All for the Men

DESCRIPTION: "When I was a young girl... It was primp, primp, primp this way... All for the men." Typically the girl is courted, marries, (has a child), quarrels with her husband; he died, she weeps and/or laughs at his funeral; she lives happily/as a beggar/other
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1898 (Gomme)
LONG DESCRIPTION: "When I was a young girl... It was primp, primp, primp this way... All for the men." "The boys came courting.... It was kiss, kiss, kiss this way." "Then we quarrelled...." "Pretty soon we made it up...." "Then we married...." Girl's biography marked by the chorus "This-a-way, ha-ha, that-a-way." Typically the girl is courted, marries, (has a child), quarrels with her husband; he died, she weeps and/or laughs at his funeral; she lives happily/as a beggar/other
KEYWORDS: courting marriage beauty playparty death funeral
FOUND IN: US(Ap,MW,SE,So,SW) Britain(England(Lond),Scotland(Aber)) Canada(Ont) New Zealand Ireland
REFERENCES (13 citations):
Greig/Duncan8 1602, "When I Was a Lady" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
OShaughnessy-MoreFolkSongsFromLincolnshire 14, "When I Was a Maiden" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax-FolkSongsOfNorthAmerica 260, "All for the Men" (1 text, 1 tune)
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore3 10, "When I Was a Young Girl" (1 text)
Brown/Schinhan-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore5 10, "When I Was a Young Girl" (1 tune plus a text exerpt); p. 512, "When I Was a Young Grl" (1 short text, 1 tune, which looks more like this than anything else)
Morris-FolksongsOfFlorida, #116, "When I Was a Young Girl" (1 text, 1 tune)
Arnold-FolkSongsofAlabama, pp. 154-155, "All for the Men" (1 text, 1 tune)
Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame 68, "When I Was a Lady" (3 texts, 1 tune)
Newell-GamesAndSongsOfAmericanChildren, #25, "When I Was a Shoemaker" (1 text, 1 tune)
Sutton-Smith-NZ-GamesOfNewZealandChilden/FolkgamesOfChildren, p. 29, "(When I was a lady, a lady, a lady)" (1 text)
Brady-AllInAllIn, pp. 124-126, "There Was a GIrl In Our School" (1 text, 1 tune); pp. 126-127, "When I Was A..." (1 text, 1 tune)
Harbin-Parodology, #15, "When I Was a Young Girl" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Mimi Clar, "Songs of My California Childhood" in Western Folklore, Vol. XVIII, No. 3 (Jul 1959 (available online by JSTOR)), pp. 245-246, "When I Was a Baby" (1 text)

Roud #5040 and 2648
ALTERNATE TITLES:
When I Was an Angel
NOTES [153 words]: The Greig/Duncan8 and Opie versions don't tell a story. They are a series of verses of people -- a lady, a gentleman, a carpenter, a blacksmith, and so on, as in a game -- for each of whom "It's aye O this way ... O then! O then...." I had thought about splitting this version until I read Gomme 2.362-374 who was both this version and the narrative version, and mixed versions besides. - BS
The version in Newell-GamesAndSongsOfAmericanChildren is similar: When I was a shoemaker... gentleman... lady. Perhaps the best split would be between the ballad and the singing game. The Irish version has a truly odd ending: A girl in school grows up to be a teacher, marries, has a baby; the baby dies; she gets a donkey, which kicks her, so she too died. And the chorus is "And this is the way she went" rather than "All for the men." It sounds as if it was sung by younger children than the "All for the Men" versions. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.5
File: LoF260

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