Hi, Karen - I moved your most recent message over from another thread. Having two Belden threads open at the same time, gets confusing. Jim Carroll posted the entire text of pages 392-397 of Belden. The only thing he missed was the music notation for version E [if you need that, email me at joe@mudcat.org and I'll send you a scan]. I cleaned up the formatting of Jim's post, so I think you have a pretty accurate representation of what's in Belden.

In answer to your most recent question: This family of songs is known as "The Unfortunate Rake." It includes "Streets of Laredo" and "Pills of White Mercury" and many other titles. Belden keeps them together in the section Jim posted for you - and Belden cites the title if it's available.

So, to be official, the source is Ballads and Songs Collected by the Missouri Folk-Lore Society, edited by H.M. Belden (The University of Missouri Studies. First printed 1955, reprinted 1955)

I've got lots of song collections from lots of states - apparently, this was a 'thing' once upon a time - but I think that this one is my favorite of all of them. Belden assembled a wide selection of songs (not just Child Ballads) and researched them thoroughly and provided a number of samples of each. This book is a delight - the segment Jim posted is a good example of the quality of Belden's work.

-Joe Offer, Mudcat Music Editor-
(joe@mudcat.org)