Ben Bolt

DESCRIPTION: "Oh! don't you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt, Sweet Alice, with hair so brown She wept with delight when you gave her a smile, And trembled with dear at your frown." But Alice now lies in the churchyard, and the mill where they courted is dried up
AUTHOR: Words: Thomas Dunn English (1819-1902)
EARLIEST DATE: 1843 (The New Mirror); what is apparently the most common tune, by Nelson Kneass, was published 1848 by W. C. Peters & Co. of Louisville, KY
KEYWORDS: love courting death separation burial
FOUND IN: US(MW,So) Britain(England(South))
REFERENCES (12 citations):
Williams-Wiltshire-WSRO Mi 531, "Ben Bolt" (1 text)
Dean-FlyingCloud, pp. 31-32, "Ben Bolt" (1 text)
Browne-AlabamaFolkLyric 107, "Ben Bolt" (1 text)
Jackson-PopularSongsOfNineteenthCenturyAmerica, pp. 30-34, "Ben Bolt" (1 text, 1 tune)
Winstock-SongsAndMusicOfTheRedcoats, pp. 175-186, "Don't you remember sweet Alice? (Ben Bolt)" (1 text, 1 tune)
Wolf-AmericanSongSheets, #131, p. 10, "Ben Bolt" (2 references)
Jolly-Miller-Songster-5thEd, #47, Ben Bolt" (1 text)
Heart-Songs, pp. 96-97, "Oh! Don't You Remember Sweet Alice or Ben Bolt" (1 text, 1 tune)
Dime-Song-Book #1/72, p. 25 and #1/64 p. 25, "Ben Bolt" (1 text)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 252, "Ben Bolt" (1 text)
DT, BENBOLT
ADDITIONAL: Martin Gardner, editor, _Famous Poems from Bygone Days_, Dover, 1995, pp. 55-57, "Ben Bolt" (1 text)
ST RJ19030 (Full)
Roud #2653
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Sam Holt" (tune & meter)
SAME TUNE:
Sweet Alice (Australian parody) (File: Beat309)
The Sonora Filibusters (File LDC286)
Answer to Ben Bolt (broadside LOCSheet, sm1854 741250, "Answer to Ben Bolt," W. C. Peters and Sons (Cincinnati), 1854) (tune) = "Ben Bolt's Reply" (Gardner, _Famous Poems_, p. 57)
The Answer to Ben Bolt ("Oh yes I remember the name with delight") (Huntington-TheGam-MoreSongsWhalemenSang, pp. 272-273; Dime-Song-Book #10, pp. 53-54)
The Grave of Ben Bolt ("By the side of Sweet Alice they have laid Ben Bolt") (Huntington-TheGam-MoreSongsWhalemenSang, p. 273)
Parody on Ben Bolt ("O don't you remember the Boys, Ben Bolt") (Huntington-TheGam-MoreSongsWhalemenSang, p. 274)
Jim Holmes, a Parody on Ben Bolt ("Oh, don't you remember the b'hoys, Jim Holmes") (Wolf-AmericanSongSheets p. 76)
John Jones, the Companion to "Ben Bolt" ("Don't you remember lame Sally, John Jones") (Wolf-AmericanSongSheets p. 78; Dime-Song-Book #3, p. 21)
Freshman Reminiscences ("Oh don't you remember, sweet Freshmen, the time") (Henry Randall Waite, _Carmina Collegensia: A Complete Collection of the Songs of the American Colleges_ first edition 1868, expanded edition, Oliver Ditson, 1876, p. 130)
Ah! Well We Remember (""Ah! well we remember that morning, my boys, 'Twas just four years ago") (Henry Randall Waite, _Carmina Collegensia: A Complete Collection of the Songs of the American Colleges_ first edition 1868, expanded edition, Oliver Ditson, 1876, p. 63)
Jack Jolt ("Oh don't you remember the gully, Jack Jolt, Where they made such a desperate pounce") (by Charles R. Thatcher) (Hoskins/Thatcher-LifeOnTheGoldfields, pp. 64, 154)
The Paupers ("Oh don't you remember the Paupers, Tom Brown? The Paupers who ain't got no dough") (by John L. Zieber, fl. 1860) (Bodleian broadside Harding B 18(396))
NOTES [139 words]: Originally published as a poem in The New Mirror of September 2, 1843. Various tunes were offered; that by Nelson F. Kneass (made in 1848) proved the most enduring. It is possible that it was an adaptation of another tune, perhaps of German origin.
T. D. English did not receive royalties for the popular editions of the song, and Spaeth (A History of Popular Music in America, p. 123) reports that he "came to resent [the song's] enormous popularity as compared with what he considered his more important efforts." Where have we heard *that* before?
Roud for some reason files a couple of copies of a piece called "Ben Block" or "The Naval Subaltern" here, probably based on similarity in names. But "Ben Block" is a song of a long-service junior naval officer. There is a copy in Stone-SeaSongsAndBallads XXXIII, pp. 47-48. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: RJ19030

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