Lyr Add: I Lost My Love I Care Not

02 Dec 10 - 09:01 AM (#3044863)
Subject: Lyr Add: I Lost My Love I Care Not
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman

Here's a mystery for you. Can anyone help?

Soaking in Terence Stamp's fine 1967 film "Far From the Madding Crowd," and enjoying the director's happy choice to use traditional songs in traditional styles,I was struck by the one song I'd never heard before:

I LOST MY LOVE I CARE NOT
Sung by Paul Dawkins in "Far From the Madding Crowd"

'Er's gone away, and I care not,
'Er's gone away, and I care not,
I'll soon find another that's better than t'other,
'Er's gone away, and I care not.

I lost my love, and I care not,
I lost my love, and I care not,]
I'll soon find another that's better than t'other,
I lost my love and I care not.

Nicely sung, to a very traditional-sounding tune. Considering how good a song it is, I'm surprised to find no reference to it anywhere in DT.

Trying to find out more about the song, I found it's printed (one verse) in Thomas Hardy's novel, basis for the film ... but nowhere else. None of the folk resources (web or books) I've gathered over a long life of digging have anything on that song.

Unless it has a separate source, the tune must have been supplied for the film, doubtless by Paul Dawkins or someone. The tune is not one I'm familiar with. It does sound authentic, but is it?

The Fiddler's Companion has a fiddle tune called I Lost My Love I Care Not. It is a wholly different tune. It cross-references to "Bundle and Go," which I vaguely remember hearing sung at a folk festival in the 70s. Can't recall if the tune is similar. However, the phrase normally refers to a Scots pipe tune (wholly different), and also occurs in Jeannie Robertson's "Bonnie Wee Lassie Who Never Said No," no real similarity there either.

Did Hardy write "I Lost My Love I Care Not?" Or is it something he heard in the West Country? He had a nice touch for that region's dialect and tradition, and was notably sensitive to music.

All the other songs he includes as part of the scene in the book are rock-botto traditional. Is this? I can find no independent source for it.

Can anyone enlighten me further?

Thanks, Bob

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02 Dec 10 - 09:43 PM (#3045329)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Lost My Love I Care Not
From: Jim Dixon

There's a page about a tune called I LOST MY LOVE AND I CARE NOT at IrishTune.info.

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02 Dec 10 - 09:47 PM (#3045331)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Lost My Love I Care Not
From: Jim Dixon

TheSession.org groups this tune and its variants under the heading MY LOVE IN THE MORNING.

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02 Dec 10 - 10:25 PM (#3045343)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Lost My Love I Care Not
From: Jim Dixon

I found this in a novel set in California in the 1920s, published in 1974 (but written much earlier):

Soon he moved on to another cow, humming to himself as he went:

Oh I lost my love and I care not,
He would come back but he dare not.

All day as she went about her work she kept thinking about it. What strange creatures people were…

—From The Devil's Hand by Edith Summers Kelley (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1974), page 209.

I have been unable to find when the book was written, but Kelley died in 1956 and her only other novel "Weeds" was published in 1923.

Here's the Library of Congress' description of The Devil's Hand, and two links at the bottom of that page lead to more information.

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02 Dec 10 - 10:52 PM (#3045351)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Lost My Love I Care Not
From: Jim Dixon

Searching for the phrase "but I care not He would come back but he dare not" I find that Google says it appears in the book Songs the Whalemen Sang by Gale Huntington (Barre, Mass.: Barre Publishers, 1964)—but that book isn't viewable online.

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02 Dec 10 - 10:58 PM (#3045355)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Lost My Love I Care Not
From: Effsee

I seem to remember Ewan MacColl singing this, or something very similar, on the Album "The Singing Streets"....'60s/70s LP with Dominic Behan on Topic maybe?
It's been a long time...

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03 Dec 10 - 07:12 AM (#3045469)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Lost My Love I Care Not
From: Susan of DT

I lost my love and I dinna care how
I lost my love and I care not
The losing of one is the gaining of twa
I'll get another, I fear not

Some ladies fell to their bended knees
Some ladies fell to fainting
I fell to my bread and cheese
I always wanted the main thing

I don't see this in the DT, which surprises me, since I sing it. Maybe I thought it was too short to bother.... I think i got it from Jean Redpath.

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03 Dec 10 - 09:15 AM (#3045533)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Lost My Love I Care Not
From: GUEST,leeneia

How refreshing it is to hear that a lover lost a love and was able to handle it. So many die of love, at least in folksongs. This is a nice change.

I love your version, Susan.

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03 Dec 10 - 02:25 PM (#3045715)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Lost My Love I Care Not
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Could not find it in Huntington, "Songs the Whalemen Sang." (Perhaps buried under another title, although I tried several).

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05 Dec 10 - 07:24 AM (#3046791)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Lost My Love I Care Not
From: Susan of DT

Leeneia

Another song with similar outlook:
Farewell He

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05 Dec 10 - 01:52 PM (#3046961)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Lost My Love I Care Not
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Thanks for the link, Leeneia. Another 'farewell' that is not weepy, and well-written to boot. I wonder if there is an author to be found.

Like Jim Dixon, I am also perplexed by not being able to find full lyrics for an 'I Care Not' song. Just bits and pieces.

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05 Dec 10 - 03:54 PM (#3047048)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Lost My Love I Care Not
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

My thanks mis-directed. Should have been to Susan of DT.

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05 Dec 10 - 03:57 PM (#3047049)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Lost My Love I Care Not
From: Steve Gardham

Jim,
Okay, I'm hooked. The phrase 'I've lost my love and I care not' I'm sure I've come across in my searches through Roxburghe Ballads but in what I can't remember.
However here is a variant to add to the pile from Greig-Duncan Vol 6 p192 as sung by Margaret Gillespie. It goes to the tune 'O'er the Water to Charlie' the A version as given in Greig-Duncan.

I've lost my love an I keena weel fu
I've lost my love and I carna
For laith would I be jist to lie down an dee
An to sit down an greet would be bairnly.

O plague on the men their so sly an demure
As pawky as diels wi their smilin
As fickle as winter in sunshine an' shower
The hearts o' fair maidens beguiling.

I've lost...as 1
I've lost...as 1
The lossing o' ane's the gainin o twa
Fain wid he come back but he daurna.

Following up the Jean Redpath connection might prove fruitful.

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06 Dec 10 - 08:14 AM (#3047370)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Lost My Love I Care Not
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman

I too am puzzled by the lack of corroborative evidence for Thomas Hardy's "I Lost My Love I Care Not."

The Redpath is pretty clearly a different, unrelated song in stanza framework and general feel. There are only the slightest resemblances.

I'm guessing what happened is that the makers of each song were separately inspired by the title of the fiddle tune. It wouldn't be the first time that's happened!

I heartily recommend you listen to the Paul Dawkins rendition on the "Far From the Madding Crowd" soundtrack CD, which can be found in a few places on the net. It's a corker! I find myself singing it around the house a lot. It's got a fine old sound. If Hardy didn't make it up himself, it's a great lost traditional song.

Bob

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06 Dec 10 - 08:20 AM (#3047372)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Lost My Love I Care Not
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler

John O' Gaunt Morris Men use the tune for the dance "Nightingale".We pinched it from Frank Lees(?) up in Cumbria and I believe further up the chain the origin was the Newcastle area. It might be that Hexham use it as well.

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06 Dec 10 - 09:20 AM (#3047405)
Subject: Lyr Add: I HAE LOST MY LOVE (James Hogg)
From: Jim Dixon

I don't think this is the origin of the song we are seeking, although it has one line in common. I think it illustrates that we need to search for Scots spelling.

From Songs, by the Ettrick Shepherd by James Hogg (Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1831), page 247:


I HAE LOST MY LOVE.
A bitter song against the women.

I hae lost my love, an' I dinna ken how,
I hae lost my love, an' I carena;
For laith will I be just to lie down an' dee,
And to sit down an' greet wad be bairnly;
But a screed o' ill-nature I canna weel help,
At having been guidit unfairly;
An' weel wad I like to gie women a skelp,
An' yerk their sweet haffits fu' yarely.

O! plague on the limmers, sae sly and demure,
As pawkie as deils wi' their smiling;
As fickle as winter, in sunshine and shower,
The hearts o' a' mankind beguiling;
As sour as December, as soothing as May,
To suit their ain ends, never doubt them;
Their ill faults I couldna tell ower in a day,
But their beauty's the warst thing about them!

Ay, that's what sets up the haill warld in a lowe;
Make's kingdoms to rise and expire;
Man's micht is nae mair than a flaughten o' tow,
Opposed to a bleeze o' reid fire!
'Twas woman at first made creation to bend,
And of nature's prime lord made the fellow!
An' 'tis her that will bring this ill warld to an end,
An' that will be seen an' heard tell o'!

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14 Nov 24 - 03:34 PM (#4211644)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Lost My Love I Care Not
From: GUEST,Guest: Charles Macfarlane

I've just arrived at this thread on the same quest as the originator, to know more about the song "I Lost My Love And I Care Not" which is so excellently sung in the 1967 film of "Far From The Madding Crowd". Much of what follows about the film is from memory, but I think it's correct ...

I agree with others about the use of genuine folk music in the film, which does much to give it an authenticity despite the rather lacklustre performances by many of the leading actors, the only one I'd unhesitatingly praise being Alan Bates as Gabriel Oak. The others all start off with an attempt at something like a West Country accent, but fail to sustain it beyond their opening scene, with the even worse exception of Terence Stamp who makes no attempt at a local accent at all, his accent sounding very much like far away London, and whose acting is rather wooden throughout, but particularly in the scene when as Troy he is shot by Boldwood. To cap it all, Bathsheba is described in the book as having dark or black hair, but in the film we have Julie Christie with auburn hair out of a bottle, and false eyelashes. For me, the film is saved by the wonderful use of the Dorset countryside, the excellent use of folk music, and the supporting cast who are without exception excellent, particularly Fiona Walker as Liddy. IIRC, some of them were genuine locals, and the guy who played Joseph Poorgrass had a steady living for some years afterwards advertising English butter and the like on TV.

The film was directed by John Schlesinger, who is very adept, as in his later 'Yanks', at conveying a sense of time and place, and the folk music definitely contributes to that. It was arranged for the film by the Scottish folk singer Isla Cameron, who sang "Bushes and Briars" (which Julie Christie mimed to) at the Harvest meal, which also featured the subject of this thread "I Lost My Love And I Care Not", and "The Bold Grenadier" over the scenes of Sergeant Troy wandering off and apparently drowning at sea - she also acted in the film, but for some reason ended up on the cutting room floor. Besides "I Lost My Love", other notable contributions are the use of the Dorset Four busked by Gabriel in the square after failing to get a job at the hiring fair, and Dave Swarbrick playing in the later Harvest Home which celebrates Bathsheba's and Troy's marriage, IIRC the wonderful tune played is called Davy Davy's Knick-Knack.

James Hogg, aka 'The Ettrick Shepherd' lived from 1770-1835, and, as already stated, 'Songs' was published in 1831, while Thomas Hardy's dates are 1840-1928, so Hogg had already died when Hardy was born, and thus they cannot have ever met let alone known each other. However, Hardy was obviously a literate and well-versed man, so I think it quite possible he might have known of Hogg's work without any further help, but if he did not there is a possible Scottish intermediary in William Strang 1859-1921, who was raised in Dumbarton but went to Art school in London, and was one of the foremost illustrators of his day - specifically he did some portraits of Thomas Hardy - as well as many other celebreties of his day, many of them from the world of literature - and illustrations for works by Robert Burns, a printing of Don Quixote, and many other works published at the time. So, if Hardy did not happen to be aware of Hogg's work already, I think it's highly likely that Strang would have known of it, and so may have mentioned it as the sitter and artist conversed during the making of the portrait - a good artist would wish to keep his subject interested as he worked, and, although at different ends of the country, Hogg's and Hardy's areas of interest were not dissimilar.

Of course, Hardy's song is different from that of Hogg's, but he could hardly have put a fairly obscure Scottish song in a work set in the West Country, so perhaps he merely anglicised and simplified it?

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14 Nov 24 - 04:08 PM (#4211646)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Lost My Love I Care Not
From: GUEST,Guest: Charles Macfarlane

No, this cannot be, I neglected to make a rather basic check: The book was published in 1874, but Strang's earliest listed artworks date from the 1880s. It was still possible that Strang and Hardy knew each other before the publication date, because they moved in the same or similar circles, but the later portrait was not yet involved.

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