Hi,

I've made "Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss" an appendix, 9B. This association has not been examined before, although it's clear the "How old" stanza is occasionally found in versions of "Fly Around." Here are my rough notes so far:

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["Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss" is an American play-party song, fiddle tune and dance song. After careful examination, it appears that stanzas of 9B. Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss (hereafter, "Fly Around"), are similar to, or probably derived from 9. Seventeen Come Sunday and that the identifying stanza "Fly Around" is likely derived from the first lines of the Scottish ending stanza of "Seventeen" found in the "Waukrife Mammy" variants:

O, fare-thee-well, my bonnie lass,
O, fare-thee-well, my honey[],

It's equally clear that "fly around" is simply a substitute for "fare-thee well (fare-you-well)." An adaption of the Scottish "Fare thee well" verse is found in The Skillet Lickers' "Fly Around" version on Old-Time Fiddle Tunes and Songs from North Georgia' County CD-3509:

Fare-you-well my pretty little miss,
Fare-you-well my honey.
If I'm not there by the middle of the week,
You can look for me on Sunday.

In this stasnza not only are the opening lines duplicated almost exactly but the Sunday from "Seventeen Come Sunday" is also borrowed. In William Owens' 1936 book "Swing and Turn: Texas Play-Party Songs," the words "come along" have been substituted:

Oh, come along, my pretty little Miss,
Oh, come along, my honey,
Oh, come along, my pretty little Miss,
I'll marry you next Sunday.

Both examples show the evolution of the Scottish stanza in the US where it has become a play-party song, dance song and fiddle tune. Both examples are clearly based on "Seventeen" and in the next evolution a new line is added:

Fly around my pretty little miss,
Fly around my daisy--

The second line is the "standard" text found in most versions and it appears: "Fly around/Fare-you well my daisy." Another "Fly Around" song by Justus Begley in 1937 is titled "Fare You Well, My Blue-Eyed Girl" and has:

Fare you well my blue-eyed girl,
Fare you well my daisy,

A stanza of "seventeen" collected from Grammy Fish in New Hampshire in 1940 which is possibly very old shows the "daisy" line directly connected to "Seventeen":

Where are you going my pretty maid
My little blue-eyed daisy?
I am not going very far
For really I am lazy.

In most versions "daisy" is rhymed with "crazy" and becomes the standard "Fly Around" identifying stanza:

Fly around my pretty little miss,
Fly around my daisy,
Fly around, my pretty little miss,
You almost run me crazy. [Brown Collection C, 1940]

The last line frequently appears with this variation: "You almost drive me crazy." The "pretty little miss" lyrics are sometimes "Blue-Eyed Gal/Girl" as found in this NC version from the 1800s by Bascom Lamar Lunsford[]:

It's fly around my blue-eyed girl,
It's fly around my daisy,
It's fly around, my blue-eyed girl,
You've done run me crazy.

Other stanzas of "Seventeen" sometimes are included in versions of "Fly Around" confirming the association:

"How old are you, my pretty little miss,
How old are you, my honey?
She looked at me with a smiling look,
"I'll be sixteen next Sunday." [Lunsford's first verse]

The conclusion is that "Fly Around" was derived from the Scottish versions of "Seventeen" and that other verses of "Seventeen" including the "How old are You" identifying stanza have been borrowed to create a new song that is related to "Seventeen," although it is a different song and therefore is assigned as appendix 9B. Despite the popularity of "Fly around" it appears that this study may be the first to point out this association.

Stanzas of "Seventeen," especially the "How old are you" stanza, are also mixed into other dance songs made up of floating stanzas (Wheevily Wheat; Shady Grove etc) creating confusion. In the past, some songs with these generic stanzas have been titled Wheevily Wheat after Stith Thompson's Texas version published in 1916. The Lomaxes used the same title, Wheevily Wheat (2), for a collection of floating verses that includes both the Fly Around (as Run along) and "How old are you" and "Where do you live" stanzas from "Seventeen." As an example I give the Wheevily Wheat B version from "Round the Levee" edited by Stith Thompson, 1916. He comments:

Another version of "Weevily Wheat," collected by Miss Mary S. Brown of Gatesville, Texas, from Wallace Fogle, a famous play-party singer of Coryell County, runs as follows. The boys and girls line up opposite each other; the boys begin swinging at one end, and girls at the other, each swinging his or her partner.

Way down yonder in the maple swamp,
The water's deep and muddy.
There I spied my pretty little miss,
O there I spied my honey.

How old are you, my little miss,
How old are you, my honey?
She answered with a ha-ha laugh,
"I'll be sixteen next Sunday."

The higher up the cherry tree,
Riper grows the cherry,
Sooner a boy courts a girl,
Sooner they will marry,

So run along home, my pretty little miss,
Run along home, my honey,
Run along home, my pretty miss,
I'll be right there next Sunday.

Papa's gone to New York town,
Mama's gone to Dover,
Sister's worn her new slippers out
A-kicking Charley over.

Notice that "Fly Around is "run along" and that there are no stanzas specifically from "Wheevily Wheat"-- the only association with "Wheevily Wheat" is the "Charley" in the last line, who is Bonny Prince Charlie. My contention is that "Wheevily Wheat" is a separate dance or play-party song and has borrowed from both "Fly Around" and "Seventeen" but the title has become a generic title which means Thompson's Texas version was titled incorrectly. The version (Wheevily Wheat -2) from the Lomaxes in their 1934 book, "American Ballads and Folk Songs" borrows some the same stanzas from Thompson but adds other floating stanzas. "Wheevily Wheat" is not an appropriate title for either but it has, in the past, been used as a generic, floating title.

The assumption that "Fly Around" originated from Scottish versions of "Seventeen" (Waukrife) is similar to the assumption that "Careless Love" originated from the "Apron" stanzas in "Died for Love." That both "Fly Around" and "Careless Love" are Americanized southern songs derived from archaic ballad texts seems entirely reasonable. That once both "Fly Around" and "Careless Love" became established in America they lost vestiges of their British roots is also predictable. In the American evolution "Fly Around" lost the "How old are you" stanza and its other connections with "Seventeen" just as "Careless Love" was removed of its "apron" stanzas by W.C. Handy and the early jazz and blues performers. Handy however, recognized that Careless Love was a folk song, and perhaps even knew the "apron" stanzas were part of its early heritage.
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Richie