"Canada-I-O" | |
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Song | |
Written | before 1700 |
Songwriter(s) | Traditional |
"Canada-I-O" (also known as "Canadee-I-O" or "The Wearing of the Blue") is a traditional English folk ballad (Roud 309). [1] It is believed to have been written before 1839. [2]
When her love goes to sea, a lady dresses as a sailor and joins (his or another's) ship's crew. When she is discovered, (the crew/her lover) determine to drown her. The captain saves her and they marry.
Based on similarity of title, some connect this song with "Canaday-I-O, Michigan-I-O, Colley's Run I-O". There is no connection in plot, however, and any common lyrics are probably the result of cross-fertilization.
The Scottish song "Caledonia/Pretty Caledonia" is quite different in detail — so much so that it is separate from the "Canada-I-O" texts in the Roud Folk Song Index ("Canaday-I-O" is #309; [3] "Caledonia" is #5543). The plot, however, is too close for scholars to distinguish.
[ citation needed ]
"The Daemon Lover" – also known as "James Harris", "A Warning for Married Women", "The Distressed Ship Carpenter", "James Herries", "The Carpenter’s Wife", "The Banks of Italy", or "The House-Carpenter" – is a popular ballad dating from the mid-seventeenth century, when the earliest known broadside version of the ballad was entered in the Stationers' Register on 21 February 1657.
"Frog Went a-Courtin'" is an English-language folk song. Its first known appearance is in Wedderburn's Complaynt of Scotland (1549) under the name "The Frog cam to the Myl dur", though this is in Scots rather than English. There is a reference in the London Company of Stationers' Register of 1580 to "A Moste Strange Weddinge of the Frogge and the Mouse." There are many texts of the ballad; however the oldest known musical version is found in Thomas Ravenscroft's Melismata in 1611.
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"Babylon", also called "The Bonnie Banks o' Fordie" or "The Banks o' Airdrie" is an English-language folk song.
Mr. Motherwell gives a version under the title of Babylon; or, the Bonny Banks o' Fordie; and Mr. Kinloch gives another under the title of The Duke of Perth's Three Daughters. Previous editors have attempted to find a local habitation for this tradition, and have associated it with the family of Drummond, of Perth. As a legend exactly similar is current in Denmark, this appears a bootless quest.
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Dives and Lazarus is traditional English folk song listed as Child ballad 56 and number 477 in the Roud Folk Song Index. It is considered a Christmas carol and based on the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. The song traditionally used a variety of tunes, but one particular tune, published by Lucy Broadwood in 1893 and used in other traditional songs, inspired many notable works and appeared in several pieces composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams.
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Rosemary Lane"is an English folksong: a ballad that tells a story about the seduction of a domestic servant by a sailor. According to Roud and Bishop
"An extremely widespread song, in Britain and America. Its potential for bawdry means that it was popular in male-centred contexts such as rugby clubs, army barracks and particularly in the navy, where it can still be heard, but traditional versions were often collected from women as well as men."
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The Bold Fisherman is an English folk song popular with traditional singers and widely collected in the early and mid 20th century CE. It has been frequently performed and recorded by contemporary folk singers and groups.