Lyr Req: Pretty Caroline

Subject: Lyr Req: Pretty Caroline
From: GUEST, Diane, a guest
Date: 17 Feb 04 - 07:06 PM

Hi all,
Ralph Vaughan Williams' English Folk song Suite supposedly features a song called "Pretty Caroline" in the first movement. I've been unable to find any information about this song. Does anyone out there have lyrics or a melody, or any information at all on this folk song? Thanks
Diane

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pretty Caroline
From: masato sakurai
Date: 17 Feb 04 - 07:59 PM

From folktrax:

PRETTY CAROLINE - "One morning in the month of May when brightly shone the day" - "A lock of hair and a ring of gold, Young William he did show" - ROUD#1448 - SHARP Novello School Series 7 - SHARP-KARPELES CSC 1974 #145 pp557-8 Mrs Bray, Langport, Som 1904. Shadrach Clifford, Armscote, Warwicksh 1912/ Wm Pittaway, Burford, Oxford 1923 - WILLIAMS FSUT #677 (w/o)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pretty Caroline
From: Allan C.
Date: 17 Feb 04 - 08:05 PM

I've found no useful resources thus far. I'll keep looking. This may take quite some time. Please be sure to check back from time to time.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pretty Caroline
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 17 Feb 04 - 08:05 PM

I think you are referring to "Seventeen (Sixteen) Come Sunday," which is featured in the first movement of the Suite. The old song has many other names and versions; one could be Pretty someone or other.
See threads 19258 for lyrics and 30725 for discussion by Malcolm Douglas.
Seventeen
Seventeen

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pretty Caroline
From: masato sakurai
Date: 17 Feb 04 - 08:17 PM

See also Malcolm Douglas's post at folktrax.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pretty Caroline
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 17 Feb 04 - 08:52 PM

Vaughan Williams got a song called Pretty Caroline from Mrs Powell of Herefordshire (August 1908: information from the book mentioned in the previous link), and I should not be surprised if that were the one; though he also used songs found by other collectors, so the Sharp one mentioned is also a possibility; a tune comparison ought to settle it. I don't think that Mrs Powell's set has ever been published in its original form. Probably you can find more details in one of the standard works on the composer. Meanwhile, I wouldn't want to guess which of several unrelated songs which are sometimes called by that name might be in question here.

This is the second tune in the first movement, and therefore not Seventeen Come Sunday, which is the first (the third is Dives and Lazarus).

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pretty Caroline
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 17 Feb 04 - 09:32 PM

The titles I have for Williams orchestral "Folk Song Suite" are:
1. March- Seventeen Come Sunday
2. Intermezzo- My Bonny Boy
3. March- Folk Songs from Somerset

I don't have the score, so wasn't aware that more than one song was included in the 1st movement.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pretty Caroline
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 17 Feb 04 - 09:37 PM

Programme notes off the web; I haven't seen the score. In many of RVW's pieces only the first tune of a group is actually named. First time I ever heard his "Greensleeves", I noticed that it included Lovely Joan. Mentioned that to the bloke who had played it; he had had no idea, and had assumed that it was a variation on the Greensleeves tune. Percy Grainger was more forthcoming about his sources.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pretty Caroline
From: GUEST,George Weinberg-Harter
Date: 18 Sep 04 - 01:56 PM

The complete lyrics to the broadside ballad "Pretty Caroline" can be read on a reproduction of the broadside at this site:

http://www.nls.uk/broadsides/broadside.cfm/id/14805

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pretty Caroline
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 18 Sep 04 - 03:35 PM

That's one Pretty Caroline, yes; a lot of broadside editions were published by various printers, and you can see several at Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads:

Pretty Caroline

The set mentioned earlier, noted by Cecil Sharp, is the broadside song. We don't know, though, if the song noted by RVW was a version of that or something else entirely; or which was used in the suite. We'd need to compare the tunes for a start. Mrs Powell's Pretty Caroline has never been published as noted, so far as I know, so it would be necessary to check the MSS to see what the song was; if any words were recorded, that is.

Subject: Lyr Add: PRETTY CAROLINE (broadside)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 06:32 AM

Copied from The National Library of Scotland web page:

PRETTY CAROLINE

One morning in the month of May,
It's sweetly shone the sun,
All on the banks of daisies gay,
There sits a lovely one.
She did appear as good as fair,
Her dark brown hair did shine,
And showed the neck and bosom bare   
Of my Pretty Caroline.

Her lips were of the rosy red;
Her cheeks like the rose did bloom;
Her eyes like diamonds in her head;
And her breath a sweet perfume.
The song she sang my love's away,
It pierced this heart of mine,
To listen to the melody
Of my pretty Caroline.

Then lovely maid, to her I said,
Don't yon remember me?
I am your jolly sailor bold
That has ploughed the raging sea.
For the courting of a pretty maid,
Her parents did combine,
And sent me aboard of a man-of-war
From my pretty Caroline.

For seven long years I was bound,
All for to serve the Queen,
Where ratling cannons loud did roar,
And made the deep sea ring.
My gold in store I've brought on shore,
And freely does incline,
To share it all, and a ring that's more,
With pretty Caroline.

This maiden fair, 'tween joy and despair,
Away from me she drew—
Then stand away without delay,
Unless you tell me true.
Produce the ring of virgin gold,
And the lock of hair that's mine,
For no mortal man shall e'er trepan,
Young faithful Caroline.

The ring of gold and lock of hair,
Young William he did show,
When young Caroline she did behold,
Said unto some church we'll go.
And in some lofty mansion,
With rapture we will shine,
The young sailor blessed the month of May,
He met his Caroline.                                 

[Probable period of publication: 1850-1870. Shelfmark: L.C.Fol.178.A.2(050)]