I Got a Bonnet Trimmed with Blue

DESCRIPTION: "I got a bonnet trimmed with blue Which I like to wear and so I do, Oh I do wear it when I can Oh when I go out with my man." The rest is all "chin music"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1897 (Hinkson)
KEYWORDS: courting clothes nonballad
FOUND IN: Britain(England) Canada(Newf) Ireland
REFERENCES (7 citations):
Greig "Folk-Song in Buchan," p. 14, ("Can you dance the polka? Yes I can") (1 fragment)
OCroinin/Cronin-TheSongsOfElizabethCronin 70, "I Have a Bonnet Trimmed With Blue" (1 text, 2 tunes)
Kane-SongsAndSayingsOfAnUlsterChildhood, pp. 98-99, "I've got a bonnet trimmed with blue" (1 text)
Peacock, pp. 60-61, "I Got a Bonnet Trimmed with Blue" (1 text, 1 tune)
Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame, p. 442, "(I have a bonnet trimmed with blue)" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Katharine (Tynan) Hinkson, "The Girls' Room" in Christabel R. Coleridge and Arthur Innes, editors, The Monthly Packet (London, 1897 ("Digitized by Google")), Vol. XCIII, pp. 227-228, ("I've got a bonnet trimmed with blue")
New Hampshire: a Guide to the Granite State (Boston, 1938 ("Digitized by Google")), Vol I, p. 118, ("Oh, I had a bonnet trimmed with blue") (1 text)
Roud #8212
RECORDINGS:
Elizabeth Cronin, "I Have a Bonnet Trimmed With Blue" (on IRECronin01)
Mrs. Nellie Musseau, "I Got a Bonnet Trimmed with Blue" (on PeacockCDROM)
NOTES [238 words]: Hinkson's text has four verses. In the first, as usual, she'll wear her bonnet "to go to church with my young man." Then, her young man has another sweetheart, but the singer is still confident that everything will work out. They marry in the third verse and, in the fourth, after children, "seven years after, seven years gone, Take her and kiss her, and send her off home." Hinkson comments that "the last lines in this game are supposed to point to a popular belief that a marriage is dissoluble in seven years."
Most of Peacock's version is "chin music." Specifically, a text verse is "Oh da diddle la diddle la diddle la Da da diddle la da da da da Da da da da diddle la diddle la Da da diddle la da da da da."
Peacock explains "'Chin' or 'mouth' music is a vocal imitation of instrumental music and is used for dancing when a fiddle or accordion is not handy. Some singers ... become so proficient that they are often called upon even when instruments are available."
The New Hampshire text connects the polka to "Bonnet Trimmed with Blue": "The day of the polka is not over, and one still popular song, first sung years ago by the orchestra that perpetrated it (Goodnow's of East Sullivan), is as follows: 'Oh, I had a bonnet trimmed with blue. Why don't you wear it? So I do, And go to a ball with a handsome man.... Here's the way the polka begins, First your heel and then your toe, That's the way the polka goes.'" - BS
Last updated in version 6.5
File: Pea060

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography