version of this was a] fragment found by Burns [and] published in Johnson's "The Scots Musical Museum." - PJS
File: VWL079

One Night As I Lay on the Prairie

See The Cowboy's Dream (File: R185)

One Night in Cleveland (A Canal Dance)

DESCRIPTION: "One night in Cleveland we had a dance On the weight-lock platform we did prance." Even the mules and chickens try to join the festivities. Old men think they are young again. The singer, despite being "up in years," will stick with canalling
AUTHOR: probably adapted, and possibly written, by Pearl R. Nye
EARLIEST DATE: 1971 (OHS)
KEYWORDS: dancing animal music nonballad
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
ADDITIONAL: [no author listed], Scenes & Songs of the Ohio-Erie Canal, Ohio Historical Society, 1971, "A Canal Dance" (1 text, 1 tune, from Pearl R. Nye)
Roud #4953
File: OHSOnNCl

One Night Sad and Languid (Dream of Napoleon)

DESCRIPTION: "One night sad and languid I went to my bed... When a vision surprising came into my head... I beheld that rude rock... O'er the grave of the once-famed Napoleon." The singer recalls the deeds of Napoleon and how he was "sold... by treachery."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1847 (Journal of William Histed of the Cortes)
KEYWORDS: Napoleon dream death
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Huntington-Whalemen, pp. 215-216, "One Night Sad and Languid" (1 text)
Warner 143, "Boney on the Isle of Saint Helena" (one fragmentary text in the notes to the song)
ST SWMS215 (Full)
Roud #1538
BROADSIDES:
Murray, Mu23-y1:056, "Dream of Napoleon," James Lindsay (Glasgow), 19C
File: SWMS215

One of the Has-Beens

DESCRIPTION: "I'm one of the has-beens, a shearer I mean. I once was a ringer and I used to shear clean... But you may not believe me, for I can't do it now." The shearer recalls the greats he used to shear with, and remains determined to shear as long as he can
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1957 (Stewart/Keesing, _Old Bush Songs_)
KEYWORDS: sheep work age
FOUND IN: Australia
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Fahey-Eureka, pp. 156-157, "One of the Has-Beens" (1 text, 1 tune)
Paterson/Fahey/Seal, pp. 194-195, "One of the Has-Beens" (1 text)
ST FaE156 (Full)
RECORDINGS:
John Greenway, "One of the Has-Beens" (on JGreenway01)
File: FaE156

One of Tonight

DESCRIPTION: "One of tonight! We will all pray togeyther Like de one of tonight." "Moan, oh, moan, We will all moan together... Ninety and nine and de ninety-ninth...." "Shout, oh, shout." "Bow... Like de Israelites bow." "Pray... Like de Israelites." "Cry...."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1952 (Brown)
KEYWORDS: religious nonballad
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
BrownIII 625, "One of Tonight" (1 text)
Roud #11926
File: Br3625

One Penny Portion

See The Constant Lovers [Laws O41] (File: LO41)

One Pound Two

DESCRIPTION: "Now, Maggy dear, it's I do hear you have been on the spree." Johnny asks his wife for an accounting of how she spends his salary of one pound two. She lists it all: meal, potatoes, sugar.... Nothing is wasted or unaccounted. He is satisfied.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1852 (broadside, NLScotland, LC.Fol.187.A.2(052))
KEYWORDS: virtue dialog wife money food
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
O'Conor, p. 20, "One Pound Two" (1 text)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 20(126), "One Pound Two", J. Harkness (Preston), 1840-1866 ; also Harding B 16(190a), Firth c.20(127), Firth c.20(128), Firth c.26(129), "One Pound Two"
Murray, Mu23-y1:093, "One Pound Two," James Lindsay (Glasgow), 19C
NLScotland, LC.Fol.187.A.2(052), "One Pound Two," James Lindsay (Glasgow), 1852-1859; also RB.m.169(058) [damaged copy of preceding], L.C.1270(007), "The One Pound Two," unknown, c. 1845
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Contented Wife and Her Satisfied Husband" (broadside NLScotland, L.C.Fol.70(138a), "The Contented Wife and her Satisfied Husband" ("Ye married people high and low, come listen to my song, I'll show to you economy and not detain yu long"), Muir (unknown), c. 1850
File: OCon020

