Lyr Req: Barbara Ellen / Barbara Allen

Subject: Barbarra Ellen
From: Dan N
Date: 19 Nov 97 - 02:11 PM

I am looking for different variations to the lyrics of this traditional folk song.

Subject: RE: Barbarra Ellen
From: Bruce O.
Date: 19 Nov 97 - 02:36 PM

Consult Steve Roud's Folksong Index. There are about 260 different traditional texts listed.

Subject: RE: Barbarra Ellen
From: Bruce O.
Date: 19 Nov 97 - 03:23 PM

Sorry, I'm just learning how to use database software, and I didn't do my search correctly. Steve Roud's Folksong Index lists slightly over 700 texts of "Barbara Allan"

Subject: RE: Barbarra Ellen
From: Fred
Date: 19 Nov 97 - 04:25 PM

Who is Steve Roud and where? is his index? on line? at a book store? library?

Subject: RE: Barbarra Ellen
From: Bruce O.
Date: 19 Nov 97 - 05:18 PM

Stev Roud's indices. Now available directly from Steve Roud only, in England. [No longer distributed by Hisarlik Press.] The Folksong Index, with 1 supplement, comes on 18 3 1/2 inch floppy disks of 1.44 Mbyte capacity. This also includes songs on phono recordings. There is also a Broadside Index, with includes many songbooks also included. It is not as extensive as mine for 17th century broadsides, but has many reprints of 17th century ballads and many thousands of 18th and 19th century ones to as late as a copy of H. C. Work's "Grandfather's Clock" (1876).

You need a database system like Microsoft Access. Now data handling software comes with the disks. I managed to read the disk files into DBASE with no trouble. With field sizes as suggested, you need about 100 Megabytes of harddisk space. The two Indices together recently cost $130, American. This includes updates for 1 years.

Disks come with 20 fields per record separated by commas and text in quotes as "xx". By indexing on the 'OTHER NUMBERS' field all texts of Child 84 (Barbara Allen) got grouped together in one long series regardless of title or opening line.

Submit inquires to: Steve Roud 18 Amberley Grove Croydon CR0 6ND [Great Britain]

Subject: RE: Barbarra Ellen
From: Gene
Date: 19 Nov 97 - 05:38 PM

I think the prettiest version of BARBARA ALLEN I ever heard was by Tommy Faile (writer of Red Sovine's Phantom 309)....and Johnny Cash did an upbeat version titled: The Ballad of Barbara....

To anyone I promised a WAV to ... finally got the sound system going again....

Subject: RE: Barbarra Ellen
From: Jon W.
Date: 19 Nov 97 - 06:35 PM

I hope you started with the DT database - it has four versions. Search for "#87" to avoid the problem of various spellings of her name.

A book of ballads I used in college indicates that this is one of the most widely spread folk songs ever. That would explain the 700 entries in Steve Roud's index.

There is a version done on De Danann's album "Selected Songs, Jigs, Reels, and Tunes" sung a capella by Johnny Moynihan in a very traditional style.

Subject: RE: Barbarra Ellen
From: Bruce O.
Date: 19 Nov 97 - 06:52 PM

#84 works a lot better, 4 versions.

Subject: RE: Barbarra Ellen
From:
Date: 19 Nov 97 - 08:01 PM

I think Folkways once had an LP out that had nothing on it but variations of Barbara Allen.

John Baez did a version, as well as several songs that are variants it seems because they have the same tune. There is a Gaelic song from Cape Breton that is sung to the tune of Barbara Allen, although the rather surreal lyrics (all Gaelic lyrics when translated seem surreal to me) have nothing to do with the usual Barbara Allen storyline.

Subject: RE: Barbarra Ellen
From: Nonie Rider
Date: 20 Nov 97 - 01:56 PM

My LEAST favorite version is the play DARK OF THE MOON, which is an otherwise nicely edged Appalachian folklore tale but assumes the song is (fairly) recent and American in origin.

I'm not an absolute authentication nut--for example, If I meet a song through long-knocked-around folk process, I'll often be more interested in the end result than in an original stilted broadside. But some basic temporal idiocies do irritate me.

--Nonie the Opinionated

Subject: RE: Barbarra Ellen
From: Dick Wisan
Date: 21 Nov 97 - 01:39 AM

I always wondered about "Dark of the Moon", whether they made up that version of Barbara Allen out of whole cloth or whether they found something that suggested it. I never heard any of those verses anywhere else. Has anybody?

Subject: RE: Barbarra Ellen
From: Nonie Rider
Date: 21 Nov 97 - 12:38 PM

Not me.

Subject: RE: Barbarra Ellen
From: Moira Cameron
Date: 21 Nov 97 - 12:48 PM

I like the melody of Hedy West's version.

Subject: RE: Barbarra Ellen
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 22 Nov 97 - 04:12 PM

re Dark of the Moon

Revised verses were written to fit plot; to my knowledge they've never been song by anybody except on stage. (I was singing that for a brief while in the Circle in the Square production). Show was fun; song was contrived.

Subject: RE: Barbarra Ellen
From: rastrelnikov
Date: 24 Nov 97 - 01:51 PM

Josh White's Barbarra Allen is wonderful. As are his Molly Malone and Foggy, Foggy, Dew. Check 'em out if you ever have a chance. The only trouble is, if these versions come to be your favorites, it becomes hard to sing along to the standard versions in a group setting.