The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #171740   Message #4154554
Posted By: GUEST,Jacob Zelman
10-Oct-22 - 03:30 AM
Thread Name: Origins: My Love Gave Me A Diamond
Subject: Origins: My Love Gave Me A Diamond
A mystery that I've been trying to solve for a couple of years now: When I was in choir in high school, we sang a medley arrangement of The Water is Wide, and another song, with a tune very similar to The Riddle Song (I Gave My Love A Cherry), except with very different lyrics. Every time I've tried to figure out where these two songs might've branched from each other I've come up pretty short. I thought I might share the lyrics here and see if anyone else is familiar with it?

Lyrics are as follows:

my love gave me a diamond, a diamond ring
my love gave me a song, that angels sing
my love gave me a rose, of crimson hue
my love gave me a promise, a heart so true

As you can probably tell, it features a similar structure to the riddle song, but instead of the singer giving, they're receiving, and there's no riddle to the gifts.