a verse in Tom Paley' Love Henry

Subject: a verse in Tom Paley' Love Henry
From: Roberto
Date: 31 Dec 06 - 12:33 PM

From LOVE HENRY (Child #68)sung by Tom Paley on Tom Paley & Peggy Seeger, Who's going to shoe, Topic 1964.

What is the meaning of the reference to the beads: an offer (hush, and these precious grain, shall be yours) or a menace (hush, or you'll have to eat these beads instead of grains)?

Hush up, hush up, my parrot – she cried
Don't tell no news on me
Or these costly beads around my neck
I'll apply them all to thee

Thanks. R

Subject: RE: a verse in Tom Paley' Love Henry
From: The Sandman
Date: 31 Dec 06 - 02:32 PM

MY Guess is its a menace.

Subject: RE: a verse in Tom Paley' Love Henry
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 31 Dec 06 - 02:59 PM

Questions of this sort are often dependent on context. You don't mention where Paley and Seeger got that version, but it appears to be the set printed in Byron Arnold, Folksongs of Alabama, 1950, p 60 and reproduced in Bronson II, 70-71 (example 68.19). This was "Sung by Lena Hill, Lexington, Alabama, in 1945. Text written when a girl."

The bird sequence is often quite confused in American variants, and that seems to be the case here; some mis-hearings having crept in at some point. Whether or not Lena Hill understood any specific meaning by it is not indicated in Bronson, though perhaps the matter is mentioned in Arnold.

The verse usually contains offers, not menaces; and Hill's exact words appear to confirm that. Either Paley and Seeger altered one rather important little word, or you have mis-heard it.

Hush up, hush up, parrot she cried
Don't tell no news on me
All these costly beads around my neck
I'll apply them all to thee.

Subject: RE: a verse in Tom Paley' Love Henry
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 31 Dec 06 - 08:52 PM

Many versions of the ballad attempt to bribe the parrot--though it's usually with golden cages, ivory perches or doors and the like. Parrots are notoriously corrupt.

Subject: RE: a verse in Tom Paley' Love Henry
From: Roberto
Date: 01 Jan 07 - 03:29 AM

There are no notes about where Tom Paley got his version, but it is Tom Paley's that Bob Dylan uses for his recording of the song, on World Gone Wrong.

The text is correct, I've checked again.

I thank you for your comments. I'd rather intend the first verse as a menace and the second as an offer. I find amusing the play between the grains a bird eats and the grains of a necklace the parrot will have to eat one by one if he doesn't submit to the murderer's orders to hush up. If the text permits this interpretation, I'd stick to that. Although I agree that the many versions of the song from which this verse come would probably intend the beads as an offer as the other about the cage decked with gold.

Hush up, hush up, my parrot – she cried
Don't tell no news on me
Or these costly beads around my neck
I'll apply them all to thee

Fly down, fly down, pretty parrot – she cried
And light on my right knee
The doors of your cage shall be decked with gold
And hung on a willow tree

Subject: RE: a verse in Tom Paley' Love Henry
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 01 Jan 07 - 11:01 AM

That confirms both Paley's source and that, assuming the transcription is correct, it was Paley who changed "all" to "or". That being the case, he is probably the only person who can tell you what he meant by it; though it would certainly appear that his traditional source understood both those verses as offers rather than threats.

Subject: RE: a verse in Tom Paley' Love Henry
From: Roberto
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 05:22 AM

Thanks again. I find convincing Malcolm's last comment. R

Subject: RE: a verse in Tom Paley' Love Henry
From: Paul Burke
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 05:27 AM

"All" can easily be heard as "or", especially via Scots ("a'"). And it wouldn't do to have a resentful parrot around the house.