The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #73011 Message #1262961
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
02-Sep-04 - 07:02 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: Must I Be Bound
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Must I Be Bound
The "notes" at Folktrax should be disregarded by everybody who doesn't know what they mean; they will only confuse most people, and probably shouldn't be directly quoted here.
If we are to refer to every song that contains the extremely common floating verse beginning "Must I go bound", we will be here forever. The appearance of that verse in a song is not, in itself, evidence of any relationship with any other song containing the same verse. Evidence of relationship must be sought elsewhere. That's not to say that there aren't a great many fine examples of the song-group to be found, of course. The issue is what is helpful in this particular discussion.
To stick, for the moment, to the song Willa posted; I may as well supplement in this new thread the comments I made in the old one. On re-examining the Belt Wi' Colours Three text in Ord's Bothy Ballads (1930), my impression is that it was probably copied from Christie with some minor editorial modifications.
Christie comments on his penultimate verse (the final verse in Sedley's collation), mentioning that a similar one appeared in As I cam' down by yon Castle wa' (contributed by Burns to the Scots Musical Museum, 1792).
All he has to say about his text and tune is "The Editor can trace this beautiful old Air and Ballad, through his relatives, far into the last century."
That's the 18th, of course. A broadside origin isn't unlikely for that particular song. The Sam Henry example happens to have a couple of lines reminiscent of the Christie song (and which may perhaps have wandered in from it; a lot of singers read song books) and on the strength of that, Sedley drafted in some more.
Whether or not that was Peggy Seeger's source, we won't know until the book is identified and any information it may contain is quoted. At the moment, my money's on Sedley.