Dearest Mae

DESCRIPTION: The singer describes his life as a slave and his love for Mae. When master gives him a holiday, he visits Mae and they court happily; he then returns home. Master dies; the singer is sold down the river; Mae dies of grief
AUTHOR: unknown (see NOTES)
EARLIEST DATE: 1850 (The Ethiopian Glee Book)
KEYWORDS: slave death separation love courting
FOUND IN: US(SE,So)
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore3 405, "Dearest Mae" (1 text plus an excerpt -- a verse which has floated in from "Massa Had a Yellow Gal" -- and mention of 2 more)
Brown/Schinhan-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore5 405, "Dearest Mae" (1 tune plus a text excerpt)
Browne-AlabamaFolkLyric 118, "Old Carolina State" (1 text, 1 tune)
Heart-Songs, pp. 158-159, "Dearest Mae" (1 text, 1 tune)
Dime-Song-Book #6, p. 19, "Dearest Mae" (1 text)
Roud #9089
SAME TUNE:
Charming Emma Show ("Way down in Alabama") (Wolf-AmericanSongSheets, p. 20)
The Dying Soldier ("Oh! bury me not 'neath foreign skies," by E. Walter Lowe) (Wolf-AmericanSongSheets, p. 36)
The Menagerie ("Now folks, come listen to me, and as you stand around") (Wolf-AmericanSongSheets p. 96)
The Baltimore Girls ("Oh the Girls of dear old Baltimore") (Wolf-AmericanSongSheets, p. 186)
Dix's Manifesto ("Once on a time in Baltimore") (Wolf-AmericanSongSheets, p. 188)
Fort Sumpter. A Southern Song ("Come now and gather round me") (Wolf-AmericanSongSheets, p. 189)
Jackson's Requiem ("That noted burglar Ellsworth") (Wolf-AmericanSongSheets, p.190)
Linger Yet ("The golden glories of the sun, as in the west he falls") (Henry Randall Waite, _Carmina Collegensia: A Complete Collection of the Songs of the American Colleges_ first edition 1868, expanded edition, Oliver Ditson, 1876, p. 66)
Song of the Graduate ("It's I that is a bachelor, though married to the Muse") (Henry Randall Waite, _Carmina Collegensia: A Complete Collection of the Songs of the American Colleges_ first edition 1868, expanded edition, Oliver Ditson, 1876, p. 47)
Cornell ("The soldier loves his en'ral's fame, The willow loves the stream") (by G. R. Birge, [class of 18]72) (Henry Randall Waite, _Carmina Collegensia: A Complete Collection of the Songs of the American Colleges_ first edition 1868, expanded edition, Oliver Ditson, 1876, p. 109)
NOTES [170 words]: The notes in Brown list versions attributed to "A. F. Winnemore" and "Francis Lynch/L. V. H. Crosby." Heart-Songs also attributes it to Franes Lynch and L. H. V. Crosby. Harry Dichter and Elliott Shapiro, Early American Sheet Music: Its Lure and Its Lore, 1768-1889, R. R. Bowker, 1941, p 142, list a piece called "Dearest Mae" with words by Francis Lynch and music by James Power published by A. Fiot of Philadelphia in 1847. I've seen sheet music that credits the words to Lynch, the music to Power, and the piano arrangement to L. V. H. Crosby. That strikes me as the most likely, but I can't prove it. Browne-AlabamaFolkLyric lists these attributions and several others, found mostly in songsters (so even less reliable than the above)
It's worth noting that this is *not* a "happy slave" piece; the singer works hard, but is cruelly betrayed on his master's death, and Mae dies. In that sense, it rather resembled "Darling Nellie Gray" -- though seemingly without provoking the reactions the latter produced. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: Br3405

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