where have you been my dearest dear

Subject: where have you been my dearest dear
From: Joe Offer
Date: 19 Oct 98 - 03:31 PM

Terr Windkin ([e-mail]) posted a request for three songs in a previous thread. We found two of them, but not the one with this phrase:

where have you been my dearest dear, been seven long years or more

I'm sure I've heard the song, but I can't find it and it really bugs me. Uh....sorry for the outburst. I get carried away at times...
But can anybody come up with the song?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: where have you been my dearest dear
From: Maelgwyn
Date: 19 Oct 98 - 03:54 PM

I think it's a version of 'Demon Lover'

Subject: RE: where have you been my dearest dear
From: Bruce O.
Date: 19 Oct 98 - 05:09 PM

Well, that might be possible in a rather variant text, but in Laurence Price's original of Feb. 1657, it is James Harris (the demon lover) that says he has been away seven years. Although previously engaged to him, she (now Jane Renalds) had waited three years for him, but had then had married a carpenter and had three children.

Seven years is sort of the standard amount of time for a lover to be absent in the 'broken token' ballads (faithful lovers).

Subject: RE: where have you been my dearest dear
From: Terr
Date: 22 Oct 98 - 07:19 AM

I have checked with the Demon Lover, but it is not the same song, and the tune is different.