| Author | Topic: Add: I live not where I Love | |
| dmcg | Posted - 01 Sep 02 - 03:20 pm | |
I Live not Where I Love Come all you maids that live at a distance, Many miles from off your swain, Come and assist me this very moment For to pass away some time. Singing sweetly and completely Songs of pleasure and of love, For my heart is with him altogether, Though I live not where I love. When I sleep I dream about you When I wake I take no rest, For every instant thinking on you, My heart e'er fixed in your breast And although far distance may be assistance From my mind his love to remove But my heart is with him altogether Though I live not where I love All the world shall be one religion All living things shall cease to die Before I prove false unto my jewel Or any way my love deny. The world shall change and be most strange If ever I my mind remove My heart is with him altogether Though I live not where I love. So farewell lads and farewell lasses Now I think I've got my choice I will away to yonder mountains Where I think I hear his voice And if he holloa I will follow Around the world though 'tus so wide For young Thomas he did promise I should be his lawful bride. Source: Marrowbones, EFDS Notes: Hammond D.219, Robert Barratt, Piddletown, Dorset, Sept 1905 Database entry is here | ||
| Malcolm Douglas |
Posted - 01 Sep 02 - 05:21 pm | |
Roud 593. Some small modifications have been made to Mr. Barrett's text, and his third verse has been moved to the end. William Chappell (Popular Music of the Olden Time, 1859; vol.II pp.451-3 and 782) discusses the song and quotes a text from the family tradition (presumably) of the writer and critic Hazlitt, which is quite close to our text here. Broadsides of 1638 (Peter Lowberry) and c.1640 (Martin Parker) appear to be ancestral (though sung to a different tune); particularly the former, The Constant Lover, which begins: You loyall Lovers that are distant from your Sweet-hearts many a mile, Pray come helpe me at this instant In mirth to spend away the while In singing sweetly, and compleately, In commendation of my love; Resolving ever to part never, though I live not where I love. Information from The British Broadside Ballad and Its Music, Claude M. Simpson, 1966. Bruce Olson quotes the full text in the Scarce Songs 2 file at his website: I Live Not Where I Love. Later broadside editions are shorter, and close to the known traditional sets, of which W.P. Merrick and Cecil Sharp both noted examples. At Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads: Young Thomas Printed between 1820 and 1824 for W. Armstrong, Banastre-street [Liverpool]. Harding B 28(180). I live not where I love Printed between 1814 and 1850 by C. Croshaw, Printer, Coppergate, York. Harding B 25(882). I live not where I love Printed between 1819 and 1844 by Pitts, wholesale Toy and Marble warehouse, 6, Gt. St. Andrew Street, Seven Dials [London]. Harding B 11(39). I think that, when quoting songs from books, we should give full details; in this case, Marrowbones, ed. Frank Purslow. EFDS Publications, 1965. | ||
| dmcg | Posted - 02 Sep 02 - 10:33 am | |
Database updated, including source reference. | ||
| IanC | Posted - 09 Sep 02 - 01:23 pm | |
I think the name of the town in DMcG's original post should be Puddletown. There is no Piddletown in Dorset! :-) | ||
| Malcolm Douglas |
Posted - 09 Sep 02 - 03:52 pm | |
It was called Piddletown at the time the song was collected (there is a River Piddle) but sadly the residents became embarassed, and the name was subsequently changed. | ||
| dmcg | Posted - 09 Sep 02 - 07:29 pm | |
I've added an explanatory note to the database. If anyone knows when the name change happened, I'll add that as well. | ||
| IanC | Posted - 10 Sep 02 - 01:58 pm | |
I accept Malcolm's statement that it was originally recorded as "Piddletown" (though by 1905 this would not have been the usual spelling, I think). With reference to the date of the "name change" from Piddletown to Puddletown, things don't look too simple ... Both the 1831 and 1891 censuses seem to spell it "Piddletown". However, there is a survey of 1724 which appears to use "Puddletown". Nearby placenames use Piddle for upstream villages (Piddletrenthide, Piddlehinton) whereas villages downstream from Piddletown/Puddletown use Puddle (Affpuddle, Briantspuddle, Tolpuddle, Turners Puddle). I'm quite certain from looking at contemporary documents relating to the Tolpuddle Martyrs that Tolpuddle was never spelt "Tolpiddle" during the last 200 years. From what I can tell, the regularisation to "Puddletown" in all cases seems to have occurred in the late 19th Century. There is a story (apparently current with older natives) that the name was changed when Queen Victoria visited the area. However, the other "Piddle" names were not changed and, despite the unearned reputation, Victoria was no prude (she took no apparent exception to Pidley in Huntingdonshire, either). The other local explanation for the "change" is obvious enough ... Puddletown is on a crossroads and local people didn't want to be saying "Turn left at Piddletown" to strangers. In both cases, you can see local folklore at play. In 1956, the inhabitants of Puddletown successfully rebelled because the council wanted to "revert to the earlier form of Piddletown". I suspect that before it was regularised, the spelling simply differed ... after all, with the local pronunciation the pronunciation would always have been something like "P'ddlet'n" anyway. :-) Ian | ||
| Malcolm Douglas |
Posted - 10 Sep 02 - 04:03 pm | |
I've been looking at some of the same references as Ian, and it does seem devilish complicated. It may well be that in 1905 "Piddletown" was a form used mainly by older people. At all events, a good few songs from Mr. Barrett were noted by Hammond, and many of those arreared in the Journal of the Folk Song Society (though not this one), where "Piddletown" was always named as his place of residence, so presumably it was his (or Hammond's) preferred form. We don't have extensive biographical details. This is all I've found so far: "Roberts Barrett of Puddletown worked as a carter on the Ilsington estate. He contributed 51 songs to the [Hammond] collection, most of them complete. His grandson, himself now working at Puddletown, says that he sang a great deal at his work. It is usual to fing singers developing their own styles; Roberts Barrett had a mannerism of prefacing many lines with 'Yo!' " A Dorset Book of Folk Songs, eds. Joan Brocklebank and Biddie Kindersley; EFDSS, 1948. This is the only place I've seen his first name given as Roberts Barrett; elsewhere he appears as Robert or R. Barrett. | ||
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