Oh, I Should Like to Marry

DESCRIPTION: "Oh, I should like to marry If that I could find Any handsome fellow Suited to my mind!" She list all the traits she should like: fashionably, with good curly hair, slim, tall. He should have ten thousand pounds a year and a fine cart, and be like her.
AUTHOR: unknown (see NOTES)
EARLIEST DATE: 1851 (CatherineHayesSwanOfErinSongster)
KEYWORDS: husband wife beauty | wishes
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (3 citations):
CatherineHayesSwanOfErinSongster, pp. 48-49, "Oh, I Should Like to Marry" (1 text)
Dime-Song-Book #13, p. 23, "Oh, I should Like to Marry" (1 text)
Wolf-AmericanSongSheets, #1662, p. 112, "Oh! I Should Like to Marry" (2 references)
Roud #12738
NOTES [110 words]: There isn't much sign of this in tradition (understandable, given how vapid it is), but there are zillions of broadsides...
Several sheet music archives list a song with this title attributed to tJ. P. Grattan (words) and J. T. Craven (music), with the earliest one dated 1845, but I haven't managed to see that sheet music; the information comes from sundry descriptions of sheet music holdings. None of the broadsides or songsters I've seen give an attribution. I found a sheet music piece with this title attributed to "C. Balmer," but it has no lyrics. Even if it's the same piece, and the same tune, it could be that Balmer just wrote the arrangement. - RBW
Last updated in version 7.0
File: CHSE028

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