Hey, Ho, Nobody Home

DESCRIPTION: "Hey, ho, nobody home, Meat nor drink nor money have I none, Yet will I be merry...." Often sung as a round.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1609 (Ravenscroft, Pammelia)
KEYWORDS: nonballad food drink
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (9 citations):
Pankake/Pankake-PrairieHomeCompanionFolkSongBook, p. 231, "Ho-Hum, Nobody's Home" (1 text)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 412, "Hey, Ho, Nobody Home" (1 text)
Averill-CampSongsFolkSongs, pp. 433, 442, 447, 448, 451, 452, "Hey Ho, Nobody Home" (notes only)
GirlScouts-SingTogether, p. 105, "Hey, Ho!" (1 short text, 1 tune)
Zander/Klusmann-CampSongsPopularEdition, p. 29, "Hey, Ho!" (1 text)
ChansonsDeNotreChalet, p. 21, "Hey, Ho! Nobody Home" (1 text plus a French translation, 1 tune)
BoyScoutSongbook1997, p. 29, "Ho ho! Nobody Home" (1 text, 1 tune)
SongsOfManyNations, "Hey, Ho! Nobody Home" (1 text, 1 tune) (CC edition, p. 43)
Abrahams-JumpRopeRhymes, #187, "Hi, ho, anybody home?" (1 text)
Roud #37118
RECORDINGS:
The Crofut Family, "Hey, Ho, Nobody Home" (Piotr-Archive #669, recorded 09/17/2023)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Rose, Rose" (lyrics, partial tune)
NOTES [166 words]: This is in Ravenscroft's Pammelia as a unison canon. It is also in Francis Beaumont's play "The Knight of the Burning Pestle":
Ho, ho, nobody at home,
Meat nor drink nor money ha' we none,
Fill the pot, Eedy,
Never more need I.
(Wine, Act IV, scene IV, lines 42-45 on p. 367; in KnightOfBurningPestle/Hattaway, it's Act IV, lines 362-365 on p. 98; KnightOfBurningPestle/Zitner makes it Act IV, lines 365-368on p. 142, with tune on p. 181. For background on "The Knight of the Burning Pestle," see the notes to "Three Merry Men.")
Did this really survive in tradition? There are a few modern pseudo-collections, but all might hearken back to print. I've seen it treated as a sort of wassail song, begging for gifts, but I doubt this is authentic. It does seem to have re-inserted itself into camp tradition, however, since Averill-CampSongsFolkSongs says she has 63 mentions of it and found versions in several languages. Camp tradition might also explain the Abrahams-JumpRopeRhymes version. - RBW
Bibliography

KnightOfBurningPestle/Hattaway: Francis Beaumont, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, edited by Michael Hattaway, New Mermaids, 1969; second edition, 2002 (I use the 2013 paperback edition)
KnightOfBurningPestle/Zitner: Francis Beaumont, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, edited by Sheldon P. Zitner, The Revels Plays, 1984 (I use the 2004 Manchester University Press edition)
Wine: M. L. Wine, editor, Drama of the English Renaissance, Modern Library, 1969

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File: FSWB412G

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