The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #45014   Message #664124
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
07-Mar-02 - 08:12 AM
Thread Name: Lyr/Chords ADD: The Month of January
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: month of january
So far as I remember, Dolores Keane also recorded an arrangement of the Sarah Makem set; there are only very minor deviations, as is also the case with June Tabor's recording, from the wording of the traditional source.  Mrs. Makem sometimes sang an additional two verses after the final verse quoted above and in the DT:

Oh hush, my little baby boy, and lay closer to my breast
How little does your father know this night we're in distress
He kissed me and embraced me till he had my favour gained
Then went away and left me, in sorrow, grief and shame.

I'll go down to yon lonely valley and upon my knees I'll fall
And there unto Almighty God for mercy I will call
She kissed her baby's cold white lips and laid him by her side
She raised her eyes to Heaven, then both laid down and died.

As recorded by Peter Kennedy and S. O'Boyle from Sarah Makem, Armagh, 1952, and printed in Kennedy's Folksongs of Britain and Ireland (1975), where it is titled The Forsaken Mother and Child.  Other versions have been noted in England and Canada.