I Once Had a True Love

DESCRIPTION: Singer bids adieu to Molly whose parents slight him for his "want of gear" He dreams she comes to him and says "it will not be long love, till our wedding day" Floating lines. But she is not here. "I'll think of you Molly when I am alone"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1960 (Tunney-StoneFiddle)
KEYWORDS: love rejection dream floatingverses nonballad
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Tunney-StoneFiddle, p. 153, "I Once Had a True Love" (1 text)
RECORDINGS:
Paddy Tunney, "I Once Had a True Love" (on IRPTunney03)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "If I Were a Fisher" (floating verses)
cf. "She Moved Through the Fair" (floating verses)
NOTES [109 words]: The "floating lines" include "if I was a fisher ... and my love was a salmon" and "if I was a blackbird and had wings to fly"; there are also lines that are more explicit than most floaters I have seen: "In a grove of green laurels I'd lay my love down And with my strong wings I would her surround" and "Since the notion has took me to make my own will Sure my own rod beats sorest and does hurt me still."
Tunney-StoneFiddle notes Tunney's hearing this song in 1960. He makes it "the original traditional song" behind Padraic Collum's "She Moved Through the Fair." Also see his comment on "My Young Love Said to Me" at "She Moved Through the Fair." - BS
Last updated in version 4.4
File: TSF153

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