Origins: Little Brown Jug

Subject: Lyr Req: Bonny little brown jug
From: ChrisA
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 03:34 PM

Has any one come across this song before? I heard a track by the Pump & Pluck band.
Some of the lyrics went>>>old brown ale ,old brown beer, bonny little brown jug that i loves dear!!!

Would love to learn the song but can't find anything about the song or history.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Bonny little brown jug
From:
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 03:45 PM

Not this one, I guess

Little Brown Jug

Subject: Lyr Add: LITTLE BROWN JUG
From:
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 03:55 PM

I found at George Butterworth Songs. There's dots shown so someone could do up a MIDI or ABC of the tune.

Little Brown Jug

Me and my wife we lived alone
In a neat little cottage we called our own.
She liked rum and I liked gin.
And that's where we had lots of fun,
 
Chorus
Singing Old brown ale, Old brown beer,
the Bonny little Brown jug that I love dear.
 
If I had a cow that would give such milk,
I would dress her in the finest silk;
I would feed her up on the best of hay,
I would milk her nine times every day.
 
Then it's if my brown jug was in pot,
I'd pawn my shirt and bring it out on bail.
And if my wife would me despise,
I'd up with my fists and give her two black eyes.
 
Then it's in comes the landlord so noble and so fat
He puts on his three-cocked hat.
He filled your beer till the cellar run dry,
And he wouldn't give a damn if you live or die.
 
The brewer brews it into a pan,
The landlord spills it into a can,
So he'd fill your beer till the cellar run dry,
And he wouldn't give a damn if you live or die.

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Click to play

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Bonny little brown jug
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 04:21 PM

The tune is quite different from the American "Little Brown Jug," but I'd guess they're the same song. The Traditional Ballad Index says there are British versions, but cites only American sources. The Ballad Index says it's a composed song by Joseph Eastburn Winner, copyright 1869 - but is the American song derived from something earlier?
-Joe Offer-

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Here's the Traditional Ballad Index entry:

Little Brown Jug, The

DESCRIPTION: The singer praises drink and the little brown jug it comes in: "Ha, ha, ha, you and me, 'Little brown jug' don't I love thee." Drink has turned his friends into enemies, left him poor and sick, and ruined his prospects -- but still he wants another drop
AUTHOR: Eastburn (Joseph Eastburn Winner)
EARLIEST DATE: 1869
KEYWORDS: drink poverty nonballad
FOUND IN: US(MW,SE,So) Britain(England)
REFERENCES (11 citations):
RJackson-19CPop, pp. 115-118, "Little Brown Jug" (1 text, 1 tune)
Belden, p. 261, "Little Brown Jug" (1 text plus an excerpt from another)
Randolph 408, "The Little Brown Jug" (1 text, 1 tune, plus a fragment which may or may not go here)
BrownIII 33, "Little Brown Jug" (1 text plus 6 excerpts)
Lomax-ABFS, pp. 176-177, "Little Brown Jug" (1 text, 1 tune, probably composite, since it includes all the original verses plus some floaters)
Spaeth-ReadWeep, pp. 52-53, "The Little Brown Jug" (1 text, 1 tune)
Gilbert, pp. 64-65, "Little Brown Jug" (1 text)
Pankake-PHCFSB, p. 269, "Little Brown Jug" (1 text)
Silber-FSWB, p. 236, "Little Brown Jug" (1 text)
Fuld-WFM, pp. 334-335, "Little Brown Jug"
DT, BROWNJUG*
Roud #725
RECORDINGS:
The Blue Ridge Duo [possibly a pseudonym for George Reneau?] "Little Brown Jug" (Edison 51422, 1924)
Uncle Tom Collins, "Little Brown Jug" (OKeh 45132, 1927)
Vernon Dalhart, "Little Brown Jug" (Perfect 12421, 1928)
Chubby Parker, "Little Brown Jug" (Gennett 6120/Silvertone 25013, 1927) (Conqueror 7893, 1931)
Riley Puckett, "Little Brown Jug" (Columbia 15232-D, 1928)
George Reneau, "Little Brown Jug" (Vocalion 14812, 1924)
Ernest Thompson, "Little Brown Jug" (Columbia 147-D, 1924)
Welby Toomey, "Little Brown Jug" (Gennett 6025/Champion 15198, 1927)
Henry Whitter, "Little Brown Jug" (OKeh 40063, 1924)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Woodpecker's Hole" (tune)
cf. "The Whiskey Seller" (tune)
Notes: Joseph Winner (the brother of Septimus Winner, a.k.a. "Alice Hawthorne") published some twenty pieces in his career under the title Eastburn, but only this one had any commercial success. The title may have come from another song of the same name, but that piece (by George Cooper and W. F. Wellman, Jr.; copyright 1868) fell into instant obscurity. - RBW
File: RJ19115

