John (George) Riley (II) [Laws N37]

DESCRIPTION: Singer meets woman who "appeared to me like a lily fair." She rejects his proposal. She was jilted years ago by Riley. Singer asks her to go to Pennsylvania. She refuses. She will always love Riley. He reveals that he is Riley. He is rich. They marry.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: c. 1828 (Rathvon-EnglishFolksongTradition)
KEYWORDS: love marriage emigration return reunion separation travel beauty America sea ship sailor
FOUND IN: US(Ap,MA,MW,NE,Ro,SE,So) Canada(Ont)
REFERENCES (22 citations):
Laws N37, "John (George) Riley II"
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore2 93, "John Reilly" (1 text, presumably this song though Laws does not list it under any Riley ballad)
Brown/Schinhan-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore4 93, "John Reilley" (2 excerpts, 2 tunes)
Cambiaire-EastTennesseeWestVirginiaMountainBallads, p. 95, "John RIley" (1 text)
Cox-FolkSongsSouth 95, "George Reilly" (1 text plus mention of 2 more; Laws is difficult to interpret on this point, but it appears he means one of Cox's un-printed texts to go here while the printed text in N36 - RBW) (I read Cox as not commenting on un-printed texts - BS)
Flanders/Brown-VermontFolkSongsAndBallads, pp. 135-136, "John Reilly" (1 text, 1 tune)
Gentry/Smith-ASingerAmongSingers, #29, "John (George) Riley" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hubbard-BalladsAndSongsFromUtah, #36, "John Riley I" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Lomax-FolkSongsOfNorthAmerica 79, "John Riley" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax/Lomax-OurSingingCountry, pp. 168-170, "John Riley" (1 text, 1 tune)
McNeil-SouthernFolkBalladsVol1, pp. 82-83, "Young John Riley" (1 text, 1 tune)
Randolph 56, "John Riley" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Rathvon-EnglishFolksongTradition, p. 6, "George Reiley" (1 text)
Ritchie-SingingFamilyOfTheCumberlands, pp. 210-211, "[John Riley]" (1 text, 1 tune)
Scarborough-ASongCatcherInSouthernMountains, pp. 267-270, "Fair Phoebe and her Dark-Eyed Sailor" (3 texts; the second, "The Sailor," with tune on p. 427, is this song; the first, "Young Willie's Return, or The Token," with tune on pp. 426-427, is "The Dark-Eyed Sailor (Fair Phoebe and her Dark-Eyed Sailor)" [Laws N35]; the third, "Billy Ma Hone," with tune on p. 427, seems to be its own song)
Sharp-EnglishFolkSongsFromSouthernAppalachians 82, "George Reilly" (8 texts, 8 tunes, many of them too short to classify, but it appears that C is Laws N36 while A B D E F G H are Laws N37)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 149, "John Riley" (1 text)
Thomas-DevilsDitties, pp. 104-105, "The Sailor" (1 text, 1 tune)
Wyman/Brockway-LonesomeSongs-KentuckyMountains-Vol1, p. 34, "John Riley" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, JREILLY2
Roud #267
ADDITIONAL: Edith Fulton Fowke and Jay Rahn. _A Family Heritage_ (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1994), pp. 122-123, "George Riley" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #267
RECORDINGS:
Pete Seeger, "John Riley" (on PeteSeeger02, PeteSeegerCD01) (on PeteSeeger29); "Johnny Riley" (on PeteSeeger40)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Young Riley (I)" (another member of "Young Riley" family; notes and references there)
cf. "O'Reilly from the County Leitrim" (another member of "Young Riley" family; notes and references there)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
George Riley
John Riley
Johnnie Riley
NOTES [1230 words]: The characteristic first verse of this particular Riley ballad runs something like
As I walked out one summer's morning
To take the fine and pleasant air,
There I spied a most beautiful damsel,
She appeared to me like lilies fair.
For more discussion on how to tell Laws N36 from Laws N37, see the discussion under "John (George) Riley (I)" [Laws N36].
Although it would seem on its face that the two John (George) Riley songs (Laws N36 and N37), are related, this does not seem to have been originally so. Rather, they originated separately, then N37 was modified to be closer to N36. Ben Schwartz has done a detailed study of this which turns N37 into three songs, "Young Riley (I)," "John (George) Riley (II)" [Laws N37], and "O'Reilly from the County Leitrim." Ben's conclusion is that "If you are not aware of the history of Laws N37 -- specifically that RILEY RETURNS is a two-line add-on that changes Riley from a jilter to a noble sailor -- then Laws N36 and Laws N37 look like the 'same story.' Laws N36 broadsides were circulating around 1800. RILEY RETURNS may have been added to create Laws N37 'John Riley' later than that. Maybe the Laws N36 story 'inspired' Laws N37 singers to add RILEY RETURNS and create the 'same story.' In any case, they are not the 'same song.'" Ben demonstrates this by showing that, in addition to originally-divergent plots, there are no lines the same in the original versions.
Ben's detailed discussion of the history of the three N37 types is below. - RBW
The "Young Riley" Family of Songs
Introduction
Three closely related songs are entries in this index.
