Foggy Mountain Top

DESCRIPTION: Floating fragments: "If I was on some foggy mountain top/I'd sail away to the west...." "If I'd listened to what my mama said/I would not have been here today/Lying around this old jail cell/Just a-weeping my poor life away"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1916 (Cecil Sharp collection)
KEYWORDS: love prison floatingverses nonballad
FOUND IN: US(Ap,SE)
REFERENCES (6 citations):
[Randolph 799, "If I Was On Some Foggy Mountain Top" -- deleted in the second printing]
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore3 365, "The Foggy Mountain Top" (1 text)
Sharp-EnglishFolkSongsFromSouthernAppalachians 112, "The Rocky Mountain Top" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Cohen/Seeger/Wood-NewLostCityRamblersSongbook, pp. 42-43, "Foggy Mountain Top" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 66, "Foggy Mountain Top" (1 text)
DT, FGGYMTTP
Roud #11735
RECORDINGS:
Carter Family, "The Foggy Mountain Top" (Victor V-40058, 1929; Montgomery Ward M-4743, c. 1935)
Carter Sisters & Mother Maybelle, "Foggy Mountain Top" (Columbia 20920, 1952)
Monroe Bros., "On Some Foggy Mountain Top" (Montgomery Ward M-4749/Bluebird B-6607, 1936)
New Lost City Ramblers, "On Some Foggy Mountain Top" (on NLCREP1, NLCRCD1) (NLCR16)
Ola Belle & Bud Reed, "Foggy Mountain Top" (on Reeds01, ClassBanj [as Ola Belle Reed])
NOTES [43 words]: Some versions of this never-entirely-coherent song seem to have mixed with "The False Young Man, (The Rose in the Garden, As I Walked Out)" to yield mixed forms such as "White Oak Mountain." It can be hard to tell, with shorter versions, which is which. - RBW
Last updated in version 4.2
File: CSW042

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