Mary Don't Weep

Subject: Mary Don't Weep
From: GUEST,Butternut
Date: 25 May 23 - 03:13 PM

Anybody have a date for this song? All I can find is that it is pre Civil War era.

Subject: RE: Mary Don't Weep
From: GUEST,Butternut
Date: 25 May 23 - 03:31 PM

Actually, I'm trying to find dates for a bunch of songs,
The Chickens they are Crowin'
The Wind that Shakes the Corn
Inchin' Along

Subject: RE: Mary Don't Weep
From: GUEST,Robert B. Waltz
Date: 25 May 23 - 03:52 PM

Most of these titles are a little vague. By "Mary Don't Weep" do you mean "Oh, Mary, Don't You Weep"? If so, the canonical form goes back to the Fisk Jubilee Singers, so it is not pre-Civil War, although many of the verses can be dated before the war. (This is the problem with a great many songs sung by slaves; they are so composite that there isn't really an earliest version.)

If "The Chickens They Are Crowing" is the one where the girl is in trouble because of spending a night with a man, it appears that Cecil Sharp first collected it in 1917 (which means it was probably bowdlerized). It might well be much older, but no one would print it.

"The Wind That Shakes the Corn" is a rewrite (probably modern and deliberate) of "The Wind That Shakes the Barley," which is by Robert Dwyer Joyce and was printed in 1861.

I'm not sure which song you mean by "Inchin' Along." If it's "Keep A-Inchin' Along," that's another Fisk Jubilee Singers song; they were singing it by 1901.

Subject: RE: Mary Don't Weep
From: Joe Offer
Date: 25 May 23 - 04:07 PM

Bob Waltz is to humble to say it, but the Traditional Ballad Index (which Bob edits) is very good at establishing dates for songs. One caveat - the date of a song in the Ballad Index is the earliest date found in the sources indexed by the Ballad Index - it is not the date of composition.

See: http://balladindex.org/

Also see the other thread on "Mary Don't Weep," https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=7873

Subject: RE: Mary Don't Weep
From: GUEST,Butternut
Date: 25 May 23 - 04:20 PM

OK. Thanks.

Subject: RE: Mary Don't Weep
From: GUEST,Robert B. Waltz
Date: 25 May 23 - 06:00 PM

This is pretty off-topic, but just a clarification.... Joe Offer wrote, One caveat - the date of a song in the Ballad Index is the earliest date found in the sources indexed by the Ballad Index - it is not the date of composition.

Actually, we do use the earliest date that I can verify -- it's just that the earliest date I can verify has a tendency to be the books we index. :-) But if I find earlier sheet music, I'll cite that date, or if I find an unequivocal reference, I'll cite that. And if a reputable source says, "This was published by so-and-so in such-and-such year," I'll cite that, too, with a mention of where I found the citation.

I won't just cite some random Internet citation or unverifiable allusion, though; I'd rather be wrong on the too-late-a-date side than on the too-early.

And the standard was different at the start of the Ballad Index; at that time, it was indeed the earliest book we cited (and I didn't list the source for the date, because no one suggested that in the initial planning). And since there are a lot of old entries in the Index, some of the earliest dates are pretty obsolete. :-)