Who Will Shoe Your Pretty Little Foot

DESCRIPTION: Floating verses found in sundry other songs: "Oh who will shoe your pretty little foot, And who will glove your hand...." "(Papa) will shoe my pretty little foot, (Mama) will glove my hand...."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: (undatable as the key lyrics probably predate the song as an independent entity)
KEYWORDS: floatingverses clothes nonballad
FOUND IN: US(Ap,SE,So)
REFERENCES (32 citations):
Bronson 76, "The Lass of Roch Royal" (23 versions, of which #6, #7, #9, #10, #14, and #15 must be placed here)
Barry/Eckstorm/Smyth-BritishBalladsFromMaine pp. 149-150, "The Lass of Roch Royal" (2 fragments)
Flanders-AncientBalladsTraditionallySungInNewEngland2, pp. 174-177, "The Lass of Roch Royal" (2 fragments, one of which is probably "The Lass of Roch Royal" but the second being "Pretty Little Foot"; 1 tune)
Randolph 18, "Oh Who Will Shoe My Foot?" (8 texts, 5 tunes; the "B" and "H" versions are of this sort) {H=Bronson's #7}
Arnold-FolkSongsofAlabama, pp. 14-15, "Winter's Night" (1 text, 1 tune, very heavily composite, starting with "As I rode out last winter's night," then two "Pretty little foot" verses, then "Lonesome dove" verses and ending with "I wish to the Lord I'd never been born") {Bronson's #22}
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore3 259, "I'll Hang My Harp on a Willow Tree" (2 fragments, named for that key line from "Tavern in the Town" which occurs in both fragments, but the "A" text is mostly "Pretty Little Foot"); also 301, "High-Topped Shoes" (2 texts, both mixed; "A" is mostly "Pretty Little Foot" with verses from "Don't Let Your Deal Go Down" while "B" is a hash of "Don't Let Your Deal Go Down," ""More Pretty Girls Than One," "In the Pines," and others); also 306, "By By, My Honey" (1 text, mostly this though with several floating verses, e.g. from "Lonesome Road")
Brown/Schinhan-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore4 22, "The Lass of Roch Royal (1 excerpt, 1 tune)
Brown/Schinhan-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore5 301, "High-Topped Shoes" (2 tunes plus text excerpts, of which "A" has verses of this song)
Hudson-FolksongsOfMississippi 13, pp. 91-93, "The Lass of Roch Royal" (1 fragments, of which "A" is the "Pretty Little Foot" with a chorus from "Careless Love" and "B" is two "Pretty Little Foot" stanzas artificially and wrongly extracted from "Wild Bill Jones")
Hudson-FolkTunesFromMississippi 2, "Careless Love" (1 text, 1 tune, the "Pretty Little Foot"/"Careless Love" combination from Hudson-FolksongsOfMississippi 13)
McNeil-SouthernMountainFolksong, p. 26, "(no title)" (1 generic text)
Davis-TraditionalBalladsOfVirginia 21, "The Lass of Roch Royal" (21 texts, every one of which is this piece rather than the longer ballad; additional texts appear in the Appendices, though some of these file with other songs; 4 tunes, of which the first 3, "Lass of Roch Royal," "Love Gregory," "and "Lass of Roch Royal," are among the pieces which belong here; 22 more versions mentioned in Appendix A) {#21A=Bronson's #9, #21U=Bronson's #10}
Scarborough-ASongCatcherInSouthernMountains, p. 124, (no title) (1 fragment, filed under Child #76 along with a text of "New River Train/Honey Babe" and a version of "I Truly Undertand That You Love Some Other Man")
Roberts/Agey-InThePine #18, "Who Will Shoe Your Foot?" (1 text, with the "Pretty Little Foot" stanzas but primarily "The False Young Man (The Rose in the Garden, As I Walked Out))")
Moore/Moore-BalladsAndFolkSongsOfTheSouthwest 21B, "Who Will Shoe Your Feet?" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
Owens-TexasFolkSongs-1ed, pp. 58-59, "Who Will Shoe Your Pretty Little Foot" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #15}
Owens-TexasFolkSongs-2ed, pp. 20-21, "Who Will Shoe Your Pretty Little Foot" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Grimes-StoriesFromTheAnneGrimesCollection, pp. 28-29, "Lass of Roch Royal" (1 text, 1 tune, listed as Child #76 but appearing to be a fragment of "Young Hunting" [Child #68] with the "Pretty Little Foot" verses attached)
Brewster-BalladsAndSongsOfIndiana 13, "The Lass of Roch Royal" (1 text plus 8 fragments; the "A" text is "Fare You Well, My Own True Love"; "B"-"I" are "pretty little foot" fragments of one to three stanzas)
