Help: Careless Love / Bunch of Thyme

Subject: Careless Love / Bunch of Thyme
From: Leadfingers
Date: 31 Aug 02 - 05:44 PM

Can any Catters out there help with this one? Where did the tune for the song Bunch of Thyme come from and does it predate W C Handy's Careless Love ? When I used to play very bad Jazz sax and clarinet,I blew some right codswallop on Careless Love,then got turned on to Folk,and found the same tune as a TRADITIONAL song.And It wasn't Traditional Jazz.

Subject: RE: Help: Careless Love / Bunch of Thyme
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 31 Aug 02 - 10:08 PM

Try typing careless love into the very useful "Digitrad and Forum Search", which you will find on the main Forum page. bunch of thyme, too, for that matter.

You'll be amazed.

Subject: RE: Help: Careless Love / Bunch of Thyme
From: masato sakurai
Date: 01 Sep 02 - 12:04 AM

From: James J. Fuld, The Book of World-Famous Music, 4th ed. (Dover, 1995, p. 163):

Words of this song, one of the earliest blues, appeared in Howard W. Odum, "Folk-Song and Folk-Poetry as Found in the Secular Songs of the Southern Negroes" in Journal of American Folklore, Lancaster, Pa., and New York, N.Y., July-Sept., 1911, p. 286, under the title Kelly's Love; ULS, p. 1435. Words also appeared in 1915 under the title Careless Love in Perrow, p. 147, with a notation "From Mississippi; country whites; MS of R. J. Slay; 1909." As "Kelly's" and "Careless" have similar sounds, one is probably a corruption of the other; but which came first is not known.
The music (and words) were published on Jan. 1, 1921, under the title Loveless Love, a "Blues Ballad," with music and words attributed to W. C. Handy. First edition: Front cover has a drawing of a girl's face in a heart and is orange, black and white. The publisher is Pace & Handy Music Co. Inc., 232 West 46th Street, New York, N.Y. m. on pp. 2-5. Back cover adv. Pace.. No price or plate number. LC(CDC), NYPL and JF.

W.C. Handy copyrighted "Careless Love" (1926) and "Loveless Love" (1921) separately. Both versions are in Blues: An Anthology, edited by W.C. Handy (1926; 1949; Macmillan, 1972, pp. 55 & 146-149). Abbe Niles wrote notes (pp. 206 & 212):

Careless Love
An old and very widely known lament, called also Kelly's Love, under which title a version (without music) appears in Odum and Johnson, page 194. So far as is known, first published with its music in the original edition of this book. Careless Love, despite loose references to it in some books, is obviously not a blues. It was, however, married to the blues in Handy's Loveless Love (page 146), whose introductory section is pure blues--and pure Handy. He himself had heard and played the original tune of Careless Love as early as 1892, in Bessemer, Alabama.

Loveless Love
This is the ancient Careless Love in a series of arrangements prefaced by an original Handy blues (not only one of his best, but unusual in the total ansence of the "blue note"); the words are on a theme suggested to Handy by the discourse of a street-corner Jeremiah on 44th Street, New York; the concluding blues lines, however, may be compared with the folk-verse Nora's Faithful Dove, at page 13.

See also The Traditional Ballad Index: Careless Love, with little info on the origin.

~Masato

Subject: Lyr Add: KELLY'S LOVE
From: masato sakurai
Date: 01 Sep 02 - 12:26 AM

From: Howard W. Odum and Guy B. Johnson, The Negro and His Songs (1925; Negro Universities Press, 1968, pp. 194-195; without music):

KELLY'S LOVE

Love, Kelly's love,
Love, Kelly's love,
Love, Kelly's love.
You broke de heart o' many a girl,
You never break dis heart o' mine.

When I wo' my aprons low,
When I wo' my aprons low,
When I wo' my aprons low,
Couldn't keep you from mo do'.

Now I weahs my aprons high,
Sca'cely ever see you passin' by.

Now I weahs my aprons to my chin,
You pass my do' but can't come in.

See what Kelly's love have done.
See what Kelly's love have done.

If I had listened to what my mamma said,
I would a been at home in mamma's bed.

Subject: RE: Help: Careless Love / Bunch of Thyme
From: Mr Red
Date: 01 Sep 02 - 01:37 PM

Don't know the history of Bunch of Thyme but I have heard many an erudite folkie tell of the symbolism. Thyme=maidenhead, Garden=wider area thereabouts, Rose=baby.
I took it to be old but you can be lead astra sometimes.

Subject: RE: Help: Careless Love / Bunch of Thyme
From: Leadfingers
Date: 02 Sep 02 - 01:53 PM

Thanks for the info,but its the tune that I am curious about.Was the tune taken up by the Careless Love people or was the Careless Love tune taken because it fitted the Lyric of Bunch of Thyme? Did some one not like the original traditional tune? Any Ideas?

Subject: RE: Help: Careless Love / Bunch of Thyme
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Sep 02 - 02:20 PM

I'd put my money on that tune being a lot older than W C Handy's version.

Subject: RE: Help: Careless Love / Bunch of Thyme
From: Leadfingers
Date: 03 Sep 02 - 07:18 PM

I Believe you,McGrath,but I would like a fact or two.I hate not knowing something about a song that I use .

Subject: RE: Help: Careless Love / Bunch of Thyme
From: Cruiser
Date: 06 Oct 06 - 01:30 PM

Did the precedence of the melody ever get resolved? My guess would be the same as McGrath's.

Subject: RE: Help: Careless Love / Bunch of Thyme
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Sep 24 - 06:07 AM

i think the song careless love has been coppywrited by evreyboddy in the music bisnis. like what you say on this mutkap fred there has been listings of it in all the writers and colekters have poot new meanings of the songs wirds. there is no comfirm who wrote this song atall. abunsh of time was writen with the same tune was first pictup by foster and alin an irish band from dublan who were influinst by amerikin folk music. i donot no if they wrote it but they first recorded it.

Subject: RE: Help: Careless Love / Bunch of Thyme
From: GUEST,joe
Date: 15 Nov 25 - 10:25 AM

i am angry, about why people did not mention Charles Hendlys 1905 gospel song o lord stand my me.
this song is a song set to the tune of careless love, that gospel song has been recorded many times during the 40s and 50s by many gospel groups, a lot of them have been continuing in different careers.
from joe

Subject: RE: Help: Careless Love / Bunch of Thyme
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 15 Nov 25 - 12:15 PM

As you will probably have realised by now the tracing of tune evolutions is notoriously difficult. The well-known tune for a widespread piece like Careless Love that has its origins in at the least the 17th century and has many related pieces makes that even more difficult. The text itself largely comes from a widespread very old family of laments under the general umbrella title of 'Died for Love' The tune for some versions has similarities with that of Careless Love and likewise variants of The Sprig of Thyme so we are none the wiser. Both of these pieces were widely spread on broadsides and those people who learnt them from broadsides often set them to the tune of another existing song, or made a tune up. Good luck with that one then.

Subject: RE: Help: Careless Love / Bunch of Thyme
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Nov 25 - 01:13 PM

lead fingers had a serious car accident and no longer is able to visit the site