Author Topic: Add: He that will not Merry, Merry Be


dmcg

Posted - 19 Sep 03 - 10:43 am

He that will not merry, merry be
With a gen'rous bowl and toast,
May he in Bridewell be shut up
And bound unto a post.
Let him be merry, merry there
And we will be merry, merry here
For who can know where we may go
To be merry another year, brave boys,
To be merry another year.

He that will not merry, merry be
And take his glass in course,
May he be made to drink small beer
No penny in his purse.
Let him be merry, merry there
And we will be merry, merry here
For who can know where we may go
To be merry another year, brave boys,
To be merry another year.

He that will not merry, merry be
With a crew of jolly boys,
May he be plauged with a scolding wife
Who'll vex him with her noise.
Let him be merry, merry there
And we will be merry, merry here
For who can know where we may go
To be merry another year, brave boys,
To be merry another year.


Source: Sabine Baring Gould, 1895, Old English Songs from English Minstrelsie


Notes:

This is taken from the selection of the eight volume work by Baring Gould of the same name, reprinted by Llanerch Publishers.

Notes are not given in the selection, but are in the full eight volume work to which I do not have access. Therefore I can give no information about where and when this song was collected.

Database entry is here.




Malcolm Douglas
Posted - 19 Sep 03 - 12:19 pm

"Song and air from the ballad opera, The Jovial Crew, printed in 1731. The old name of the tune is there given as Three merry men of Kent. [ ... ] The song from The Jovial Crew is only part of a much earlier lyric, the whole of which is reprinted in Dixon's Songs of the Peasantry of England, p. 239."

Frank Kidson, in Moffat and Kidson, The Minstrelsy of England, 1901, 104.

Ballad LXXXV from Dixon can be seen here: The Merry Fellows; Or, He That Will Not Merry, Merry Be

Chappell (Popular Music of the Olden Time, 1859, I, 588) prints the song as above, reproduced from A complete Collection of old and new English and Scotch Songs, with their respective tunes prefixed, 8vo., 1735, 137.

I think that perhaps the term "collected" is potentially a little misleading in the case of songs from the Minstrelsie, as it may be taken to imply that they are from oral tradition, which is (in the main) not the case. In fact Roud does list one example from tradition of this song: Now we've met let's Merry, Merry be, in Alfred Williams, Folk-Songs of the Upper Thames, 1923, 51. The text is much as the broadside example in Dixon. Williams noted

"The following was a great favourite in the Thames Vale, especially among convivial company at the inns. The chorus was commonly used separately as a toast. Obtained of W. Mills, South Cerney."

Roud 615.



dmcg

Posted - 19 Sep 03 - 12:44 pm

I will rephrase the 'standard disclaimer' I'm putting on these songs to address the 'collected' term. This will take an hour so so to get round to.




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