"Young Riley" developed first, in Ulster, late in the eighteenth century.
"John (George) Riley (II) [Laws N37]" developed a few years later and, though it added "Irish" features, has been collected only in North America.
"O'Reilly from the County Leitrim" likely developed in Ulster in the middle of the nineteenth century. It has since been carried to Scotland and Canada.
The NOTES for each of the songs includes my speculation about how that song developed.
Each note includes this "Introduction."
Each ends with my speculation: "How I think it developed"
The notes for "John (George) Riley (II) [Laws N37]" and "O'Reilly from the County Leitrim" include a "Previously" paragraph explaining my view of the text as it looked before this branch of the family developed.
The differences between songs are all a matter of accretion.
The early "Young Riley" remains the core of the other two songs.
Each of the three adds verse-sets that change the story.
I refer to a text built of "the early 'Young Riley'" and one or more verse-sets as "chimera."
Chimera, in Greek mythology, is a composite being made up of parts of recognizable creatures:
"Iobates ordered him to kill the Chimera ...;
it had the fore part of a lion, the tail of a dragon,
and its third head, the middle one, was that of a goat,
through which it belched fire"
(Frazer, 1921, 151 The Library 2.3.1-2)
(James George Frazer, Apollodorus The Library Vol. 1 (London: William Heinemann: 1921 ("Digitized by Internet Archive"))
A chimera, in the notes, is a composite text that includes a theme or verse-set taken from one source and grafted onto an already complete text of another source.
In this case, the "complete text of another source" is "Young Riley."
When I refer to the whole piece of introduced text by name I capitalize it. The main grafts that affect the "Young Riley" family tree are PHOENIX ISLAND, SWAN, RILEY CURSED, and RILEY RETURNS.
Each is described in the note for the song it appears in.
--- Previously ---
The "basic" "Young Riley" story is the starting point for the development of "John (George) Riley (II) [Laws N37]."
The story takes place in County Cavan, Ulster.
The narrator-courter meets a woman who "appeared to me like an angel bright."
When he asks her to marry she says she prefers the single life.
Years before she was jilted by John Riley, who lived in this country.
Riley had courted her "night and day," until "he gained his free will of me."
Then Riley "left this country and went away."
The narrator tells her to sail with him to Pennsylvania.
She refuses, saying she will always love Riley.
Youth and folly makes young maids bind themselves and they "must obey";
"what can't be cured must be endured."
The narrator-courter leaves, alone.
--- "John (George) Riley (II) [Laws N37]" - How I think it developed. ---
Hypothetically, with SWAN, the first chimera is formed when verses describing a woman as being as graceful as a swan are inserted. SWAN describes mute swan windsurfing, which is incomprehensible if you haven't seen mute swans on the water.
You're like the swan that sails the ocean
And makes a motion with both her wings.
Hypothetically, here is the story at this point.
The story takes place in County Cavan, Ulster.
The narrator-courter meets a woman who "appeared to me like an angel bright";
When he asks her to marry she says she prefers the single life.
Years before she was jilted by John Riley, who lived in this country.
Riley had courted her "night and day," until "he gained his free will of me."
Then Riley "left this country and went away."
SWAN
-- You're like the swan that sails the ocean
-- And makes a motion with both her wings.
-- Your snow white breast would be a portion
-- For any lord or any king
The narrator tells her to sail with him to Pennsylvania.
She refuses, saying she will always love Riley.
Youth and folly makes young maids bind themselves and they "must obey";
"what can't be cured must be endured."
The narrator-courter leaves, alone.
After this, "John Riley" and "O'Reilly from the County Leitrim" become different songs.
The SWAN disappears soon in the American "John Riley." That may be because mute swans were not imported to the United State until the late 1800s.
Hypothetically, another chimera is built on two lines imported from Laws N42:
When he found that her heart was loyal
He gave her kisses one two and three
This RILEY RETURNS verse is finished with two new lines:
Saying I am the man that you call Riley
Who's been the cause of your misery.
This is certainly the critical verse that separates the United States/Ontario "John Riley" from "O'Reilly from the County Leitrim." I guess it was in some missing American broadside.
The first text I have for "John Riley" is Rathvon's 1828 song as he remembers it. It includes both SWAN and RILEY RETURNS; SWAN soon disappears from this branch of the family.
Here is the basic" "John Riley" story, without the no-longer-typical SWAN and "Youth and folly" verses.
The story no longer takes place in Ulster; the spot is not specified.
The narrator-courter meets a woman who "appeared to me like a lily fair."
When he asks her to marry she says she prefers the single life.
Years before she was jilted by John Riley, who lived in this country.
The narrator tells her to "disdain" Riley and sail with him to Pennsylvania.
She refuses, saying she will always love Riley.
RILEY RETURNS
-- When he found that her heart was loyal
-- He gave her kisses one two and three
Saying I am the man that you call Riley
Who's been the cause of your misery
Riley has "gained high promotion," "laid up gold and silver in store," proposes marriage, and promises never to leave again. - BS
The first two Seeger recordings have distinctly different tunes. - PJS
Last updated in version 7.0
File: LN37

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