Origins: The Foggy Foggy Dew (bachelor)

Subject: ADD Version: The Foggy Foggy Dew (bachelor)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Apr 21 - 02:59 AM

As lighter points out above, the version Dick Miles sang is more-or less the version Peter Kennedy collected in 1952.

THE FOGGY FOGGY DEW

O I am a bachelor and I live alone
And I work in the weaver’s trade
And the only only thing that I ever done wrong
Was courtin’ a fair young maid
I courted her one summer-time
And all the winter too
And the only only thing that I never should ’ave done
Was to save her from the foggy foggy dew

I got that tired of living alone
I says to her one day
I’ve a nice little crib in my old shack
Where you might safely lay
You'll be all right in the summer-time
And in the winter too
And you’ll lay right warm and take no harm
Away from the foggy foggy dew

I don’t think much of this old shack
And I shall lonely be
With only that poor old Cyprus cat
To keep me company
There’s a cricket singing on the hearth
And what can that thing do
If the night turn raw and the ?re won’t draw
To keep me from the foggy foggy dew?

One night she come to my bedside
Time I laid fast asleep
She puts her head down on my bed
And she starts in to weep
She yelled and she cried, she well near died
She say: What shall I do?
So I hauled her into bed and I covered up her head
To save her from the foggy foggy dew

Says I: My dear, lay close to me
And wipe away them tears
Then I hauled her shift up over her head
And I wrapped it round her ears
We was all right in the winter-time
And in the summer too
And I held her tight that live-long night
To save her from the foggy foggy dew

Now lay you still, you silly young fool
And don’t you feel afraid
For if you want to work with me
You got to learn your trade
I learned her all that summer-time
And all the winter too
And truth to tell she learned that well
She saved us from the foggy foggy dew

One night I laid there good as gold
And then she say to me
I’ve got a pain without my back
Where no pain ought to be
I was all right in the summer-time
And in the winter too
But I’ve took some ill or a kind of chill
From laying in the foggy foggy dew

One night she start to moan and cry
Says I: What’s up with you?
She say: I never should ’ave been this way
If that hadn’t ’ave been for you
I got my boots and trousers on
I got my neighbour too
But do what we would, we couldn’t do no good
And she died in the foggy foggy dew

So I am a bachelor, I live with my son
And we work in the weavin’ trade
And every time I look in his face I can see
The eyes of that fair young maid
It remind me of the summer-time
And of the winter too
And the many many nights she laid in my arms
To save her from the foggy foggy dew



Source: #174 (pp 400-401) in Folksongs of Britain and Ireland, edited by Peter Kennedy (Schirmer Books, 1975)

Singer: Phil Hammond, Blakeney, Norfolk, Recorded by Peter Kennedy in 1952
Hammond uses the more typical melody for the song. I really like the Dick Miles rendition ot the tune of "Ye Banks and Braes."

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Of course, Abby Sale beat me to the punch and posted the Phil Hammond version in 2004:

https://mudcat.org/Detail.CFM?messages__Message_ID=1208130

Here's the Phil Hammond recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faox4XcHojQ

Subject: RE: Origins: The Foggy Foggy Dew (bachelor)
From: Lighter
Date: 13 Jun 23 - 02:12 PM

John Masefield, "Letters from the Front 1915-17" (1984) [Masefield was visiting a section of the American Field Service ambulance unit: most of the volunteers were American college students]:

"[Sept. 22, 1916]…After that, we took some wounded to an evacuation hospital up the river [Meuse]…. After supper, we sat on benches outside the tent while the men of the section sang. Most of the songs were southern songs, one or two were war songs, like 'My Maryland', & some were comic, but among them sung to a strangely beautiful tune, was a sort of country ballad which moved me very much, it was so real, & so plainly a voice out of common life. It was low enough, but it was real, & it went more or less like this.

        My name is John & I live in the town
        I'm a weaver to my trade
        And the only only time that I done wrong
        Was courting a fair pretty maid.

        I courted her all of the sunny summer time,
        And part of the winter, too
        And the only only thing that I done wrong
        Was to shield her from the foggy foggy dew.

        She came to my bed one cold cold night,
        With tears in her eyes of blue.
        She sobbed & she cried & she nearly died
        To be shielded from the foggy foggy dew.

Then, of course, he took her in, and then at once it goes on.

        I have a little son with eyes of blue
        He works with me in my trade
        And whenever I look in his eyes of blue,
        I think of the fair pretty maid.

There was another stanza, & some of the words I know I have set down wrongly & I cannot give the tune, but it made a deep impression on all of us."