One Thing or the Other, The

DESCRIPTION: Singer's mother tells him, at 21, to choose a wife; he's always thinking on "the one thing or the other." He courts a girl and marries her; she gets pregnant. It's twins; he complains of the squalling of the one thing and the other
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1903 (Sharp mss)
LONG DESCRIPTION: Singer's mother tells him, at 21, to choose a wife; he's always thinking on "the one thing or the other." He courts a girl and marries her; they're happy in their daily occupation "at the one thing or the other." After a year, she gets pregnant. "It's a son", cries the sister; "It's a daughter" cries the mother; singer says it's the one thing or the other. It's twins; he complains of the squalling of the one thing and the other
KEYWORDS: courting marriage pregnancy baby mother wife humorous twins
FOUND IN: Ireland Britain(England(South)) Canada(Mar,Newf)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Kennedy 209, "The One Thing or the Other" (1 text, 1 tune)
Tunney-StoneFiddle, p. 94, "The Twins" (1 text)
Peacock, pp. 312-313, "The One Thing or the Other" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #2131
File: K209

One Thursday Evening

DESCRIPTION: The singer goes to his lover's house but she is not home. He accepts her sister's offer to take him to see her and his rival. He spies on them and leaves when he hears how he is mentioned. He leaves, drinks whisky and leaves Scotland? Courts the sister?
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1905 (GreigDuncan6)
KEYWORDS: courting infidelity drink sister
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan6 1204, "One Thursday Evening" (3 texts, 2 tunes)
Roud #6800
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Sailor from Dover" (tune, per GreigDuncan6)
NOTES: There are a few lines that are puzzling in both of the GreigDuncan6 texts. First, the singer refers to his lover as "gramachree" or "grammochree." In spite of the line "If e'er I return to Scotland again," this naming seems Irish (see "Gay Girl Marie" [Laws M23] and "Gra Geal Mo Chroi (II -- Down By the Fair River)" and other "Gramachree ..." broadsides (none of which, that I have seen, are this song). Second, maybe the "Scotland" reference is an add-on since it doesn't seem to make sense in this context ("But if ever I return to Scotland again From England from Ireland from France and from Spain I'll do my endeavor to alter my cause In case that new incomes may strike up new laws"). - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: GrD61204

One-ery, two-ery, hickary, hum

See One-ery, Two-ery, Ickery, Ann (File: GrD81641)

One-ery, Two-ery, Ickery, Ann

DESCRIPTION: "One-ery, two-ery, ikery on, Fillisy, follisy, Nicholas John, Query, quavey, Irish Mary, Stinkilum, stankilum, jolly-co, buck"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1842 (Halliwell, quoted by Bolton)
KEYWORDS: nonballad nonsense
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South),Scotland(Aber)) Canada(Que) US(MA,MW,NE,So)
REFERENCES (6 citations):
GreigDuncan8 1641, "Eerie, Oarie, Acktie, Ann" (1 text)
Opie-Oxford2 390, "One-ery, two-ery, ickery, Ann" (2 texts)
Baring-Gould-MotherGoose #628, p. 249, "(One-ery, two-ery)"
ADDITIONAL: Henry Carrington Bolton, Counting-Out Rhymes of Children (New York, 1888 ("Digitized by Google")), #444 p.94 -470 p. 96, [for example, ("Ery, iry, ickery, Ann"),("One-ery, two-ery, ikery on")]; #527 p. 100, ("One-ery, two-ery, zickery zan"); #9 p. 63, ("'Ekkeri, akai-ri, you kair-an"); p.1 (also p. 43) "One-ery, two-ery, ickery, Ann" (30 texts)
Tim Coughlan, Now Shoon the Romano Gillie (Cardiff,2001), #116 pp. 314-322, ("Ekkeri (or ickery), akkery, u-kery an") (3 texts)
James Orchard Halliwell, The Nursery Rhymes of England (London, 1886 ("Digitized by Google")),#302 p. 167, ("One-ery, two-ery, hickary, hum")
Roud #13059
NOTES: The current description is all of a Bolton text from Rhode Island [#456]; the #446 Bolton text is from Montreal; #449 is from Ohio; #452 is from Texas, Missouri, Iowa and Kansas; #455 is from Connecticut. These are two of very many counting out -- that is, find out who is "it" -- rhymes in Bolton, many beginning "one-ery, two-ery," but distinguishable from these texts. Bolton #9 is Leland's Philadelphia text discussed both by Leland and Coughlin.
Halliwell's text is "used in Somersetshire in counting out the game of pee-wip or pee wit."
Coughlin's first text was reported by Leland in 1891 from Philadelphia, and included by Bolton on pp. 44, 63. Coughlin reviews at length the verse and its possible Gypsy roots as discussed by Bolton, the Opies, and others, and includes a proposed Romany translation that converts the nonsense to an intelligible counting out rhyme.
Opie-Oxford2 and Bolton find this "One-ery Two-ery" in Halliwell (1842). - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: GrD81641

