Lyr Req: Now She's Gone (from Jim Kweskin)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Now She's Gone (from Jim Kweskin)
From: GUEST,Starship
Date: 03 Mar 20 - 10:09 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seY400hv_sM

Here's the same cut as 'GUEST 03 Mar 20 - 10:00 AM, but on YouTube.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Now She's Gone (from Jim Kweskin)
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Mar 20 - 10:00 AM

https://music.apple.com/ie/album/unjugged/1298308984

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Now She's Gone (from Jim Kweskin)
From: GUEST,William Taylor, Gloucester, Ma.
Date: 13 Aug 13 - 11:11 PM

I remember hearing Paul Clayton sing this song at the Golden Vanity coffeehouse in Boston and he sang..."why should I care I'm so happy young and free and I can find another love much prettier than she."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Now She's Gone (from Jim Kweskin)
From: humbead
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 10:07 PM

"her love for has gone" should be "her love for me has gone" in three instances above.

Subject: Lyr Add: NOW SHE'S GONE (Kweskin/Marten/Schoenfeld
From: humbead
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 10:05 PM

Jim sent me what he thinks are the missing words, so here is the complete song, as much as we know.


Jim Kweskin, Buz Marten, Sally Schoenfeld
Indian Neck Folk Festival, May 6, 1961,
Montewese Hotel, Branford, CT

Now she's gone, let her go, let her sink or let her swim
Her love for has gone like a swallow on the wind
She's gone across the ocean to do the best she can
I hope that she finds favor in some far distant land

Well she's pretty and she's small and she dresses awful neat (or sweet)
Isn't it a pity she's so full of her deceit
Now she's gone across the ocean to do the best she can
I hope that she finds favor in some far distant land

Now she's gone, let her go, let her sink or let her swim
Her love for has gone like a swallow on the wind
She's gone across the ocean to do the best she can
I hope that she finds favor in some far distant land

Well she loved me a little like the dew upon the corn
Put it on at evening and took it off at dawn
She's gone across the ocean to do the best she can
I hope that she finds favor in some far distant land

Now she's gone, let her go, let her sink or let her swim
Her love for has gone like a swallow on the wind
She's gone across the ocean to do the best she can
I hope that she finds favor in some far distant land

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Now She's Gone (from Jim Kweskin)
From: humbead
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 04:54 AM

Well, I can't make out all the words, but this is what I have so far:

Now she's gone, let her go, let her sink or let her swim
Her love for has gone like a swallow on the wind
She's gone across the ocean to do the best she can
I hope that she finds favor in some far distant land

Well she's pretty and she smiles and she kisses awful sweet
She didn't __________________________________
Now she's gone across the ocean to do the best she can
I hope that she finds favor in some far distant land

Now she's gone, let her go, let her sink or let her swim
Her love for has gone like a swallow on the wind
She's gone across the ocean to do the best she can
I hope that she finds favor in some far distant land

Well she loved me a little like the dew upon the corn
Put it on at evening and took it off at dawn
She's gone across the ocean to do the best she can
I hope that she finds favor in some far distant land

Now she's gone, let her go, let her sink or let her swim
Her love for has gone like a swallow on the wind
She's gone across the ocean to do the best she can
I hope that she finds favor in some far distant land


oh, and a second question: where did that song come from?
Did one of you write it? I can't find much mention of it anywhere,
and people are wondering about it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Now She's Gone (from Jim Kweskin)
From: humbead
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 02:58 AM

Yeah, these are some good songs, but not the one Kweskin sang,
at least there are some major differences. "Now she's gone..." v.
"If she's gone..." for a starter.

I'll get all the words and post them here. I'll also ask Jim where he got the song.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Now She's Gone (from Jim Kweskin)
From: Eve Goldberg
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 10:41 PM

So true, Art. But actually I think Shelley remembers who he learned it from. I'm the one who can't remember the name of the folklorist he cited.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Now She's Gone (from Jim Kweskin)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 07:03 PM

I don't think any of these songs is the one originally requested.

Oh, well, it's not likely "A Friend" is reading this anyway.

Subject: ADD: Flora (The Stormy Winds of Winter)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 03:48 PM

The Jean Redpath recording of "Farewell He" is on her Folk-Legacy CD, Frae My Ain Countrie.
The Shelley Posen version is "If He's Gone, Let Him Go," from his CD The Old Songs' Home.
There's also a very nice recording on a Folkways album called Mickey Miller Sings American Folk Songs.

Here's the version from Peacock's Songs of the Newfoundland Outports:

FLORA (THE STORMY WINDS OF WINTER)

The stormy winds of winter intend to frost and snow,
The small birds round the centre, and the stormy winds do blow,
You are the girl I choosèd to be my only dear,
But your hard heart is frozen, you've sealed it up I fear.

I went one night to see my love, was treated most scornfully,
I asked her if she would marry but she would not agree.
"The night it is far spent, my love, and almost break of day,
From you I want an answer, my dear what do you say?"

