My post of yesterday was actually misleading. Although I posted a lot of tunes that day from the Folkways book, for some reason I chose to transcribe the Lomax version of JJ rather than the Ritchie version. I'd just got back from a hard night of Morris dancing, singing and drinking, and wasn't paying sufficient attention.
To set the record straight, here are both versions with their correct tunes:
JENNY JENKINS (sung by Jean Ritchie)
Oh will you wear blue, oh my dear, oh my dear? Oh will you wear blue, Jenny Jenkins? No, I won't wear blue, the color ain't true.
I'll buy me a fol-de-roldy tildy-toldy, Seek-a-double, use a cause-a, roll to find me, Roll, Jenny Jenkins, roll
Oh will you wear brown, oh my dear, oh my dear? Oh will you wear brown, Jenny Jenkins? No, I won't wear brown, it's all around the town.
Oh will you wear black, oh my dear, oh my dear? Oh will you wear black, Jenny Jenkins? No, I won't wear black, it's the color of a sack.
Oh will you wear mauve, oh my dear, oh my dear? Oh will you wear mauve, Jenny Jenkins? No, I won't wear mauve, 'cause it's too suave.
Oh will you wear beige, oh my dear, oh my dear? Oh will you wear beige, Jenny Jenkins? No, I won't wear beige, they would put me in a cage.
Then what will you wear, oh my dear, oh my dear? What will you wear, Jenny Jenkins? Oh I'll just go bare with a ribbon in my hair.
WILL YOU WEAR RED? (From Alan Lomax; Penguin Book of American Folksongs)
O will you wear red, O my dear, O my dear? Will you wear red, Jennie Jenkins? I won't wear red, it's the color of my head.
I'll buy me a twirley-whirley, sookey-lookey, Sally-Katty, double-lolly, Roll-the-find me, roll, Jenny Jenkins, roll
O will you wear blue, etc. Will you wear blue, etc. I won't wear blue, for I won't be true.
O will you wear yaller, etc. Will you wear yaller, etc. I won't wear yaller, I've got the wrong feller.
O will you wear green, etc. Will you wear green, etc. I won't wear green, for I'm 'shamed to be seen.
O will you wear brown, etc. Will you wear brown, etc. I won't wear brown and live out of town.
O will you wear purple, etc. Will you wear purple, etc. I won't wear purple, it's the color of a turkle.
O what will you wear, O my dear, O my dear? What will you wear, Jennie Jenkins? Now what do you care if I just go bare.
"The answer-back song brought together many a shy courting couple at frontier socials in New England and the Southern Mountains. The boy named the colours, and it was up to the girl to find a rhyming line, the siller the better. In this atmosphere of rural spoofery, the colour rhymes gradually lost the ritual significance that they had in earlier songs like Miss Jennia Jones . So it was in the version which we found in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. But in the Ozarks Vance Randolph found the rhyme:
Blue is true, Yeller's jealous, Green's forsaken, Red is brazen, White is love, And Black is death."
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