I Love Little Willie

DESCRIPTION: "I love Little Willie, I do, mama, I love Little Willie, But don't you tell Pa! For he wouldn't like it, you know, mama." Similarly: "He wrote me a letter," "He gave me a ring," "And now we are married," "We fuss and we scratch."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1884 (Boit)
KEYWORDS: love courting marriage trick father mother
FOUND IN: Britain(England(North)) US(Ap,MW,Ro,SE,So) Canada(Ont)
REFERENCES (14 citations):
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore3 307, "I Love Little Willie, I Do, Mamma" (1 text plus 1 fragment, 4 excerpts, and mention of 3 more)
Brown/Schinhan-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore5 307, "I Love Little Willie, I Do, Mamma" (3 tunes plus text excerpts)
Randolph 382, "I Love Little Willie" (3 texts, 2 tunes)
Henry-SongsSungInTheSouthernAppalachians, p. 23, "I Love Little Willie" (1 text)
Bush-FSofCentralWestVirginiaVol5, pp. 1-2, "I Love Little Willy" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hubbard-BalladsAndSongsFromUtah, #84, "I Love Little Willie" (1 text, 1 tune)
Boette-SingaHipsyDoodle, p. 51, "I'm Going to Get Married" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax/Lomax-AmericanBalladsAndFolkSongs, p. 327, "I Love Little Willie" (1 text, 1 tune)
Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame, p. 478 ("I want to get married, I do, mama") (1 text)
JournalOfAmericanFolklore, Mellinger E. Henry, "Still More Ballads and Folk-Songs from the Southern Highlands," Vol. XLV, No. 175 (Jan 1932), #55 pp. 113-114, "I Love Little Willie" (1 text)
JournalOfAmericanFolklore, Leah Rachel Clara Yoffie, "Three Generations of Children's Singing Games in St. Louis," Vol. LX, No. 235 (Jan 1947), #38 p. 33, ("I love little Johnny, I do, mamma") (1 text)
Averill-CampSongsFolkSongs, pp. 234, 255, "I Love Little Willie" (notes only)
OneTuneMore, p. 47, "I Love Little Willie" (1 text, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: Robert Apthorp Boit, Eustis: A Novel (Boston, 1884 ("Digitized by Google")), p. 166, ("O I have a beau, mamma, mamma") (1 text)
Roud #3538
RECORDINGS:
Mrs. Tom Sullivan, "I Love Little Willie" (on ONEFowke01)
SAME TUNE:
I Love My Union (Greenway-AmericanFolksongsOfProtest, p. 128)
Eleckatricity and All (by Woody Guthrie) (Woody Guthrie, __Roll On Columbia: The Columbia River Collection_, collected and edited by Bill Murlin, Sing Out Publications, 1991, pp. 24-25)
NOTES [70 words]: Yoffie includes "I love little Johnny" among a group of songs she learned in St Louis between 1895 and 1900.
Boit has a black four-year old sing this song at a Churchill County [fictional? apparently in Georgia or Alabama] school "exhibition." - BS
Roud splits off Boette-SingaHipsyDoodle's "I'm Going to Get Married" as a separate song (#7512), but the only difference I can see is that it doesn't mention Willie. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.3
File: R382

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