Subject: Lyr/Tune Add: JENNY JENKINS
From:
Snuffy
Date: 25 Jun 02 - 06:41 PM
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.
X: 227
T:Jenny Jenkins
M:2/4
L:1/16
S:Jean Ritchie, Folkways FA2428
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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." X: 33
T:Will You Wear Red?
M:C|
L:1/8
S:Alan Lomax, Penguin Book of American Folksongs
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