Her aprong strings wouldn't tie

[vbetts]

I've been reading in the Texas slave narratives, and ran across this song. Can anyone identify it, or know the tune?

"Grandma used to sing a li’l song to us, like this:

One mornin’ in May,
I spies a beautiful dandy,
A-rakin’ way of de hay.
I asks her to marry,
She says, scornful, ‘No.’
But befo’ six months roll by
Her apron strings wouldn’t tie.
She wrote me a letter,
She marry me then,
I say, no, no, my gal, not I.”

Vicki Betts

[amity]

Re: Her aprong strings wouldn't tie

It has a bizarre meter to it, seems to me. I can't think of a single tune that fits these words! Are we sure that is all the poetry?

[ThehosGendar]

Re: Her aprong strings wouldn't tie

I'd say we'll never know the tune. Alot of slave songs, particularly field songs, were improvised, as John McElroy of the 16th Illinois Cavalry witnessed while in his early days imprisoned at Andersonville:

______

“We were much interested in watching the negro work. They wove in a great deal of their peculiar, wild, mournful music, whenever the characteristic of the labor permitted. They seemed to sing the music for the music’s sake alone, and were as heedless of the fitness of the accompanying words, as the composer of a modern opera is of his libretto. One middle-aged man, with a powerful, mellow baritone, like the round, full notes of a French horn, played by a virtuoso, was the musical leader of the party. He never seems to bother himself about air, notes or words, but improvised all as he went along, and he sand as the spirit moved him. He would suddenly break out with –

‘Oh, he’s gone up dah, nevah to come back agin,’

At this every darkey within hearing would roll out, in admirable consonance with the pitch, air and time started by the leader –

‘O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!’

Then would ring out from the leader as from the throbbing lips of a silver trumpet –

‘Lord bress him soul; I done hope he is happy now!'

And the antiphonal two hundred would chant back –

‘O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!’

And so on for hours. They never seemed to weary of singing, and we certainly did not of listening to them. The absolute independence of the conventionalities of tune and sentiment, gave them freedom to wander through a kaleideoscopic variety of harmonic effects, as spontaneous and changeful as the song of a bird.”

__________

From: John McElroy Andersonville: A Story of Rebel Military Prisons, Fifteen Months a Guest of the So-called Southern Confederacy (Toledo: D.R. Locke, 1879), 135-136.

[vbetts]

Re: Her aprong strings wouldn't tie

That was all that was given. It just seemed to me to be a slave adaptation of perhaps an old English song, or at least from the British Isles. I tried to google various phrases but never did come up with anything.

Vicki Betts

[Hank Trent]

Re: Her aprong strings wouldn't tie

(double posted)

[Hank Trent]

Re: Her aprong strings wouldn't tie

Mudcat.org is good for this kind of stuff, and though there's nothing on there that matches the song, apparently apron strings not meeting was a common motif in old English songs. So at least there's some traditional English folk song influence there. See this thread, especially down at the end: http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=79435

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[ThehosGendar]

Re: Her aprong strings wouldn't tie

Mudcat.org is good for this kind of stuff, and though there's nothing on there that matches the song, apparently apron strings not meeting was a common motif in old English songs. So at least there's some traditional English folk song influence there.

It's very trad. English... The song occurs in May (everthing happens in May!), there's a man who takes advantage of a woman, and the reference to her being pregnant several months later all show up in many, many, many trad. English ballads. There's either some out-of-wedlock kidmaking going on, or something excessively bloody is happening, with lots of people getting killed in rather horrific ways. However, with this song, as Annie and I heard Eliza Carthy, daughter of the English folk master Martin Carthy, say at a recent concert before singing a similarly themed song, "The body count is remarkably low."

[Becky Morgan]

Re: Her aprong strings wouldn't tie

It's very trad. English... The song occurs in May (everthing happens in May!), ...something excessively bloody is happening, with lots of people getting killed in rather horrific ways.

http://www.tqsi.com/stedman/sirandrewbarton.html

Nice little poem about an ancestor of ours. I see he's turned the happy-skippy midi file off, but the combination of the cheery music and those very lengthy and bloody lyrics is just...absolutely...gross. If indeed that was entertaining, it also provides a bit of insight into English character at the time!:confused_

[MBBursig]

Re: Her aprong strings wouldn't tie

http://www.tqsi.com/stedman/sirandrewbarton.html

Nice little poem about an ancestor of ours. I see he's turned the happy-skippy midi file off, but the combination of the cheery music and those very lengthy and bloody lyrics is just...absolutely...gross. If indeed that was entertaining, it also provides a bit of insight into English character at the time!:confused_

Given the time period that alot of the English trad. material that we love (and Wickersty and Annie could back me up on this), it was indeed entertaining. According to English Folk Rock guitarist and songwriter Richard Thompson, "We have another song that mentions hell and damnation. Oh well that is the material we are dealing with here folks!" It was the nature of the time period (Middle Ages to 17th & 18th cent.), so yes it does provide insight into the English societal character. Everyone loves that "Doom and Gloom."

Broadsheets, ballads, and performances often enough, were the news to the peasantry and common folk since many could not read. Stories of murders, hangings, a princess being baked in a pie, elusive piccadillos, infantcide, etc. were presented in song as news. It was a social issue as well, since many of the aristocracy, landowners, and lords didn't want their serfs to know the news or truth. Yet, because they were in song, it was not necessarily known whether it was truth or not. Furthermore, the songs may be social commentaries of the era, poking fun and pointing out issues between the classes (as "Matty Groves" shows).

I like to compare English trad. music to the Grimm Brothers' tales in Germany, as they also reflect morals and maybe a romanticized truth.

Also, if you think about it, in today's world we watch "Saw", "Kill Bill Volume whatever", "Grindhouse", "300" and countless other movies or plays with terrible cruelty, violence, and sex. I like to think of it as the same thing. It is the entertainment of the people and the times.
Cheers,