Nancy Till

DESCRIPTION: "Down in the cane brake close by the mill" lives pretty Nancy Till. The singer goes to serenade her, asking her to come along; "I'll row the boat while the boat rows me." When they part, he bids her to be ready the next time he arrives in the boat
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1851 (LOCSheet sm1851 491730)
KEYWORDS: love courting ship river
FOUND IN: US(MA,SE)
REFERENCES (10 citations):
Thompson-APioneerSongster 68, "Nancy Till" (1 text)
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore3 409, "Nancy Till" (1 text plus a fragment and mention of 1 more)
Brown/Schinhan-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore5 409, "Nancy Till" (1 tune plus a text excerpt)
Finger-FrontierBallads, pp. 165-166, "Come, Love, Come" (1 text)
Wolf-AmericanSongSheets, #1540, p. 105, "Nancy Till" (3 references)
Dime-Song-Book #9, p. 39, "Nancy Till" (1 text)
Salt-BuckeyeHeritage-OhiosHistory, pp. 50-51, "Nancy Till" (1 text, 1 tune)
Zander/Klusmann-CampSongsNThings, p. 18, "Nancy Till" (1 text, 1 tune)
Zander/Klusmann-CampSongsPopularEdition, p. 10, "Nancy Till" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Jim Vandergriff, "'Nancy Dill': Searching for a Song My Mother Sang," article in _Missouri Folklore Society Journal_, Volume 27-28 (cover date 2005-2006, but published 2015), pp. 33-68, "Nancy Dill," "Nanc Till," "Nancy Till," "Nancy Till," "Uncle Bill" (parody), "Nancy Till," "Come, My Love, Come," "Down in de Cane Brake," "Come, Love Come," "Down in the Cane Brake," "Come, Love, Come," "Nancy Till," "Nancy Till," "Nancy Till," "Down in the Canebrake" (14 texts plus a parody, not all of them traditional; also a copy of the sheet music cover and one tune; it includes some versions that might perhaps file with "Come, Love, Come, the Boat Lies Low")
Roud #2836
RECORDINGS:
Eleazar Tillet, "Come Love Come" (on USWarnerColl01) [a true mess; the first verse is "Nancy Till", the chorus is "Come, Love, Come, the Boat Lies Low," and it uses part of "De Boatman Dance" as a bridge.)
BROADSIDES:
LOCSheet, sm1851 491730, "Nancy Till," Firth, Pond and Co (New York), 1851 (1 text, 1 tune)
LOCSinging, sb30423b, "Nancy Till," H. De Marsan (New York), 1864-1878; also as110140, "Old Dog Tray"
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Come, Love, Come, the Boat Lies Low" (chorus lyrics)
NOTES [215 words]: Broadside LOCSinging sb30423b: H. De Marsan dating per Studying Nineteenth-Century Popular Song by Paul Charosh in in American Music, Winter 1997, Vol 15.4, Table 1, available at FindArticles site. - BS
According to Jon W. Finson, The Voices That Are Gone: Themes in Nineteenth-Century American Popular Song, Oxford University Press, 1994, pp. 185-186, this was made famous by a minstrel troupe called White's Serenaders, after their leader Charles T. White (1821-1891). Finson says that White is sometimes credited with writing it, but proof is lacking. Zander/Klusmann-CampSongsNThings credits it to Stephen Foster, but its attributions are extremely unreliable, and I have not seen the claim elsewhere. Jim Vandergriff's article cited above (p. 36) suggests that the song is the same as the "Nancy Gill" transcribed by one William Sydney Mount in 1838. I have not seen "Nancy Gill," but I know of no connection except the name.
Roud splits this from Mary Wheeler's "Come, Love, Come, the Boat Lies Low" (#10033). I'm not sure I would have, but I have conformed to his system to try to retain clarity.
There is a parody of this, "Uncle Bill," beginning "Way up near the top of the hill"; I don't know if it uses the same tune. For broadsides, see Wolf-AmericanSongSheets, p. 160. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: Br409

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