Will You Love Me When I'm Old?

DESCRIPTION: The singer repeatedly asks his true love if she will love him when he is old, tired, gray, etc.: "Life's morn will soon be waning And its evening bells be told, And my heart will know no sadness If you'll love me when I'm old."
AUTHOR: Words: P. Gilsey Cook / Music: Ralph Roland (but see NOTES)
EARLIEST DATE: 1876 (sheet music, LOCSheet, sm1877 03501)
KEYWORDS: age love
FOUND IN: US(MW,SE,So)
REFERENCES (6 citations):
Neely/Spargo-TalesAndSongsOfSouthernIllinois, pp. 241-242, "Will You Love Me When I Am Old?" (1 text)
Randolph 824, "Will You Love Me When I'm Old?" (1 text)
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore3 273, "Will You Love Me When I'm Old?" (1 text plus mention of 5 more)
Brown/Schinhan-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore5 273, "Will You Love Me When I'm Old?" (4 tunes plus text excerpts)
DT, ARUTRDME
ADDITIONAL: _Sing Out_ magazine, Volume 38, #4 (1994), p, 49, "Are You Tired of Me, My Darling?" (1 text, 1 tune, the Carter Family version)
Roud #4334
RECORDINGS:
Charles Brook & Charlie Turner, "Will You Love Me When I'm Old" (Columbia 15756-D, 1932; rec. 1931)
Carter Family, "Are You Tired of Me Darling?" (Bluebird B-5956/Montgomery Ward M-4546, 1935)
Bill Cox, "Are You Tired of Me Darling?" (Champion S-16317 [as Luke Baldwin]/Superior 2751 [as Clyde Ashley], 1931; Melotone [Canada] 45092/Champion 45092, 1935; Decca 5497, 1938)
Jimmie Davis, "Are You Tired of Me Darling?" (Decca 5155, 1935)
Earl McCoy & Jessie Brock, "Are You Tired of Me Darling?" (Columbia 15499-D, 1930; rec. 1929)
Lester McFarland & Robert Gardner, "Are You Tired of Me Darling" (Brunswick 432, 1930; rec. 1927)
Blind Jack Mathis, "Are You Tired of Me Darling?" (Bluebird B-4956, c. 1933)
Aulton Ray, "Will You Love Me When I'm Old" (Gennett 6129, 1927)
L. K. Reeder, "Will You Love Me When I'm Old" (OKeh 45026, c. 1926; rec. 1925)
BROADSIDES:
LOCSheet, sm1877 03501, "Are you tired of me, darling?" Louis Meyer (Philadelphia), 1877 (tune); also sm1878 05722, "Are you tired of me, darling?" White, Smith & Co (Boston), 1878
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Will You Love Me In December As You Do In May?" (theme)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Are You Tired of Me, My Darling?
NOTES [102 words]: The White Smith & Co sheet music lists the tune as by Fred Kenyon Jones; the Meyer music offers Ralph Roland. The tunes are different, and neither is the one I know (from Ed Trickett, I think), though the Roland tune looks closer.
Jon W. Finson, The Voices That Are Gone: Themes in Nineteenth-Century American Popular Song, Oxford University Press, 1994, p. 51, lists a song "Will You Love Me When I'm Old" as by J. Ford and says it was published in 1872. A song entitled "Will You Love Me, Sweetheart, When I'm Old?" was published by A. J. Lamb and H. W. Petrie in 1895; I do not know if they are the same. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.5
File: R824

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