Twill Never Do To Give It Up So

DESCRIPTION: "Oh, twill never do to give it up so (Old Uncle Ben/Mr. Brown), 'twill never do to give it up so" (x2). "Old Mr. (Brown/Coon/Jones), you come too soon, the girls won't be ready till tomorrow afternoon" (x2).
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1871 (Adolphous Morning-Glory Songster); reportedly sung by 1844 (see NOTES)
KEYWORDS: playparty courting
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Wolford-ThePlayPartyInIndiana, pp. 100-101=Wolford/Richmond/Tillson-PlayPartyInIndiana, pp. 220-221, "Walk Along John" (1 text, 2 tunes, probably a combination of "Walk Along John (I) and "Twill Never Do To Give It Up So")
ADDITIONAL: Adolphous Morning-Glory Songster, Robert M. DeWill, 1871 (available in the Robert Winslow Gordon songster collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress online), p. 5, "Twill Neber Do to Gib It Up So" (1 text)
Roud #7824
SAME TUNE:
Philadelphia Riots ("Oh in Philadelphia foks say how") (Wolf-AmericanSongSheets p. 126)
NOTES [150 words]: Wolford-ThePlayPartyInIndiana notes that there was a key change in the version given to her, which she adjusted (while also printing the collected version of the tune). I suspect that her version is in fact a combination of two songs, "Walk Along John" (the first stanza) and "'Twill Never Do to Give It Up So," which I know I've heard somewhere but can't seem to find in any traditional collections. I'm filing this as an independent fragment in hopes that someone will someday find the rest.
According to Jon W. Finson, The Voices That Are Gone: Themes in Nineteenth-Century American Popular Song, Oxford University Press, 1994, p. 180, "'Twill Nebber Do to Gib It Up So" was one of the songs sung by the Virginia Minstrels (Dan Emmett's group) before they broke up in 1844. If so, there is obviously a possibility that Emmett had something to do with the song, but I have no proof of this. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: Wolf100

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography