Is this traditional? Any background information or other versions?

Thread #110778   Message #3966334
Posted By: RTim
14-Dec-18 - 10:36 PM
Thread Name: Road songs
Subject: RE: Road songs

Down the Long Road - Bob Davenport on his recording named for the song.
Topic Records 12TS274 (LP, UK, 1975)

Down the long road a soldier came a walking
Back from the long wars no more for to roam.
When he spied a young woman
Come walking towards him
Singing to herself as she made her way home.

His hand touched his cap as he stepped up to her
Are you going as far as the mill there ahead?
She said that she was, he asked to walk with her,
So sweetly she smiled, indeed you may she said.

For several long years that smile he remembered
What is you name please tell me my dear?
Mary Johnsons my name, my man is the miller,
And father he’ll be by the end of the year.

The soldiers face was burn brown
From the hot sun of Indie,
But it saddened & paled when he heard what she said.
For this lass when he left had been his own true love,
And now here she was to his young brother wed.

Your husband it seems is the man I am seeking,
For it’s news of his brother that I’ve come to tell.
He was my close comrade through manys the battle
And together we were on the day that he fell.

His last dying words he said go seek my brother
Give him this watch, this gold ring also,
Tell him to look after my own darling Mary
The girl I’d have married when the long war was o’er.

When she took the gold watch,
How deep she was sobbing
She leaned on the dyke, so pale & so wan.
So much he could tell her of her own died true lover,
When she looked up to ask him
The soldier was gone.

Tim Radford