Single Girl, Married Girl

DESCRIPTION: "Single girl, single girl, go and dress so fine... Married girl, married girl goes ragged all the time...." The lives of single and married women compared: The single girl can go out (and perhaps even spend); the married girl must care for the baby; etc.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (recording, Carter Family)
KEYWORDS: marriage wife
FOUND IN: US(Ap,SE)
REFERENCES (7 citations):
Warner-TraditionalAmericanFolkSongsFromAnneAndFrankWarnerColl 128, "Single Girl, Married Girl" (1 text, 1 tune)
Burton/Manning-EastTennesseeStateCollectionVol2, p. 102, "Single Girl" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roberts/Agey-InThePine #98, "Single Girl" (1 text, 1 tune)
Dunson/Raim/Asch-AnthologyOfAmericanFolkMusic, p. 87 "Single Girl, Married Girl" (1 text, 1 tune)
Cohen/Seeger/Wood-NewLostCityRamblersSongbook, p. 84, "Single Girl, Married Girl" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 185, "Single Girl" (1 text)
DT, SINGLGRL
Roud #436
RECORDINGS:
Carter Family, "Single Girl, Married Girl" (Victor 20937, 1927; Montgomery Ward M-6445, 1936; on AAFM3) (ARC 7-04-53/Conqueror 8733, 1937)
Frank Profitt, "Single Girl" [excerpt] (on USWarnerColl01)
Ruby Vass, "Single Girl" (on LomaxCD1702)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "I Wish I Were a Single Girl Again"
cf. "I Wish I Were Single Again (II - Female)"
cf. "Single Girl, Married Girl"
cf. "Sorry the Day I Was Married"
cf. "When I Was Young (II)" (theme)
cf. "For Seven Long Years I've Been Married" (theme)
cf. "Married and Single Life" (subject)
NOTES [148 words]: Roud lumps "I Wish I Were a Single Girl Again" and "Single Girl, Married Girl" (and perhaps others). Definitely a stretch, though the songs can easily cross-fertilize.
The Carter Family version of this is one of the songs that they recorded at the very first "Bristol Session" -- the famous recording session at which Ralph Peer of Victor found both Jimmie Rodgers and the Carters. It was waxed on the second day that the Carters were in the studio -- and, according to Barry Mazor, Ralph Peer and the Making of Popular Roots Music, Chicago Review Press, 2015, p. 109, says that A.P. Carter didn't show up on that day, leaving Sara understandably irritated. Peer suggested that Sara and Maybelle record this particular song for that session, letting Sara get some of her ire out. We can't know what the Carters would have recorded otherwise, but it was an interesting choice by Peer. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.7
File: Wa128

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