Origins: A Maid in Bedlam / I Love My Love

Subject: Words to George Spicer (Sussex) Song Please
From: Keith Leech
Date: 04 Mar 97 - 01:44 PM

I am looking for the words to a song once sung by George Spicer of Sussex. The refrain goes

'Ilove my love, I love my love, and know that she loves me'.

Anybody know it please? [e-mail]

Subject: RE: Words to George Spicer (Sussex) Song Please
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Mar 97 - 08:59 PM

I have an old record by George Spicer..."Blackberry Fold"..(Topic 12T135...1974)..I don't recall those lines....I'll plat the record and see if anything jogs my memory- though none of the song listed seem likely....

Subject: RE: Words to George Spicer (Sussex) Song Please
From:
Date: 06 Mar 97 - 01:57 PM

I think this is a song I first heard on audionet, sung by Atwater and Donnelly on their album Like A Willow Tree the title was My Love. I have the album with lerics in the inseart. If no one beats me to it I can post them.

Subject: Lyr Add: A MAID IN BEDLAM
From: belter
Date: 07 Mar 97 - 12:49 AM

It seams I was mistaken, the song I'm thinking of is not My love, wich is a traditional you cheated on me song. The song I'm thinking of is actually A Maid In Bedlam. My querky memory was right about who I heard sing it though. My source for this song is Atwater-Donnelly on their album Culled From The Garden.

A Maid In Bedlam

Abroad as I was walking
One evening in the spring
I heard a maid in bedlam
So sweatly for to sing
her chain she ratteled with her hands
and thuss replied she

ch.

I love my love
because I know
my love loves me

Oh my cruel parents
are being to unkind
they drove and punish me
and truble my mind
for though I'm ruined for his love
contented will I be

ch.

Would I become a swallow
assend into the air
and if I last my lover
and could not find him there
I quikly would become a fish
and search the flowing sea

ch.

With straw I'll make a garland
and dress it very fine
I'll mix the wame with roses
lilly pink and tyne
I will preserve it for my love
when he returns from sea

ch.

Just as she was sad weeping
her love came on the land
hearing whe was in bedlam
he ran straight out of hand
and as he entered into the gates
he heard her sie and say

ch.

He stood and gazed on her
hearing his love complain
he could not stand any longer
he bleed in every vain
he flew in to her snowy wite arms
and thuss replied he

ch.

I hope this is what you'r looking for. The course is only slightly different.

Subject: RE: Lyrics for Maid in Bedlam
From: Bruce O.
Date: 02 Mar 99 - 07:22 PM

No tune in DT, but the song was to "Gramachree Molly" and this appeared soon after Ogle's "Gramachee Molly". The tune for "Gramachree Molly" was that earlier called "Will you go to Flanders", and I think it's in DT. "Maid in Bedlam" was a drastic reworking of an earlier song in which a black, George Sighous, was in Bedlam for his mad love for an English girl. It's on a single sheet song with music, c 1740, called "The Black's Lamentation", but the tune on the single sheet is nothing like "Gramachree Molly".

Subject: RE: Lyrics for Maid in Bedlam
From: Bruce O.
Date: 02 Mar 99 - 07:59 PM

More specifics. George Ogle's song "As down on Banna's banks I strayed" (Grammachree Molly) was in the London Magazine, Sept., 1774. "Maid in Bedlam" with tune direction "Gramachree" is in 'The Scots Nightingale' 2nd ed. 1779 (and probably in the 1778 edition); and same in 'Wilson's Musical Miscellany' = 'St. Cecilia', 1779; same, 'The Scots Vocal Miscellany', 1780. With the tune the song is in 'The Scots Musical Museum', #46, 1787, where it is followed by "Grammachree Molly", and a song from 'The Duena' (Had I a heart for falsehood framed). An ABC of a copy of an early copy of the tune is T048 in file T1.HTM on my website.

Subject: RE: A Maid in Bedlam ('I Love My Love...')
From: Bruce O.
Date: 01 Apr 99 - 01:31 PM

I've put the early "Black's Lamentation" on which "Maid in Bedlam" was modeled in the Scarce Songs 2 file on my website (with its tune).

Subject: RE: A Maid in Bedlam ('I Love My Love...')
From: Bruce O.
Date: 01 Apr 99 - 09:15 PM

I've now also added the 18th century "Maid in Bedlam" to the same file (with tune in ABC).