The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #51349   Message #782048
Posted By: masato sakurai
12-Sep-02 - 10:44 AM
Thread Name: Origins/Lyrics: Oh, My Darling Clementine
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Oh, My Darling Clementine
And CLEMENTINE sung by Bobby Darin [Realaudio], from HERE. ....................................................

From The Traditional Ballad Index:

Clementine

DESCRIPTION: The singer reports on the death of his beloved Clementine, the daughter of a (Forty-Niner). One day, leading her ducklings to water, she trips and falls in. The singer, "no swimmer," helplessly watches her drown
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1863
KEYWORDS: death drowning love
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (9 citations):
RJackson-19CPop, pp. 148-151, "Oh My Darling Clementine" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fife-Cowboy/West 34, "Clementine" (1 text, 1 tune)
Meredith/Covell/Brown, p. 68, "Mazurka: Clementine" (1 tune)
Spaeth-ReadWeep, p. 85, "Clementine" (1 text, 1 tune)
PSeeger-AFB, p. 27, "Clementine" (1 text, 1 tune)
Pankake-PHCFSB, p. 272, "Clementine" (1 text)
Silber-FSWB, p. 241, "Clementine" (1 text)
Fuld-WFM, pp. 174-175, "Clementine"
DT, CLEMENTI* (CLEMENT3*) (CLEMENT4)

RECORDINGS:
Pete Seeger, "Clementine" (on PeteSeeger24)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Silver Jack" [Laws C24] (tune)
SAME TUNE:
Found a Peanut (Pankake-PHCFSB, pp. 28-29)
Oh My Monster, Frankenstein (Pankake-PHCFSB, p. 219)
Notes: In some of the modern versions, the song ends when the singer kisses Clementine's younger sister and forgets Clementine. - (PJS)
The words to this piece were first published in 1863 under the title "Down by the River Lived a Maiden," credited to H. S. Thompson. This printing had a melody, but it was not the "standard" melody. The text was also rather different (in minstrel dialect); Norm Cohen gives the first verse as
Down by the river there lived a maiden
In a cottage built just 7 x 9;
And all around this lubly bower
The beauteous sunflower blossoms twine.
CHO: Oh my Clema, oh my Clema, Oh my darling Clementine,
Now you are gone and lost forever,
I'm dreadful sorry Clementine.
In 1864 a text appeared in "Billy Morris' Songs" in which Clementine appears as little short of a legendary monster; she is even reported to have grown wool.
In 1884 the piece reappeared, with the famous tune, this time credited to "Percy Montrose," under the title "Oh My Darling Clementine."
Since neither Thompson nor Montrose is known, the authorship of the song probably cannot be settled.
It is reported by reliable sources that this song was originally intended to be serious. No doubt a few thousand enterprising parodists would be amazed. - RBW
File: RJ19148

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Indeed, the "kisssed her little sister" stanza is not in most earlier editions; not in The Most Popular College Songs (1906 ed.), Spaeth's Read 'Em and Weep (1927), and Boni's Fireside Book of Folk Songs (1947), either. But the version in The Scottish Students' Song Book (1897 ed., p. 278) contains the stanza:

How I missed her, how I missed her,
How I missed my Clementine!
But I kissed her little sister,
And forgot my Clementine.

~Masato