The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #63269   Message #1094882
Posted By: Jim Dixon
17-Jan-04 - 12:01 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Bankers boy? / Young Banker / Banking Boy
Subject: Lyr Add: THE BANKING BOY (from Bodleian)
This version has some significant differences from the version in the DT, which comes from the Watersons.

Transcribed from the broadside image at Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads, Firth b.25(304).

A NEW SONG
CALLED
THE BANKING BOY

As I walked out one morning fair,
To view the fields and take the air,
O there a young banker I spied all alone,
For his true love he was making a moan.

He says, pretty maid, will you come on deck,
With a chain of gold all round your neck;
For what you say may prove true,
But his* answer it was I'll have none of you.

Young banker he turned for to go away,
She called after him and to him did say;
Oh stay, oh stay, and I will prove true,
But his answer it was I will have none of you.

She thought that she heard some gang's man say,
Pack up your clothes and go away;
And it pricked her to the heart,
To think that the banker and her should part.

Young banker he had a handsome face,
And all around his hat wore a band of lace
Beside such a handsome head of hair,
For the young banker I will go there.

Now the pretty maid all her senses are lost,
Ever since that in love she had been crossed,
But now she sighs and laments, and does say,
I have rued the day I said nay, nay, nay.

[*In my opinion, both versions are marred by misuse of pronouns, causing speeches to be attributed to the wrong person. In verse 2, line 4, above, I have transcribed it exactly as I found it, but the story would make more sense with "her" instead of "his." In the DT, the error is in verse 4, line 4—(Note the verses are in a different order.)—but I don't know whether the error was introduced by the transcriber, or the Watersons, or their source.]