Out In the Moonlight (I Will Love Thee Always)

DESCRIPTION: The young man bids the girl goodbye in the moonlight, promising, "I will love you always... Through life and death I'm faithful to thee." Returning home (a year) later, he finds her married to another. He leaves a note and shoots himself
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1928 (recording, Rutherford & Burnett)
KEYWORDS: love courting marriage separation betrayal suicide
FOUND IN: US(Ap,So)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Randolph 803, "Out in the Moonlight" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Brown/Schinhan-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore5 723, "Standing by the Old Garden Gate" (1 fragment, 1 tune, possibly this)
Roberts/Agey-InThePine #92, "Pale Moonlight" (1 short text, 1 tune, probably this)
Roud #3445
RECORDINGS:
Burnett & Rutherford, "Under the Pale Moonlight" (Challenge 420, 1928; on BurnRuth01)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Skon Jungfrun Hon Gangar Sig Till Sogsta Berg (The Pretty Maid Climbs the Highest Mountain)" (plot)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Forsaken Love
NOTES [65 words]: The Burnett & Rutherford version of this differs so strongly from the versions in Randolph (lacking, e.g., the suicide ending; also, the the girl is not yet married when he returns home) that I was sorely tempted to classify it as a separate song. The essential plot is the same, however, and some of the words, and I know of no other versions of the recorded song. So they stay together. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.7
File: R803

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