Go A Sparking

DESCRIPTION: A man goes sparking but the girls are "mad and their heads not combed"; they can't make bread; he has to saw the meat they cook. Their father comes gunning for him. At church they wear an old lint sack and "leather bonnet with a hole in the crown"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1938 (Owens-TexasFolkSongs-2ed)
KEYWORDS: courting clothes hair humorous nonballad father youth
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Owens-TexasFolkSongs-1ed, pp. 222-223, "I Went Out A-Sparkin'" (1 text, 1 tune)
Owens-TexasFolkSongs-2ed, pp. 112-113, "Went Out A-Sparkin'" (1 text, 1 tune)
Randolph 466, "The Old Leather Bonnet" (1 text, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: Fred High, "Go A Sparkin'," Max Hunter Folk Song Collection, Cat #0369 (MFH #222), accessed 6 September 2014 from http://maxhunter.missouristate.edu/songinformation.aspx?ID=369
Roud #6359
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Come All You Virginia Girls (Arkansas Boys; Texian Boys; Cousin Emmy's Blues; etc.)" (theme, structure, tune)
NOTES [63 words]: This seems, in text and form, the man's answer to "Come All You Virginia Girls." - BS
I originally filed Randolph's "Old Leather Bonnet" under "Come All You Virginia Girls" on the grounds that it might be a version of that song that had lost its first verse. But the Owens texts make it likely that this is indeed an independent song, so (at Ben's suggestion) we file it here. - RBW
Last updated in version 3.5
File: Ow2E112

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