One-Eyed Reilly

See O'Reilly's Daughter (File: EM101)

One-Eyed Riley

See O'Reilly's Daughter (File: EM101)

One-Hung Lo

DESCRIPTION: Recitation: Prostitute Hoo Flung Shit is masturbating when One-Hung Lo crawls in and insultingly asks her for sex. She tells him to "go fuck your hat"; he tries to have sex with his hat and mashes it; he falls on the floor; she urinates down his throat
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1947 (referred to by Jarvis)
LONG DESCRIPTION: Recitation: The prostitute Hoo Flung Shit is masturbating with a candle when the client One-Hung Lo crawls in and insultingly asks her to have sex with him. She tells him to "go fuck your hat"; he bangs his penis on the floor, tries to have sex with his hat and mashes it (the hat or the penis) in the door; finally he falls on his back on the floor, and she urinates down his throat
KEYWORDS: shrewishness sex request rejection bawdy recitation whore
FOUND IN: US Britain(England)
RECORDINGS:
Unidentified reciter, "In Crawled One-Hung Lo" (on Unexp1)
NOTES: Whew. That this piece had entered oral tradition (if the phrase is appropriate) is shown by the memoirs of one William E. Jarvis, who recounts that when he served in the US navy at Shanghai, 1947, he had a friendship with a girl named Amy Lo, and his shipmates taunted him by referring to her as "One Hung." - PJS
File: RcOnHunL

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

DESCRIPTION: "One, two, buckle my shoe; Three, four, (open/shut) the door; Five, six, pick up sticks; Seven, eight, lay them straight...." And so forth, to ten or twenty or even beyond; there is naturally increasing variation as the numbers grow larger
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1805 (Songs for the Nursery, according to Opie-Oxford2)
KEYWORDS: nonballad
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Opie-Oxford2 385, "One, two, Buckle my shoe" (1 text, plus excerpts from Bolton's text that goes all the way to thirty)
Baring-Gould-MotherGoose #615, p. 246, "(One, two, buckly my shoe)"
MHenry-Appalachians, pp. 239-240, (no title) (1 text)
Roud #11284
File: BGMG615

One, Two, Three

DESCRIPTION: The singer teaches his girl to dance. "'Twas easy just as easy as A B C, She'd done it when I taught her like one two and three." In demand by the ladies at a ball he realizes that "without her for a partner I would never dance again"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1928 (for USBallinsloeFair, according to site irishtune.info, Irish Traditional Music Tune Index: Alan Ng's Tunography, ref. Ng #2608)
KEYWORDS: courting love dancing
FOUND IN:
RECORDINGS:
Packy Dolan and The Melody Boys, "One, Two, Three" (on USBallinsloeFair)
File: RcOne23

Only a Brakeman

DESCRIPTION: "Far out in Texas... This boy fell a victim.... Only a brakeman, gone on before, Only a brakeman, we'll never see more." The accident that cost him his life is alluded to; his grieving family is mentioned
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (Randolph)
KEYWORDS: death railroading train family
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Randolph 679, "Only a Brakeman" (1 text, 1 tune)
Randolph/Cohen, pp. 445-447, "Only a Brakeman" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 679)
Cohen-LSRail, pp. 173-174, "(Only a Brakeman" (excerpts from 7 "Only a Brakeman" songs; the last is this piece)
Roud #4147
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Only a Miner" [Laws G33] (theme, meter, floating lyrics)
NOTES: This song is item dG49 in Laws's Appendix II. - RBW
File: R679

Only a Miner (The Hard-Working Miner) [Laws G33]

