Lyr Req: Unaccompanied song - Constant Lovers

Subject: Lyr Req: Unaccompanied song, title unknown
From: Mr Happy
Date: 27 Jan 16 - 12:42 PM

This is a part chorus of a pleasant unaccompanied song heard in seshes some time back.

Anyone know it?



Singing, Oh, oh, oh, oh,he's the lad I adore,
I know that I never will see him no more

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Unaccompanied song, title unknown
From: RTim
Date: 27 Jan 16 - 12:50 PM

The Contsant lovers or The Forsaken Maid!

As I was a walking down by the sea shore,
Where the wind and the waves and the billows did roar,
There I heard a strange voice make a sorrowful sound,
'Twas the wind and the waves and the echoes all round.

Chorus (after each verse):
Crying, "Oh, my lover's gone,
He's a youth I adore,
He's gone and I never shall see him no more."
She'd a voice like a nightingale, skin like a dove,
And the song that she sung it was all about love.
I asked her to marry me, marry me, please,
But the answer she gave, "My love's drowned in the sea."

I told her I'd gold and I'd silver beside,
In a coach and six horses with me she could ride.
"No I never will marry nor yet make a wife,
I'll stay constant and true all the time I've got life,"

She threw out her arms and she took a great leap
From the cliffs that were high to the billows so deep,
Crying, "The rocks of the ocean shall make me a bed
And the shrimps of the sea shall swim over my head."

And now every night at six bells they appear
When the moon it is shining, the sky it is clear,
These two constant lovers with all their young charms,
Rolling over and over in each other's arms.



Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Unaccompanied song, title unknown
From: Mr Happy
Date: 27 Jan 16 - 01:01 PM

Tim,

Spot on!

Thanks so much

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Unaccompanied song, title unknown
From: Mr Happy
Date: 27 Jan 16 - 01:11 PM

I've wanted to find this song for ages.

Knowing it's title such a BIG help, cheers!

I found a super version on YTube, so can learn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIa2Q-u_-9Q

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Unaccompanied song, title unknown
From: Mr Happy
Date: 27 Jan 16 - 01:28 PM

Seems other names are 'Two Constant Lovers' or 'The Forsaken Mermaid'

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Unaccompanied song - Constant Lovers
From: RTim
Date: 27 Jan 16 - 02:19 PM

A version from one of my very favourite singers - Martyn Wyndham-Read

Tim Radford

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxcJeP0JjD0

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Unaccompanied song - Constant Lovers
From: GUEST,Jon Dudley
Date: 27 Jan 16 - 02:25 PM

And raise a glass to Bob Copper when you sing it....

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Unaccompanied song - Constant Lovers
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 27 Jan 16 - 03:31 PM

Roud 466, Laws K17, the most common title in collections is 'The Lover's Lament for her Sailor'. Curiously all of the oral versions seem to derive from a burlesque version sung in the Music Hall by Sam Cowell (hence the shrimps swimming over his head). Several of these burlesque songs found their way back to seriousness in oral tradition. The song has predecessors going back to the 17th century and it's of course related to the well-known Irish fragment 'I never will marry' The levy collection has a sheet music version as sung by Mrs W. J. Florence from the unwritten opera 'Sinbad the Sailor'. I have a copy of the Sam Cowell sheet music. Geoff Lawes has an original.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Unaccompanied song - Constant Lovers
From: RTim
Date: 27 Jan 16 - 04:11 PM

A version from Hampshire

Tim Radford

THE DROWNED LOVER.
As I was a walking down by the sea shore,
Where the wind and the waves and the billows did roar,
I heard a shrill voice make a sorrowful sound,
Midst the wind and the waves and the waters all round.
- Crying, Oh! My love is gone he's the lad I adore,
- He's gone and I never, no never,
- Shall see my love more.

She was dressed like some Goddess, she looked like some queen,
She's the fairest of women that my eyes e'er had seen,
I told her I'd marry her myself if she pleased,
But the answer she gave was my love's on the seas.

I never will marry nor be no mans bride,
For I mean to live single all the days of my life,
It's the loss of my sailor I deeply deplore
He's lost in the seas, I shan't see him no more.

The shells of the ocean shall be my last bed,
The fish of the seas shall swim over my head.
She plunged her fair body right into the deep,
And closed her fair eyes in the waters to sleep.


James Lake - Dummer, Basingstoke Aug 1906 (H474)
- According to Purslow. All of Lake's other songs were local church "carols".
His version of the song originally included one or two of the later "comic" music hall additional verses (incl. Oysters and shrimp!), which Purslow has removed to reveal the serious song.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Unaccompanied song - Constant Lovers
From: Mr Happy
Date: 27 Jan 16 - 07:53 PM

What a magnificent response!

Thanks to all contributors for further in-depth info

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Unaccompanied song - Constant Lovers
From: Mr Happy
Date: 27 Jan 16 - 08:21 PM

& provenance etc