ADD: Karan Casey's version-Adieu Lovely Nancy

Subject: Karan Casey's version-Adieu Lovely Nancy
From: Bearheart
Date: 03 Dec 24 - 10:41 PM

I have been searching around the net (because I'm lazy and haven't got around to sitting down with this one to get all the words) to find her version. I am trying Mudcat on the off chance that someone here has already done the work for me!

I came across it on a pretty obscure CD in the library.

I sing the Prior/Hart/Copper Family version with my other half- one of the first things we started singing together when we began hanging out 10 years ago- and I like it quite a lot.

But I am now quite taken with Karan's version, and if nobody posts the words I guess I will have to go do it, and share them here!

Subject: ADD: Adieu Lovely Nancy (from Solas)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 03 Dec 24 - 11:14 PM

Is this the right one? The recording credits the song to Seamus Eagan. Is that correct?

ADIEU LOVELY NANCY

Adieu lovely Nancy, for now I must leave you
To the far-off West Indies I'm bound for to steer
But let my long journey be of no trouble to you
For, my love, I'll return in the course of a year

Talk not of leaving me here lovely Jimmy
Talk not of leaving me here on the shore
You know very well your long absence will grieve me
As you sail the wild ocean where the wild billows roar

I'll cut off my ringlets all curly and yellow
I'll dress in the coats of a young cabin boy
And while we are out on that dark, rolling ocean
I will always be near you, my pride and my joy

Your lily-white hands, they could not handle the cables
Your lily-white feet to the top mast could not go
And the cold winter storms, well you could not endure them
Stay at home, lovely Nancy, where the wild winds won't blow

As Jimmy set a-sailing, lovely Nancy stood a wailing
The tears from her eyes in great torrents did flow
As she stood on the beach oh her hands she was wringing
Crying, "Oh and alas, will I e'er see you more?"

As Jimmy was a-walking on the quays of Philadelphia
The thoughts of his true love, they filled him with pride
He said, "Nancy, lovely Nancy, if I had you here, love
How happy I'd be for to make you my bride"

So Jimmy wrote a letter to his own lovely Nancy
Saying, "If you have proved constant, well, I will prove true"
Oh but Nancy was dying, for her poor heart was broken
Oh the day that he left her, forever he'd rue

Come all of you maidens, I pray, take a warning
And don't trust a sailor boy or any of his kind
For first they will court you and then they'll deceive you
For their love, it is tempestuous as the wavering wind

from the Solas Album, Sunny Spells & Scattered
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-HCSkkklXs


https://genius.com/Solas-adieu-lovely-nancy-lyrics - verified as correct

This song is not related to the Copper Family song, "Adieu Sweet Lovely Nancy," a different song altogether.

Subject: RE: ADD: Karan Casey's version-Adieu Lovely Nancy
From: Bearheart
Date: 04 Dec 24 - 04:13 PM

Thanks, Joe- the recording I have is from a more obscure recording, so I will look for the Solas recording.

It seems related to this other song

https://mainlynorfolk.info/lloyd/songs/farewelldearestnancy.html

Most of the English singers sing a truncated version of it, which does not refer to her dying, or the warning against young men.

Triona's version ("Said Johnny to Molly"), though, includes those elements, and now I am looking for that version.

Mainly Norfolk seems to think that these different versions are all related (Farewell Nancy, Farewell My Lovely Nancy, etc) so I am wondering if those verses got dropped as the song traveled further afield.