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Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Instructions

The Ballad Index Copyright 2004 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.

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Here's the entry from folktrax.org:

LITTLE BROWN JUG - "My wife and I lived all alone" - ROUD#725 - BSs - HAYWOOD #19 p39 (D) m/o (with piano) - WILLIAMS FSUT 1923 p212 #406 Elijah Iles, Inglesham, Wiltsh 5v/ch (w/o) ("Me and my wife we lived in a house") variant words and tune from usual - DAWNEY PG 1977 p28 Francis Jekyll & Geo Butterworth: Mr Smith, Stoke Lacy, Herefordsh, 1907 - see MAUGI CIDRE (Jersey Channel Islands version) --- American song comp by R A Eastburn? - SPAETH: REAW 1926 pp58-59 - HUBBARD BSFU 1961 p244 Mrs Salley Hubbard 1947 & Mrs Caroline Knudsen 1v (w/o), Utah ("If all the folk of Adam's race") - BAYARD DTF 1982 #428 p406 (fiddle tune from Pa) -- Richard AVERY (banjo instrumental) rec by PK, Hogue Bie, Jersey: RTR-0728-50/ Radio prog tape - LEADER LEE- 4045 1975 (M) Lonnie AUSTIN (fid) - cassette of Alys CURTIS from New Zealand rec Dartington

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Bonny little brown jug
From: Leadfingers
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 05:47 PM

I have heard a story that this song was imported from USA to UK early enough to get into the Music Hall and then get 'collected' as a 'Trad' song in England in modified form. This was then RE exported to USA and became the basis for the Swing Bands recordings of Little Brown Jug. A Bit Convulated !!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Bonny little brown jug
From:
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 06:29 PM

Sure sounds like it! Wow! Thanks for the story.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Bonny little brown jug
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 08:28 PM

An entirely different song, "The Brown Jug," is found in British Isles broadsides from around 1820 (Bodleian Library), claimed by some to have been composed in 1791, and to have given the Toby Jug its name. The jug is filled with 'mild ale.'

No one seems to have found an older version of "Little Brown Jug," as composed by Winner in 1869.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Bonny little brown jug
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 09:02 PM

The song never lost popularity in North America. Well-known as a fiddle piece from at least the 1880s and well-recorded in the 1920s by Reneau, Macon and others long before the swing era. Collected in Nebraska and elsewhere in 1914-1920 (JAFL 27, 33, Pound (Nebraska) Randolph (Ozarks). Temperance songs used the tune (as well as a few bawdy verses).
See Lomax; Randolph, Ozark Folksongs # 408, "The Little Brown Jug;" and Bluegrass Messengers for partial data. Little Brown Jug

Subject: Lyr Add: THE LITTLE BROWN JUG (J. E. Winner, 1869)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 03 Nov 06 - 08:31 AM

From the sheet music at Duke University's 'Historic American Sheet Music' collection:

THE LITTLE BROWN JUG
By Eastburn*
Published by J. E. Winner, Philadelphia, 1869.

My wife and I lived all alone
In a little log hut we called our own.
She loved gin and I loved rum,
I tell you what, we'd lots of fun!

CHORUS: Ha, ha, ha, you and me,
Little brown jug, don't I love thee!
Ha, ha, ha, you and me,
Little brown jug, don't I love thee!

2. 'Tis you who makes my friends my foes.
'Tis you who makes me wear old clothes.
Here you are, so near my nose,
So tip her up and down she goes.

