Here's the entry on this song from the Traditional Ballad Index:Green Bushes, The [Laws P2]
DESCRIPTION: The singer courts a girl he meets by chance, offering her fine clothes if she will marry him. Although clothes do not interest her, she is willing to marry, even though she is already pledged. Her former love arrives and comments bitterly on her falseness
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1845 (in the play "The Green Bushes" by Buckstone); before 1839 (broadside, Bodleian Johnson Ballads fol. 30)
KEYWORDS: courting love clothes infidelity
FOUND IN: US(NE,SE) Canada(Mar,Newf) Britain(Scotland,England(South)) Ireland
REFERENCES (15 citations):
Laws P2, "The Green Bushes"
Sharp-100E 40, "Green Bushes" (1 text, 1 tune)
Meredith/Anderson, pp. 173-174, "Green Bushes" (1 text, 1 tune)
Sharp/Karpeles-80E 48, "Green Bushes" (1 text, 1 tune -- a composite version)
Copper-SoBreeze, pp. 240-241, "Down by the Green Bushes" (1 text, 1 tune)
Kennedy 156, "Green Bushes" (1 text, 1 tune)
SHenry H143, p. 395, "The Green Bushes" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ord, p. 147, "Green Bushes" (1 text)
Greenleaf/Mansfield 30, "The Green Bushes" (1 text, 1 tune)
Karpeles-Newfoundland 84, "Green Bushes" (1 text, 1 tune)
Creighton-NovaScotia 19, "Green Bushes" (1 text, 1 tune)
Flanders/Brown, pp. 246-247, "Way Down by the Green Bushes" (1 text)
MacSeegTrav 66, "Green Bushes" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Darling-NAS, pp. 134-135, "The Green Bushes" (1 text)
DT 491, GREEBUSH*
Roud #1040
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Johnson Ballads fol. 30, "Among the Green Bushes, &c," J. Catnach (London), 1813-1838; also Firth c.18(145), "The False Lover" ("As I was a walking one morning in May"), unknown, handwritten note "1827"; Harding B 11(52), Harding B 17(4b), Harding B 11(51), Harding B 11(53), "The False Lover"; Harding B 11(52), Harding B 17(4b), Harding B 11(51), Harding B 11(53), Firth c.18(147), "Among the Green Bushes"; 2806 b.10(80), Harding B 11(3102), "Down by the Green Bushes"; Firth c.18(146), Harding B 20(64), Johnson Ballads 512, 2806 c.8(194), 2806 d.31(71), 2806 c.17(157), Harding B 11(1416), Harding B 11(1889), Harding B 18(220), "Green Bushes" [same as LOCSinging as104920]
LOCSinging, as104920, "The Green Bushes," J. Andrews (New York), 1853-1859 [same as Bodleian Harding B 18(220)]; also sb10147a, as101350, "The Green Bushes"
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Cutty Wren" (tune)
cf. "Farewell to Tarwathie" (tune)
cf. "Queen of the May" (theme)
cf. "The Shepherd's Lament" (theme, floating lyrics)
Notes: Not to be confused with the song called "Behind the Green Bush" in Huntington. The latter appears to be derived from a minstrel piece (the lovers are "Damon" and "Pastora"), and does not appear to be traditional. - RBW
Broadside LOCSinging as104920: J. Andrews dating per Studying Nineteenth-Century Popular Song by Paul Charosh in American Music, Winter 1997, Vol 15.4, Table 1, available at FindArticles site.
One of the Bodleian broadsides, Johnson Ballads fol. 30, has the written date "1827" though the printer is not known. In any case, broadside Bodleian Johnson Ballads fol. 30 predates the 1845 play by Buckstone. - BS
Or at least its publication; Buckstone was not a very successful author, though certainly prolific. The Londoner (1802-1879), who was an actor as well as a writer, is credited by the New Century Handbook of English Literature with "200 melodramas and farces," but Larousse's Biographical Dictionary counts only 150, none of them being of any note. (My quick check revealed the names of only three pieces, and none of the contents.)
Buckstone did do a tour of the U. S. in 1840; it is thus possible that he introduced the British song in America. - RBW
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