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> Shirley Collins > Songs > Bonnie Boy
> June Tabor > Songs > The Bonny Boy
> Ashley Hutchings All Stars > Songs > My Bonny Boy

My Bonny Boy

[ Roud 293 ; Ballad Index FSC037 ; trad.]

Anne Briggs sang this passionate song of a betrayed lover in 1964 on her Topic Records EP The Hazards of Love. This recording was also included in the same year on the Topic Sampler No 1, Folk Songs, and later reissued on her Fellside and Topic compilation CDs, Classic Anne Briggs and A Collection. A.L. Lloyd wrote in the album's sleeve notes:

This passionate old song spread as far north as Stromness (Balfour's Orkney Melodies, 1885) and as far west as Glenosheen, Co. Limerick (Petrie's Ancient Music of Ireland, 1855). Fifty years ago, it was to be heard in many parts of England from Sussex to Westmorland, including the King's Cross district of London where a good version was obtained. It first appeared in print on a mid-17th century broadside as Cupid's Trepan or the Scorne Scorn'd or the Willow Turn'd into Carnation; but it wasn't a new song then. In 1730 a rather popped-up version was used in the stage play The Female Parson, or The Beau in the Suds, reminding us that the impoverishment of folk songs by commercialisation is nothing new. The grand tune also turns up in simpler (but, this time, not impoverished) form adapted to the words of the ballad Henry Martin. A later use of it is in the well known Folk-Song Suite by Vaughan Williams.

Shirley Collins sang My Bonny, Bonny Boy on in the album A Pinch of Salt. She recorded it again as Bonnie Boy for her own 1967 album The Power of the True Love Knot. This was also included in her anthologies The Classic Collection and Within Sound and on Topic Records' The Acoustic Folk Box. She commented in her original album's sleeve notes:

A broadside of this song was around at the time of the restoration, with a “reply” which gave it a happier ending.

Dolly has based her setting around my existing 5-string dulcimer pick. On this track and Greenwood Laddie we are joined by Bram Martin on his 1740 Tosturi cello. Having played for the Beatles on Eleanor Rigby and She's Leaving Home, Mr Martin was able to grasp very quickly the idiom we were after: even, discreet and wonderful warm.

June Tabor learned The Bonny Boy from Anne Briggs and sang it in 1983 on her Topic album Abyssinians. This recording was also included in the Fellside CD Voices: English Traditional Songs.

A live performance of My Bonny Boy recorded in June 1988 can be found on the Ashley Hutchings All Stars album As You Like It.

Compare to this song its variant The Grey Hawk as sung by e.g. Bob Roberts or Eliza Carthy and Norma Waterson.

Lyrics

Anne Briggs sings My Bonny Boy

I once loved a boy and a bonny, bonny boy
Who would come and would go at request.
And this handsome young boy was my pride and my joy,
𝄆 And I built him a bower in my breast. 𝄇

Well, up the long alley and down the green valley,
Like one that was troubled in mind
I hollered and I whooped and I played upon my flute,
𝄆 But no bonny boy could I find. 𝄇

I sat myself down on a green mossy bank
Where the sun it shone wonderful warm;
And who did I spy but my own bonny boy
𝄆 Fast locked in some other girl's arms. 𝄇

Well, the girl who's the joy of my own bonny boy
Let her make of him all that she can.
And whether he loves me or whether he don't,
𝄆 I'll walk with that boy now and then. 𝄇

Shirley Collins sings Bonnie Boy

I once loved a boy, a bonny, bonny boy
And I loved him, I will vow and protest.
I loved him so well, so very, very well,
𝄆 That I built him a bower on my breast. 𝄇

It was through the green valley and up a green hill,
Like one that was troubled in mind,
I called and I shouted and played on my pipe,
𝄆 But no bonny boy could I find. 𝄇

I looked up high and I looked down low,
And the sun it shone wonderful warm;
When who should I see but my own bonny boy
That's so close in another girl's arms,
Oh, so close in another girl's arms.

Now, my bonny boy has gone far away,
And I fear I shan't see him again.
But were I to have him or were I to not,
I will think of him once and then,
Yes, I'll think of him once now and then.