I Live Not Where I Love

DESCRIPTION: The girl laments that "I live not where I love." In flowery phrases she describes her fidelity. She hopes that she and her lover may be reunited/never part.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1845 (broadside, Bodleian Harding 11(39))
KEYWORDS: love separation
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South))
REFERENCES (7 citations):
Reeves-TheEverlastingCircle 70, "I Live Not Where I Love" (1 text)
Hales/Furnival-BishopPercysFolioManuscript, volume II, pp. 325-326, "I Iive where I love" (1 text)
Chappell-PopularMusicOfTheOldenTime, pp. 451-453, "I Live Not Where I Love" (1 excerpt in the notes, 1 tune; the text set to the tune is a different song though it has the same refrain)
Chappell/Wooldridge-OldEnglishPopularMusic I, p. 200, "I Live Not Where I Love" (1 fragment of text; the text and tune listed are not this piece)
cf. Olson-BroadsideBalladIndex, ZN1787, "Must the absence of my mistresse"; ZN3048, "You loyal Lovers that are distant"
DT, NOTWHERE NOTWHER2
MANUSCRIPT: {MSPercyFolio}, The Percy Folio, London, British Library MS. Additional 27879, page 292
Roud #593
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 11(39), "I Live Not Where I Love" ("Come all you maids that live at a distance"), J. Pitts (London), 1819-1844; also Harding B 11(1638), "I Live Not Where I Love"
NOTES [117 words]: On the basis of the ornate lines in the text ("All the world should be one religion, All living things should cease to die, If ever I prove false to my jewel Or any way my love deny"), it would seem likely that this piece began life as an art song. How far it made it into the traditional repertoire remains to be determined.
Someone somewhere claimed that the most likely antecedent was Martin Parker's 1740 piece, "A Paire of Turtle Doves." Whether this song is directly derived from Parker's piece, or has simply exchanged some lines, is hard to tell. But the Percy Folio version is older, and looks like the same song to me. Or at least the same impulse, perhaps with a new ending grafted on. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.2
File: ChWI200

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