"Oh since you are for changing the old love for the new
It's time for me to ranging the foaming billows through,
I'll go and seek some other young girl where love may have its fill,
This world is wide and lonely, if you won't some other will."

"I'll make my way to Flanders, I'll choose a different life,
And with my bold commander my gun shall be my wife,
And when I do get money to a tavern I will go,
I'll drink a health to Flora although she answered no."


Source: Songs of the Newfoundland Outports, by Kenneth Peacock, pp. 445-446
singer: Mrs. Charlotte Decker, August, 1959

Subject: RE: lyr req: Now She's Gone (Kweskin recording)
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 09:37 AM

And then there's all this from the Ballad Index, which, however, surprisingly enough has no separate listing for "If (S)he's Gone, Let (Her) Him Go."

Lonesome (Stormy) Scenes of Winter, The [Laws H12]

DESCRIPTION: The singer insists that a girl tell him whether she will marry him or not. She will not; she has another lover. He berates her love of wealth and threatens to go away as a soldier/sailor. (In some texts she changes her mind, but the man has a new girl.)
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1904 (Belden)
KEYWORDS: courting rejection separation
FOUND IN: US(Ap,MW,SE,So) Canada(Mar,Newf)
REFERENCES (13 citations):
Laws H12, "The Lonesome (Stormy) Scenes of Winter"
Belden, pp. 195-196, "The Lonesome Scenes of Winter" (1 text)
MHenry-Appalachians, pp. 136-137, "The Lonesome Scenes of Winter (All in the Scenes of Winter" (1 text)
Wyman-Brockway II, p. 94, "The Gonesome [sic] Scenes of Winter" (1 text, 1 tune)
Dean, pp. 108-109, "Lonesome Hours of Winter" (1 text)
Fowke/Johnston, pp. 156-157, "The Stormy Scenes of Winter" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fowke/MacMillan 57, "The Lonesome (Stormy) Scenes of Winter" (1 text, 1 tune)
McNeil-SFB1, pp. 127-129, "Lonesome Scenes of Winter" (1 text, 1 tune)
Shellans, pp. 38-39, "The Scornful Lover" (1 text, 1 tune)
Creighton/Senior, pp. 209-212,"Stormy Winds of Winter" (4 texts, 1 tune)
Creighton-SNewBrunswick 50, "The Stormy Winds of Winter" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Peacock, pp. 445-446, "Flora" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, 650 CHILSCEN* CHILSCN2*
Roud #443
RECORDINGS:
Lewis McDaniel & Walter Smith: "I Went to See My Sweetheart" (Victor 23505, 1930; on ConstSor1)
Southern Melody Boys, "Lonesome Scenes of Winter" (Montgomery Ward 7227, 1937)
Notes: The editors of Sam Henry's Songs of the People place H637 (p. 385, "Lovely Nancy") here -- but I frankly don't see the kinship. Belden, in discussing the matter, says that a song he knows as "Proud Nancy" (I assume the same piece) has "a like theme but little verbal resemblance." - RBW
File: LH12

---

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Go to the Bibiography
Go to the Discography

The Ballad Index Copyright 2007 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.

Subject: ADD: Farewell He
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 09:28 AM

"Lonesome Scenes of Winter" is Laws H12.

The Catnach version below lacks the "If He's Gone Let Him Go" chorus, which developed later. But you'll recognize the rest of the song readily enough. I've supplied a bit of punctuation.    Bob

FAREWELL HE
J. Catnach, printer, London, c. 1813-1838, Bedleian Library, Ballads Catalogue, Harding B11(2298). Variant phrases given for a Liverpool version, Harding B 28(162).

It's fare you well cold winter, and fare you well cold frost,
Nothing I've gained, but my true love I've lost,
I will sing and be merry while a caution I do see    [while occasion I do see]
And I will rest me when I'm weary, let him go, farewell he.

Last night he brought me a fine diamond ring,
And thought to have deprived me of a far better thing, [He thought he would deprive me]
But he was not so skillful as a lover might be,
I defy the lad for ever, let him go, farewell he.

He has another sweetheart, but that is all a joke,
But if he had twenty, he would not me provoke,   [He thought in his heart he would me]
And if he likes another, 'tis as they can agree,
And I have the choice of twenty, let him go, farewell he.

As I was walking down by a shady green grove,   [As we were walking]
He met me with a smiling face, and gave to me the road,
He thought I would have spoke to him as I passed by,    [I would speak]
But before I would humble to him I will lay down and die.

To half a pound of reason take half a grain of sense,
A small sprig of time [One sprig of thyme] and as much prudence,
And mix them up together as you may plainly see,
(I) defy the lad forever, let him go, farewell he.

NOTE: In the last verse line 2, some American versions have "impudence" rather than "prudence."

Jean Redpath has recorded a version of this.

Subject: RE: lyr req: Now She's Gone (Kweskin recording)
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 09:13 AM

The song goes back to a 19th century broadside. Rev. Baring-Gould had it as "Farewell He", Garland of Country Song, No. XLIII, and references a Catnach stall copy.

