Origins: I'll Tell You What I Saw Last Night

Subject: RE: Songbook Indexing: Oak Publications
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jun 22 - 03:49 PM

Does anyone know who originally did "I'll Tell You What I Saw Last Night"? It sounds like something Blind Alfred Reed would've written

Subject: ADD: I'll Tell You What I Saw Last Night
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Jun 22 - 07:59 PM

I'LL TELL YOU WHAT I SAW LAST NIGHT

All:                I'll tell you what I saw last night,
First Voice:        I'll tell you what
Second Voice:        I saw last night,
First Voice:        I'll tell you what
Second Voice:        I saw last night,
All:                I'll tell you what I saw last night,

All:                A poor ungodly womankind,
First Voice:        A poor ungodly
Second Voice        womankind,
First Voice:        A poor ungodly
Second Voice:        womankind,
All:                A poor ungodly womankind,

She went to the ball,
She danced and played.

She danced and played her life away.

She called her mother to her side.

She called her father to her side.

She called her loved one to her side.

She said, "Dear loved one, fare you well. "

"Dear father and mother, fare you well. "

"Your daughter Mary dreams in Hell, screams in Hell. "


The Hickory Nuts, OKeh 45189. NLCR, Vol. 5.
Also known as "Wicked Polly", "The Unfortunate Girl", and "Awful, Oh, How Awful", this version is the only one known on a phonograph record, and seems to be a condensation of the full ballad, which is widely sung in oral tradition. (See George Pullen Jackson, White Spirituals.) The moralizing verses are left out of this arrangement, and 2 remains is a pointed story.

Source: Old-Time String Band Songbook (New Lost City Ramblers Songbook), edited by John Cohen and Mike Seeger, Oak Publications, New York, 1964 & 1976 (page 86)

Recording by New Lost City Ramblers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK8MynF-l5Q

1927 Recording by the Hickory Nuts (OKEH 45169): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgkEdypn7IU

Subject: Origins: I'll Tell You What I Saw Last Night
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Jun 22 - 08:16 PM

Traditional Ballad Index Entry:

Wicked Polly [Laws H6]

DESCRIPTION: Polly lives a frolicsome life, saying, "I'll turn to God when I grow old." Suddenly taken ill, she realizes "'Alas, alas! my days are spent; It is too late for to repent.'" She dies in agony and is presumably sent to hell; young people are advised to heed
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1924 (Beckwith)
KEYWORDS: disease death Hell warning
FOUND IN: US(Ap,MW,SE,So) West Indies(Jamaica)
REFERENCES (24 citations):
Laws H6, "Wicked Polly"
Belden-BalladsSongsCollectedByMissourFolkloreSociety, pp. 460-464, "The Wicked Girl" (3 texts plus a fragment possibly of this ballad)
Randolph 596, "Wicked Polly" (5 texts, 2 tunes)
Randolph/Cohen-OzarkFolksongs-Abridged, pp. 416-417, "Wicked Polly" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 596A)
Eddy-BalladsAndSongsFromOhio 140, "Wicked Polly" (1 text, 1 tune)
Flanders/Olney-BalladsMigrantInNewEngland, pp. 21-23, "Wicked Polly" (1 text, 1 tune)
Cox-FolkSongsSouth 136, "Wicked Polly" (1 text)
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore3 62, "The Wicked Girl" (3 texts plus mention of 1 more)
Brown/Schinhan-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore5 62, "The Wicked Girl" (2 tunes plus text excerpts)
Moore/Moore-BalladsAndFolkSongsOfTheSouthwest 112, "Wicked Polly" (1 text, 1 tune)
Owens-TexasFolkSongs-1ed, pp. 110-111, "The Wicked Daughter" (1 text, 1 tune)
Owens-TexasFolkSongs-2ed, p. 167, "The Wicked Daughter" (1 text, 1 tune)
Chappell-FolkSongsOfRoanokeAndTheAlbermarle 115, "Sold In Hell" (1 text)
Morris-FolksongsOfFlorida, #91, "Wicked Polly" (1 text, 1 tune)
Shellans-FolkSongsOfTheBlueRidgeMountains, p. 95, "Wicked Polly" (1 text, 1 tune)
Brewster-BalladsAndSongsOfIndiana 66, "Wicked Polly" (1 text)
Lomax/Lomax-AmericanBalladsAndFolkSongs, pp. 569-570, "Wicked Polly" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax-FolkSongsOfNorthAmerica 35, "Wicked Polly" (1 text, 1 tune)
Cohen/Seeger/Wood-NewLostCityRamblersSongbook, p. 86, "I'll Tell You What I Saw Last Night" (1 text, 1 tune)
Pound-AmericanBalladsAndSongs, 47, pp. 111-112, "Wicked Polly"; pp. 113-114, "Wicked Polly" (2 texts)
DT 646, WICKDPOL* WICKDPL2*
ADDITIONAL: Fred W. Allsopp, Folklore of Romantic Arkansas, Volume II (1931), p. 160 (1 fragment, no title)
Martha W Beckwith, "The English Ballad in Jamaica: a Note Upon the Origin of the Ballad Form" in _Publications of the Modern Language Association_ [PMLA], Vol. XXXIXI, No. 2 (Jun 1924 (available online by JSTOR)), #7 pp. 477-478, "The Wurlean Woman" (1 text)
Richard M. Dorson, _Buying the Wind: Regional Folklore in the United States_, University of Chicago Press, 1964, pp. 407-408, "Young People Who Delight in Sin" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #505
RECORDINGS:
New Lost City Ramblers, "I'll Tell You What I Saw Last Night" (on NLCR05)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Dying Boy" (plot)
cf. "A Poor Sinner" (plot)
cf. "Death is a Melancholy Call" [Laws H5] (theme)
cf. "The Lost Soul" (theme)
cf. "While I Was Still of Tender Years" (theme)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Unfortunate Girl
Awful, Oh, How Awful
Young People Hark
A Sad Parting
NOTES [97 words]: The girl's name in this version [Cohen/Seeger/Wood-NewLostCityRamblersSongbook] is not Polly but Mary. -PJS
In Songs the Whalemen Sang, pp. 306-308, Huntington prints a piece called "Terrible Polly." Neither he nor I can decide if it's an adaption of this song or not, so I decided to list it here in these notes.
Barry wrote a study of this piece and "Death is a Melancholy Call," treating them as variants (male and female, presumably) of the same piece. The moral is of course the same, and they use the same metrical form -- but I can't see any actual dependence in the lyrics. - RBW
Last updated in version 4.1
File: LH06

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WICKED POLLY (Digital Tradition lyrics, version 1)

Young people, hark while I relate
The story of poor Polly's fate.
She was a lady young and fair
And died a-groaning in despair.

To balls and parties she would go
In spite of all her friends could do.
"I'll turn," said she, "when I am old
And God will then receive my soul."

One Friday morning she fell sick.
Her stubborn heart began to quake.
She cried, "Alas, my days are spent.
It is too late now to repent."

She called her mother to her bed.
Her eyes were rolling in her head.
A ghastly look she did assume.
She cried, "Alas, I am undone.

"My loving father, you I leave.
For wicked Polly do not grieve,
For I must burn forever more
When thousand thousand years are o'er."

"Your counsels I have slighted all
My carnal appetite to fill
When I am dead, remember well
Your wicked Polly groans in Hell."

She wrung her hands and groaned and cried
And gnawed her tongue before she died.
Her nails turned black, her voice did fail
She died and left this lower vale.

May this a warning be to those
That love the ways that Polly chose.
Turn from your sins, lest you like her
Shall leave this world in black despair.

From Ballads Migrant in New England, Flanders
Collected from Mrs. Carder Whaley, RI 1944. A version was
published in 1907
DT #646
Laws H6
@death @sin @moral @religion @hell
filename[ WICKDPOL
TUNE FILE: WICKDPOL
CLICK TO PLAY
RG

Popup Midi Player

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WICKED POLLY (Digital Tradition Version 2)

Young people who delight in sin
I'll tell you what has lately been,
A lady who was young and fair
She died in sin and sad despair

She'd go to frolics, dance an' play,
In spite of all her friends could say,
I'll turn to God when I git old,
An' He will then receive my soul.

One Friday she was taken ill,
Her stubborn heart begun to yield,
Oh mother dear, do pray for me
for I am lost eternally.

My earthly father, fare thee well,
You're bound for heaven an' me for hell,
When I am gone remember well
Your wicked daughter screams in hell.

Young people all, with one accord,
Take warnin' at my dyin'word,
That you may escape them hellish flames
While I am doomed to endless pain.

She knowed her fate before she died,
She wrang her hands, she screamed an' cried,
The flamin' wrath begins for to roll,
I am a lost an' a ruint soul.

From Ozark Folksongs, Randolph
Collected from Betty Turner, OK 1911
DT #646
Laws H6
@death @religion @moral
filename[ WICKDPL2
TUNE FILE: WICKDPL2
CLICK TO PLAY
TUNE FILE: WCKEDPOL
CLICK TO PLAY
RG

Popup Midi Player