The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #1338   Message #2015913
Posted By: Joe Offer
04-Apr-07 - 04:51 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Lolly Toodum
Subject: Origins: Lolly Toodum
It might be worth taking a look into this song and its variants. Here's quite an entry in the Traditional Ballad Index:

Lolly-Too-Dum

DESCRIPTION: Daughter comes to mother, asking to be married. Mother, after pointing out she's young, asks who she will marry. Daughter says, "Handsome Dan" -- or any of forty more if he's not available. (The daughter marries, and mother looks for a husband herself)
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1910 (Belden)
KEYWORDS: marriage loneliness courting mother
FOUND IN: US(Ap,So)
REFERENCES (13 citations):
Belden, p. 266, "Mother and Daughter" (1 text)
Randolph 370, "Rolly Trudum" (2 texts plus an excerpt, 1 tune)
Randolph/Cohen, pp. 299-300, "Rolly Trudum" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 370A)
Hudson 134, pp.280-281 , "Rolly Trudam" (1 text)
Moore-Southwest 189, "Lolly Trudom" (1 text, 1 tune)
Owens-1ed, pp. 214-216, "Rolly Troodum" (1 text, 1 tune)
Owens-2ed, pp. 122-123, "Rolly Troodum" (1 text, 1 tune)
Boswell/Wolfe 83, pp. 133-134, "Handsome Sam" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax-FSUSA 12, "Lolly-Too-Dum" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax-Singing, pp. 126-127, "Lolly Too-Dum" (1 text, 1 tune)
Chase, pp. 138-139, "Lolly Too Dum" (2 texts, 1 tune, but the first is "Whistle, Daughter, Whistle")
Silber-FSWB, p. 344, "Lolly-Too-Dum" (1 text)
DT, LLYTOODM*

Roud #441
RECORDINGS:
Horton Barker, "Rolly Trudum" (on Barker01)
May Kennedy McCord, "Rolly Trudum" (AFS; on LC12)
Pete Seeger, "Lolly Too Dum" (on PeteSeeger32)

CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "I Must And Will Get Married (The Fit)" (theme)
NOTES: This song is named for its chorus, "Lolly-too-dum, lolly-too-dum-day." Thematically, it is identical to "I Must And Will Get Married (The Fit)," but the stanza form is different enough that I have separated them. (Roud, of course, lumps them.) - RBW
Last updated in version 3.5
File: LxU012

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Here are the Digital Tradition lyrics. I wish I knew where this version came from. It says "recorded by Ives," but the lyrics on the Ives recording are slightly different.

LOLLY TOODUM

As I went out one evening to take the pleasant air
Lolly toodum, toodum, lolly toodum day.
As I went out one evening to take the pleasant air
I overheard a mother a-scoldin' her daughter fair
Lolly toodum, toodum, lolly toodum day.

Oh, go and wash them dishes, and hush your flatterin' tongue
I know you want to get married, and you know that you're too young.

Oh, pity my condition, just as you would your own
For fourteen long years I've been sleepin' all alone.

S'posin' I should let you, where would you get your man?
Why Laws a'mercy, Mammy, I'd marry that handsome Dan.

S'posin' he should slight you, like you done him before?
Why Laws a'mercy, Mammy, I could marry forty more!

There's tinkers and tailors, and boys from the plow,
Why Laws a'mercy, Mammy, I'm a-gettin' that feelin' now.

And now my daughter's married, and well for to do
It's gather 'round me, fellers, I'm on the market, too.

Recorded by Ives
@question @marriage @family
filename[ LLYTOODM
TUNE FILE: LLYTOODM
CLICK TO PLAY
RG