It's loosely related to a cluster of songs of which Gus Meade, Country Music Sources, finds an 1889 original as "Lonesome Scenes of Winter."

U.S.:
H.M. Belden, Ballads and Songs Collected by the Missouri Folk-Lore Society, p 492, has a 1906 version as "Adieu to Cold Weather."
E.C. Perrow found a fragment as "Forsaken" in Mississippi, 1909.
Vance Randolph, Ozark Folk Songs Vol 4, 236-41 has a cluster of versions of "Adieu to Dark Weather."

Between 1930 and 1937 "Lonesome Scenes of Winter" was recorded under various titles by Lewis McDaniel and Walter Smith, the Carter Family, Daddy John Love and Odus Maggard and Woodrow Roberts.

The version usually known as "If She's Gone Let Her Go" was found in 1928 in the Ozarks by Vance Randolph as a version of "Adieu to Dark Weather." From this and the Belden version Paul Clayton and Roger Abrahams slightly rewrote it (mostly changing the sex from "he" to "she"), duetted it in Greenwich Village, and it was later recorded by Clayton in the 1960s.

The Catnach version follows.

Bob

Subject: RE: lyr req: Now She's Gone (Kweskin recording)
From: Art Thieme
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 11:09 PM

Eve, us folklorists forget who we got most of our stuff from. On top o' that, we remember things that never happened. And when your memory goes, forget it! Shelly is in good company.

Art

Subject: RE: lyr req: Now She's Gone (Kweskin recording)
From: Eve Goldberg
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 10:30 PM

And I've heard Shelley Posen of Finest Kind sing one that went:

Chorus:

If he's gone let him go, let him sink or let him swim
If he don't care for me, well I'm sure I don't for him
Why should I care I'm so happy young and free
And I can find another one when he is gone from me


Well, he loved me just a little bit, like the dew upon the corn
He put it on at evening time and took it off at morn
??
??

I seem to remember Shelley saying he learned it from another folklorist, but can't remember who.

Subject: RE: lyr req: Now She's Gone (Kweskin recording)
From: Art Thieme
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 01:43 PM

Paul Clayton did a different version of this song from the ones mentioned so far.

If she's gone, let her go,
Let her sink or let her swim,
If she don't care as much for me,
As she now cares for him,
Why should I care, I'm so happy young and free,
And I can find another much prettier than she.

(it was on an LP for Monument Records I believe.)

Art

Subject: RE: lyr req: Now She's Gone (Kweskin recording)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 12:43 PM

Allmusic.com lists lots of recordings called NOW SHE'S GONE. Several different songs are represented there, notably one recorded by Ray Charles and written by L. Carter and Roy Jacobs. But there is nothing attributed to Jim Kweskin.

Subject: ADD: Let Him Go, Let Him Tarry
From: AnneMC
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 12:21 AM

Is it a version of this one ??

LET HIM GO, LET HIM TARRY

(This version, or something much like it, was popular in England
in the 1940`s --- Gracie Fields recorded it.

cho: Let him go, let him tarry, let him sink or let him swim;
He don`t care for me, and I`m sure I don`t for him
He can go and find another, and I hope she`ll bring him joy
For I`m goin` to marry a far nicer boy.

Farewell to cold winter, now that summer`s come at last;
Nothing have I gained, but my true love I have lost.
I`ll sing and I`ll be happy like a bird upon the tree
For since he deceived me, I care no more for he.

cho:

He wrote me a letter saying he was very bad,
I sent him back an answer saying I was very glad.
He wrote me another saying he was well and strong,
But I care no more for him than the ground he walks upon.

cho:

Some of his friends had a good kind wish for me,
Others of his friends, they could hang me from a tree;
But soon I`ll let them see my love, and soon I`ll let them know
That I can get a new sweetheart on any ground I go.

cho:

He can go to his old mother,now, and set her mind at ease,
For she`s a mean old woman, and very hard to please,
It`s slighting me and talking ill is all she`s ever done
Since I was courtin` her great big ugly son.

Subject: RE: Now She's Gone
From: humbead
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 05:53 PM

(sorry if you've seen this before...second time trying to post here)

If you're still around after ten years waiting, I have a tape I made of Jim singing this song in May, 1961, with Buz Marten and Sally Schoenfeld. If you still want the lyrics, I will transcribe them, just let me know. Best to email me, humbead@gmail or humbead@aol,
I'm not sure I'll see an answer here.

Subject: Now She's Gone
From: A Friend
Date: 24 Apr 99 - 01:37 PM

Looking for words and source of a song whose chorus goes:

Now she's gone, let her go
Let her sink or let her swim
Her love for me is gone like a swallow on the wind
She's gone across the ocean
To do the best she can
And I hope that she finds favor
In some far distant land

I heard this on a tape of Jim Kweskin that Joe Loop made at the Attic in Boulder, Colorado, c. 1962.