3. When I go toiling to my farm,
I take little brown jug under my arm.
I place it under a shady tree.
Little brown jug, 'tis you and me.

4. If all the folks in Adam's race
Were gathered together in one place,
Then I'd prepare to shed a tear
Before I'd part from you, my dear.

5. If I'd a cow that gave such milk,
I'd clothe her in the finest silk.
I'd feed her on the choicest hay,
And milk her forty times a day.

6. The rose is red, my nose is too,
The violet's blue and so are you;
And yet, I guess, before I stop,
We'd better take another drop.

[The Digital Tradition version has several small differences in wording, a different sequence of verses, and 2 extra verses that are not in the sheet music.

[James J. Fuld, in "The Book of World-Famous Music," 4th edition, says "Eastburn" was the pseudonym of the publisher, Joseph Eastburn Winner, brother of songwriter Septimus Winner.]

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Bonny little brown jug
From: Artful Codger
Date: 03 Nov 06 - 08:29 PM

I notice that verses 2 and 4 appear, little changed, in "Oh Good Ale". Is there evidence that these (and probably others) were floating verses, which "Eastburn" just collected, rather than wrote? All the verses are unlinked, independent - it's essentially a grabbag song.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Bonny little brown jug
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 03 Nov 06 - 09:47 PM

"Collected" is an anachronistic term in the circumstances, so best avoided; but it's certainly true that much of the above text was adapted from the earlier 'O Good Ale'.

Chappell, for example (PMOT, II, 1859, 660-661) printed a shortened text with music, including a form of verse 2 above. He didn't provide details, but likely his source was the song sheet issued around 1785 by Longman & Broderip of London, arranged for voice and keyboard (copies are in the British and Bodleian Libraries). Baring Gould (English Minstrelsie, VII, 1896, 60-61 and xix-xx) also prints a set from that source. A minor art-song, then, that, like so many, survived in the popular tradition long after it was forgotten by the more fashionable market it was originally aimed at.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE BROWN JUG or TOBY PHILPOT
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 05 Nov 06 - 09:12 AM

This does seem unrelated to the other songs in this thread, but it's a charming poem in its own right.

From Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads Harding B 28(52) [Later versions are titled THE BROWN JUG or TOBY PHILPOT]

SONG IN THE POOR SOLDIER
Dean, Printer, Congleton [c. 1820]

Dear Sir, this brown jug, that now foams with mild ale,
Out of which I now drink to sweet Kate of the vale,
Was once Toby Philpot, a thirsty old soul
As e'er cracked a bottle or fathomed a bowl.
In boozing about 'twas his pride to excel,
And amongst jolly topers he bore off the bell.

It chanced as in dog-days he sat at his ease
In his flow'r woven arbour, as gay as you please,
With a friend and a pipe, puffing sorrow away,
And with honest old stingo was soaking his clay,
His breath-doors of life on a sudden were shut
And he died full as big as the Dorchester butt.

His body when long in the ground it had lain,
And time unto clay had dissolved it again,
A potter found out in its covert so snug,
And with part of fat Toby he formed this brown jug,
Now sacred to friendship, to mirth, and mild ale,
So here's to my lovely sweet Kate of the vale.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Bonny little brown jug
From: Haruo
Date: 29 Dec 06 - 02:34 AM

Genteel child that I was, I learned it with the incipit "My wife and I..." instead of the crude, impolite "Me and my wife..." ;-)

Haruo

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Brown Jug
From: Jack Campin
Date: 12 Jun 13 - 08:21 AM

This song seems very well known to Americans as an archetypal folk song. Particularly among younger people who know nothing else of traditional music. Is it part of the school curriculum over there?

Seems to be about as well known across the pond as The Wild Rover is here.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Brown Jug
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 15 Jun 13 - 12:08 PM

It's somewhat familiar to me, only because my mother sang snatches of it. I don't think I ever heard it in school. I doubt that it would ever be taught in school because it is considered politically incorrect over here to teach kids anything that glorifies alcohol; which means, in effect, anything that mentions alcohol. Of course, kids will pick up such things in the schoolyard. I remember hearing bits of "How Dry I Am" and "Show Me the Way to Go Home" and "Rye Whiskey" which are all the more fascinating because whiskey is forbidden to kids. I don't remember "Little Brown Jug" though, in that context.

