Goodbye John

DESCRIPTION: "Twas on a Friday morning I bid London Town adieu." "Goodbye, John, Don't stay long, But come back home to your own chickiebiddie, My heart bears so to see you go, Don't forget your darling"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1868 (broadside, Bodleian Bod8412 Firth c.12(385))
LONG DESCRIPTION: John loved sweet Nancy, a big lass (15 stone=210 pounds, face the size of a dinner plate) who ran a sweets shop. He dreamt, while sailing, that she came to him looking "just like a mermaid." In the morning, as they approached land, Nancy came to meet him in a boat which capsized and sent her to the bottom, In a spoken interlude John explains that as a British sailor he cannot stand by to "see a British female in distress"; to save her as she was going down a third time, he grabbed her hair; to his surprise it was a wig that came off and she went to the bottom of the Thames.
KEYWORDS: love separation travel request beauty hair death drowning river sea ship shore dream England humorous sailor
FOUND IN: US(SE) Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Brown/Schinhan-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore5 690, "Goodbye John" (1 short text, 1 tune)
Guigné-ForgottenSongsOfTheNewfoundlandOutports, pp. 149-151, "Goodbye John, But Don't Stop Long" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #24344
RECORDINGS:
Everett Bennett, "Goodbye John, But Don't Stop Long" (on NFAGuigné01)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Bod8412 Firth c.12(385), "Goodbye John" ("Twas on Friday morning I bade London town goodbye"), Poet's Box (Glasgow), 1868
NOTES [94 words]: The above description is based mostly on Brown/Schinhan-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore5 plus a stray line. I assume there is more to the song, but I don't have any way to test it. - RBW
The description "Goodbye, ... darling," is the chorus; the long description is based on Guigné-ForgottenSongsOfTheNewfoundlandOutports's text for Bennett's recording. The Poet's Box broadside has more details of John's sailing to exotic ports, keeps the tragic end, but lacks the spoken patter,
Guigné has this as a music hall number which she found in a Tony Pastor song book. - BS
Last updated in version 4.2
File: BrS5690

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