Camden Town
DESCRIPTION: Singer meets a pretty girl, asks her to sit by him (and proposes marriage; they make love); she refuses to marry a man who has led her astray, whereupon he pushes her into the river to drown (or she drowns herself, whereupon he is seized with remorse)
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1962 (collected from William Hughes)
KEYWORDS: courting sex rejection seduction river violence homicide death drowning suicide lover
FOUND IN: Britain(England) Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
MacColl/Seeger-TravellersSongsFromEnglandAndScotland 76, "Camden Town" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Roud #564
RECORDINGS:
Mary Delaney, "In Charlestown There Lived a Lass" (on IRTravellers01)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Wexford Girl (The Oxford, Lexington, or Knoxville Girl; The Cruel Miller; etc.)" [Laws P35] (plot)
cf. "Down by Blackwaterside" (plot)
NOTES [95 words]: This seems to be an amalgamation of "Down by Blackwaterside" and "The Wexford Girl," but as it shares few words with either song, and the denouement is quite different, I classify it separately. - PJS
Roud lumps it with "Pretty Little Miss" [Laws P18], and that, given its textual state, is possible. But, when in doubt, we split. - RBW
Mary Delaney's version on IRTravellers01 includes a verse from "The Silvery Tide"; specifically "Now as Willie, he went out walking, He went out to take fresh air, And he seen his own love Mary In the waves of the silvery tide." - BS
File: McCST076
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