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

DESCRIPTION: A stranger urges a girl to marry him; she replies that, having lost her chance to marry Riley, she intends to live single. He tries again, asking her to come to (Pennsylvania); she refuses. At last he reveals that he is Riley, and offers to marry her
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1817 (The New American Songster)
KEYWORDS: love courting separation marriage disguise
FOUND IN: US(Ap,MW,NE,Ro,SE,So) Ireland Britain(England)
REFERENCES (22 citations):
Laws N37, "John (George) Riley II"
Randolph 56, "John Riley" (2 texts, 1 tune)
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)
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)
Gentry/Smith-ASingerAmongSingers, #29, "John (George) 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)
Thomas-DevilsDitties, pp. 104-105, "The Sailor" (1 text, 1 tune)
Flanders/Brown-VermontFolkSongsAndBallads, pp. 135-136, "John Reilly" (1 text, 1 tune)
Wyman/Brockway-LonesomeSongs-KentuckyMountains-Vol1, p. 34, "John Riley" (1 text, 1 tune)
Cambiaire-EastTennesseeWestVirginiaMountainBallads, p. 95, "John RIley" (1 text)
McNeil-SouthernFolkBalladsVol1, pp. 82-83, "Young John Riley" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax/Lomax-OurSingingCountry, pp. 168-170, "John Riley" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax-FolkSongsOfNorthAmerica 79, "John Riley" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ritchie-SingingFamilyOfTheCumberlands, pp. 210-211, "[John Riley]" (1 text, 1 tune, sufficiently abbreviated that the plot does not allow us to say which Riley ballad it is, but the first verse implies it goes here)
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)
Roberts/Agey-InThePine #38, "John Riley II" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hubbard-BalladsAndSongsFromUtah, #36, "John Riley I" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Henry/Huntingdon/Herrmann-SamHenrysSongsOfThePeople H826, p. 309, "James Reilly" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 149, "John Riley" (1 text)
DT, JREILLY2
ADDITIONAL: Leslie Shepard, _John Pitts, Ballad Printer of Seven Dials, London 1765-1844_, Private Library Association, 1969, p. 118, "Young Riley" (reprint of a Pitts broadside with a confused ending)
Roud #267
RECORDINGS:
Pete Seeger, "John Riley" (on PeteSeeger02, PeteSeegerCD01) (on PeteSeeger29); "Johnny Riley" (on PeteSeeger40)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. esp. "John (George) Riley (I)" [Laws N36] and references there
ALTERNATE TITLES:
George Riley
John Riley
Johnnie Riley
NOTES [71 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]. - RBW
The first two Seeger recordings have distinctly different tunes. - PJS
Last updated in version 6.7
File: LN37

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