Kids in playgrounds would play at being drunk, although it was something we had never experienced. (And since I came from a family of nondrinkers, I had never actually seen anyone drunk, that I was aware of; I don't know whether my friends had.) Our pretend-drunkenness was based on things like "Three Stooges" comedies, and involved a lot of staggering, slurring, and hiccuping. Why are drunks in old comedies always portrayed as having hiccups? It is a strange stereotype, not true to life, in my experience.

If I were asked to name an archetypal folk song, "Little Brown Jug" would be pretty far down my list. I would be more likely to think of "She'll Be Comin' Around the Mountain" or "Sweet Betsy From Pike" or "I've Been Working on the Railroad" or "Oh, My Darling Clementine." Those are indeed taught in schools, or at least they were when I was young. It might not be the same today.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Brown Jug
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Jun 13 - 12:46 PM

I don't remember ever hearing "Little Brown Jug" when I was in grade school. My experience like Jim Dixon's, except that, being from the southwest, "Alla en el rancho grande," "La golondrina," "La paloma" and other Mexican songs were also taught.

Subject: RE: Origins: Little Brown Jug
From: Mrrzy
Date: 30 Dec 19 - 11:59 AM

I seem to recall a Hahaha, heeheehee, little brown jug don't I love thee...

Subject: RE: Origins: Little Brown Jug
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 30 Dec 19 - 05:17 PM

Indeed, that was how I learned it as well.
I learned it as a small child but
I'm not certain if it was at school, in fact,
or one of the songs in
my parents' highly eccentric collection of
recordings of traditional music and singers.

The hee hee hee bit, I mean.
I do notice, from looking at the other posts and links,
that the all-American version linked to in this thread,
says
"you and me"
rather than
"hee hee hee" --

interesting, that "you and me" was not in the version I learned.


Finally, there is one instance from my childhood from
which I have a recollection of "Little Brown Jug"
here in the United States;
however, it was the tune alone, not those lyrics.

This instance was in elementary school: one of the activities
introduced to us from an early age
was some form of dancing, I'm trying to recall
if this was physical education
or music class, and I've blurred the two.
What I recall was that on this one occasion,
we were introduced to what was called the Virginia Reel.
The soundpart, including the caller and calls,
were all one pre-recorded package:
the instructor put the needle on the spinning vinyl disc,

(... yes, I KNOW that dates me ...)

and the recording hollered at us:
"HONO[U]R YOUR PARTNER!"
and off we went.

The musicians on the recording struck up the tunes,
and the caller went on hollering over the music.
And whilst he hollered, I recall taking in the instrumental dance music.
It was a pastiche, or pot-pourri, or whatever one calls it:
many tunes all mixed together.

And about the time that the couples,
one couple at a time,
started going down the row and then coming back,
I recall hearing the banjo break out:
"Ha ha ha,
you and me,
Little Brown Jug,
How I love thee ..."   

and the ensemble chugged on down the tracks,
to mix my metaphors.
Thanks for listening, sorry to ramble too much.

Subject: RE: Origins: Little Brown Jug
From: meself
Date: 30 Dec 19 - 08:28 PM

We didn't sing it in school, but I learned it from my mother; it was just another of the old songs she sang. My impression is that it was/is almost universally known among her generation, in North America at least. The melody is widely used as a fiddle tune, as well.

Subject: RE: Origins: Little Brown Jug
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 31 Dec 19 - 10:00 AM

In the UK at least its best-fit description is 'Community Song' as it was endlessly published in the 20th century in just about every community songbook. Whether these 'community songs' are folk is a matter of what your idea of folksong is. They very rarely fall into the variation category, but then they also include 'The Farmer's Boy'.

Subject: RE: Origins: Little Brown Jug
From: Mrrzy
Date: 31 Dec 19 - 10:07 AM

I've been trying but I have no recollection of where I learned my little verse. It must date back to the 60's.