Fuson-BalladsOfTheKentuckyHighlands, p. 131, "The Gambling Man" (1 text, built around "The Roving Gambler (The Gambling Man)" [Laws H4] but also with these verses)
Burton/Manning-EastTennesseeStateCollectionVol1, p. 108, "He's Going Away for to Stay a Little While" (1 text, 1 tune)
Friedman-Viking/PenguinBookOfFolkBallads, p. 78, "The Lass of Roch Royal" (3 texts, 1 tune, with the "B" text belonging here)
Niles-BalladBookOfJohnJacobNiles 31, "The Lass of Roch Royal" (2 texts, 2 tunes, the second clearly "The Lass of Roch Royal" but the first goes here)
Sandburg-TheAmericanSongbag, 98-99, "Who Will Shoe Your Pretty Little Foot" (3 texts, 1 tune; the "A" text goes here) {Bronson's #14}
Lomax-FolkSongsOfNorthAmerica 109, "Who's Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Foot" (1 text, 1 tune, with some additional stanzas which might be from "Fare You Well, My Own True Love" but which one has to suspect of being Lomax additions)
Cox-FolkSongsSouth 13, "The Lass of Roch Royal" (2 texts, with the "B" text being a short fragment of this song)
Darling-NewAmericanSongster, pp. 269-270, "Who Will Shoe" (assorted sample stanzas)
Seeger-AmericanFavoriteBallads, p. 65, "Who's Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Foot?" (1 text, 1 tune)
Rorrer-RamblingBlues-LifeAndSongsOfCharliePoole, p. 92, "When I'm Far Away" (1 text, with an altered form: "Who will shoe your little foot (x3) When I am far away?")
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 191, "Who's Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Foot?" (1 text)
Dallas-TheCruelWars-100SoldiersSongs, p. 32, "The Conscript's Farewell" (1 text, 1 tune, with some of the words added by Dallas)
ADDITIONAL: Walter de la Mare, _Come Hither_, revised edition, 1928; note to #50, (no title) (1 text)
Roud #49
RECORDINGS:
Frank Bode, "Who's Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Foot?" (on FBode1)
Carolina Tar Heels, "Who's Gonna Kiss Your Lips, Dear Darling" (Victor 40100, 1929)
Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers, "When I'm Far Away" (No known Columbia release; recorded 1930)
Pete Seeger, "Poor Boy" (on PeteSeeger18)
Arthur Smith, "Green Valley Waltz" (on McGeeSmith1)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Lass of Roch Royal" [Child 76]
cf. "Fare You Well, My Own True Love (The Storms Are on the Ocean, The False True Lover, The True Lover's Farewell, Red Rosy Bush, Turtle Dove)"
cf. "Mary Anne"
cf. "My Dearest Dear" (floating lyrics)
cf. "The Lover's Lament" (floating lyrics)
cf. "Who's Gonna Love You, Honey?" (theme)
cf. "Six Months in Jail Ain't So Long" (theme)
cf. "Must I Go to Mississippi?" (floating lyrics)
cf. "The New-Slain Knight" [Child 263] (floating lyrics)
NOTES [224 words]: It is common to classify any song containing the "pretty little foot" stanzas as part of "The Lass of Roch Royal" [Child 76]. However, they have been widely associated with at least two other songs (designated in the Ballad Index as "Fare You Well, My Own True Love (The Storms Are on the Ocean, The False True Lover, The True Lover's Farewell, Red Rosy Bush, Turtle Dove)" and "Mary Anne"). In addition, the stanzas can simply float.
For that matter, the verses are not an required part of "Roch Royal"; many versions (e.g. of the "Lord Gregory" group) omit them, and they are not an integral part of the plot of that ballad.
For this reason we have decided to classify these verses separately. If these verses stand in isolation, they will be listed here; if they are part of a longer ballad, they will be listed with that ballad. Note, however, that any particular fragment containing these verses could be part of one of the longer ballads.
Note also that some of the ballads listed under the other titles could have been misclassified by the authors and belong here. - RBW
I classify [the Seeger recording "Poor Boy"] here for want of a better place. - PJS
Moore/Moore-BalladsAndFolkSongsOfTheSouthwest has only the first verse which seems likely to be "The False Young Man" (Roud #419) but the singer's title makes me assume it goes here. - BS
Last updated in version 6.7
File: C076A

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