DESCRIPTION: A miner is trapped under a falling boulder; no one can help him. Most of the world doesn't care; he's "only a miner," though he leaves a wife and children
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (recording, Kentucky Thorobreds); John Garst has demonstrated that the "only a miner" verse goes back to at least 1902
KEYWORDS: mining family death
FOUND IN: US(Ap,Ro,So)
REFERENCES (7 citations):
Laws G33, "Only a Miner (The Hard-Working Miner)"
Randolph 680, "Only a Miner" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fuson, p. 141, "The Hard-Working Miner" (1 text)
Green-Miner, pp. 63-65, "Only a Miner" (5 texts, 1 tune)
Lomax-ABFS, pp. 437-438, "The Hard-Working Miner" (1 text, 1 tune)
Greenway-AFP, p. 263, "Poor Miner's Farewell" (1 text)
DT, ONLYMINR (ONLYMNR2?)
Roud #2197
RECORDINGS:
Ted Chesnut, "He's Only a Miner Killed in the Ground" (Gennett 6603/Champion 15587 [as Cal Turner]/Supertone 9180 [as Alvin Bunch], 1928; on KMM)
Kentucky Thorobreds "Only a Miner" (Paramount 3071, 1928; Broadway 8070 [as Old Smokey Twins], n.d.; rec. 1927)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Only a Brakeman" (theme, meter, floating lyrics)
cf. "Just a Poor Lumberjack" (theme)
NOTES: Greenway credits this to Aunt Molly Jackson. This can hardly be accepted. The version Greenway prints is, however, noticeably different from from the other texts listed; the final verse is unique, and the others show variants. Presumably Jackson touched up the existing song. - RBW
As enumerated by Green, the song was collected many times by the Archive of Folk Song and others, with various informants placing the date they learned the song in the 19th century, the earliest being 1888. - PJS
File: LG33

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Old Maid's Lament for a Husband, The

Old Maid's Song (I), The

Old Maid's Song (II), The

Old Maid's Song (III), The

Old Man and a Young Man, An

Old Man and the Door, The

Old Man and the Oak, The

Old Man at the Mill, The

Old Man Came Over the Moor, An (Old Gum Boots and Leggings)

Old Man Fox

Old Man from Lee, The

Old Man from Over the Sea, The

Old Man He Courted Me, An

Old Man in the North Countree, The

Old Man Kangaroo, The

Old Man Rocking the Cradle

Old Man under the Hill, The

Old Man Who Lived in the Woods, The

Old Man, The

Old Man's Courtship, The

Old Man's Lament (II)

Old Man's Lament, The

Old Man's Three Sons (Jeffery, James, and John)

Old Marse John

Old Massa He Come Dancin' Out

Old Mayflower, The

Old Miller, The

Old Missouri

Old Moke Pickin' on the Banjo (Song of the Pinewoods)

Old Molly Hair

Old Molly Hare

Old Mont Line, The

Old Moses Smote de Waters

Old Moses Smote the Waters

Old Mother Hare

Old Mother Head's

Old Mother Hubbard

Old Mountain Dew

Old Mud Cabin on the Hill

Old Nantucket Whaling Song

Old Napper

Old Ninety-Seven

Old Noah

Old Noah Built an Ark

Old Oak Tree, The [Laws P37]

Old Oaken Bucket, The

Old Orange Flute, The

Old Orange Tree, The

Old Paint (I)

Old Paint (II)

Old Palmer Song, The

Old Pete Bateese

Old Petticoat, The

Old Plaid Shawl, The

Old Polina, The

Old Ponto Is Dead

Old Port Rockwell

Old Prospector's Crime, The

Old Rattler

Old Rattler (II)

Old Recruiting Soldier (Twa Recruiting Sergeants)

Old Reilly

Old Reuben

Old Riley

Old Robin Gray

Old Robin of Portingale [Child 80]

Old Roger is Dead (Old Bumpy, Old Grimes, Pompey)

Old Rosin the Beau (Bow)

Old Rustic Bridge by the Mill, The

Old Sailor's Song

Old Sally Walker

Old Sam Fanny

Old Satan's Mad

Old Scout's Lament

Old Section Boss, The

Old Settler's Song,The

Old Settoo, The

Old Shawnee, The

Old Sheep Went to Sleep

Old Ship of Zion (I), The