Song View

Love song. As the original lyrics mention the Scottish river Clyde, the US musicologist Alan Lomax argues that the song is of Scottish origin and describes the later versions of the song as a reinterpretation of British material.

Folk song collector Cecil Sharp became acquainted with the song on September 15, 1916, when he and his assistant Maud Karpeles visited a Mrs. Lizzie Roberts in Hot Springs, North Carolina. It is often claimed that a photograph was taken during this visit, but this is incorrect. Cecil Sharp was first and foremost a music collector who recorded melodies by hand or by notation. He did not use phonographs or other recording devices in his field research. The song was published in 1917 in the song collection “English folk songs from the southern Appalachians” (published by G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York). After Cecil Sharp's death, his longtime collaborator Maud Karpeles returned to the Appalachians in the early 1950s (specifically 1950 and 1951) to review and supplement Sharp's field research. Maud Karpeles met Mrs. Lizzie Roberts again in Hot Springs, Madison County, North Carolina in 1951. This visit resulted in an audio recording with the elderly Mrs. Roberts, which has been archived at the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. There is no contemporary record release from the 1950s of this recording.