Has Father Been Here?

DESCRIPTION: "Oh, 'twas not my father who did the bad deed, 'Twas drinking that maddened his brain. Oh. let him go home to poor mother, I pray. I'm sure he'll not do it again." The girl waits by the door. At last the prison door opens; he vows to drink no more
AUTHOR: E. W. Locke (source: hymnals cited by hymnary.org)
EARLIEST DATE: 1905 (Songs for Service, according to hymnary.org)
KEYWORDS: drink prison children reprieve
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Swan-BalladsAndFolkSongsFromMorningSunIowa 44, p. 97, "The Drunkard's Lone Child (Poor Bessie)" (1 text)
Roud #46723
NOTES [127 words]: Despite the alternate title in Swan-BalladsAndFolkSongsFromMorningSunIowa, Swan's version never gives the name of the girl who begs for her father's release. But the fact that the song is called "Poor Bessie" makes it clear that she is a girl.
Digging around trying to find a source for this, I discovered that the first verse of this is the same as the chorus of "Has Father Been Here," by E. W. Locke. The aecond verse of Swan's version is almost the same as Locke's fourth, although in Locke it is a boy, not a girl, who awaits him. But Locke has three verses about the child searching for the father ("Please, Mister Bartender, has father been here?), which give the song a very different feel. I wonder if there wasn't a deliberate rewrite along the way. - RBW
Last updated in version 7.2
File: SBMS097

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