> Folk Music > Songs > If I Were a Blackbird / I Am a Young Maiden

If I Were a Blackbird / I Am a Young Maiden

[ Roud 387 ; Ballad Index FSC38 ; trad.]

Albert ‘Diddy’ Cook sang Blackbird in a recording supervised by A.L. Lloyd in The Eel's Foot Inn, Eastbridge, Suffolk, on May 13, 1938 (BBC 2168). This recording was included in 1998 on the Topic anthology As Me and My Love Sat Courting (The Voice of the People Volume 15).

May Bradley (1902-1974) sang If I Were a Blackbird on the 1971 EFDSS LP Garners Gay and on her Musical Traditions anthology Sweet Swansea. In fact, the CD has three different recordings of this song; all were made by Fred Hamer. The CD's editor Rod Stradling commented:

May [Bradley] called this song My Love, and before singing it she liked to explain that she had heard “a modern song” like this, but she sings it “in the old way”. Sussex Gypsy singer Mary Ann Haynes was very much of the same opinion; she had a rather similar song, which she called The Bold Sailor Boy, and believed that If I Were a Blackbird, with its verse about ‘Donnybrook Fair’, was a later, and different, piece. And she may well have been right, because most singers these days seem to have been influenced by the 1939 recording of the song by the singer Delia Murphy, which was often played on the radio (as was Ronnie Ronalde's 1950s recording).

Some commentators have described If I Were a Blackbird as a song composed entirely of ‘floating verses’, although most collected sets seem to be quite similar, a fact that suggests broadside origins—although Roud doesn't list any—certainly, May Bradley's version appears to be almost all ‘floaters’. The song does not appear to have been popular in America (only 3 examples out of a total of 69), though several of the verses associated with it do turn up in any number of Appalachian songs, such as Pretty Saro, The Turtle Dove, The Wagoner's Lad, and Little Sparrow.

Mary Ann Haynes' The Sailor Boy that was mentioned above can be found on the Musical Traditions anthology of 2003, Here's Luck to a Man: Gypsy Songs and Music from South-East England. It was recorded my Mike Yates between 1972 and 1975.

Maggie Boyle sang If I Were a Blackbird on Steve Tilston's and her 1992 album Of Moor and Mesa. Their liner notes commented:

A traditional song that several times in this century has made the crossover into popular music. Blackbird was recorded by Delia Murphy, and was also a music hall favourite performed complete with bird-song.

Kerfuffle sang If I Was a Blackbird in 2003 on their first CD, Not to Scale.

Lyrics

May Bradley sings If I Were a Blackbird

Now it's of a fair damsel my fortune were had
I were overcourted by a rakish young lad.
I have kept me love's company night and be day
But now Johnny's lifted, sure he's gone far away.

My love's an old soldier but he's neat, tall and thin.
There is none in the army come equal to him.
With his red rosy cheeks and his curly black hair
His flattering tongue draws my heart to a snare.

Now some people's talking I'm out of my mind.
Some people says that I'm large with a child
But it's let them be talking and say what they will
For the love I've got for him I'll keep it up still.

Now if I were a scholar I'd handle me pen
I would write him a letter, to him would I send.
God sends him safe sailings and fair winds to blow
There is adieu to my true love wherever he go.

Now if I were a blackbird I'd whistle, I'd sing
I would follow the ship that my true love sailed in
On the top of his mainmast I would build my nest
That long night, sure I'd gaze upon his lily white breast.

Maggie Boyle sings If I Were a Blackbird

Chorus (after each verse):

If I were a blackbird I'd whistle and sing,
And I'd follow the ship that my true love sails in.
And on the top rigging, I'd there build my nest
And I'd lay down my head on his lily-white breast.

I am a young maiden and my story is sad,
For once I was courted by a brave sailor lad.
He courted me strongly by night and by day,
But now my dear sailor has sailed far away.

He promised to take me to Donnybrook Fair
To buy me red ribbons to bind up my hair.
And when he returned from the ocean so wide,
He'd take me and make me his own loving bride.

His parents they slight me and will not agree
That I and my sailor boy married shall be.
But when he returns I will greet him with joy
And take to my bosom my dear sailor boy.

Links

See also the Mudcat Café thread Lyr Req: If I Was a Blackbird.