The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #26282   Message #2906287
Posted By: Jim Dixon
13-May-10 - 04:10 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Old Maid Song / Old Maid's Song
Subject: Lyr Add: THE OLD MAID'S SONG (trad. Kentucky)
From Lonesome Tunes: Folk Songs from the Kentucky Mountains by Loraine Wyman (New York: The H. W. Gray Company, 1916), page 65:

THE OLD MAID'S SONG.
(Pulaski County, Kentucky)

1. I had a sister Sally that was younger than I am.
She had so many sweethearts she was forced to deny them;
But as for my own part, I never had many.
If you all knew my heart, I'd be thankful for any.

CHORUS: Come a landsman, a pinsman, a tinker or a tailor,
A fiddler or a dancer, a ploughboy or a sailor,
A gentleman or a poor man, a fool or a witty,
Don't you let me die an old maid, but take me out of pity.

2. I had a sister Susan that was ugly and ill-shapen.
Before she was sixteen years old, she was taken.
Before she was eighteen, a son and a daughter.
Here I'm six-and-forty and never had an offer.

3. I never will be scolding and I never will be jealous.
My husband shall have money to go to the alehouse,
And while he's there spending, I will be home saving,
And I leave it to the world if I'm not worth the having.