I Wish My Love (Pitman's Love Song)

DESCRIPTION: Singer wishes his love were various objects: a cherry, a beeskep, an ewe, etc., so that he might make love to her. After some lovely metaphors, in the last verse he wishes she was a warm turd, and he was a "shitten flea," that he might light upon her
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1834 (Sharp, The Bishopric Garland)
KEYWORDS: sex lyric nonballad scatological
FOUND IN: Britain(England(North))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
ADDITIONAL: [Cuthbert Sharp], _The Bishopric Garland, A Collection of Legends, Songs, Ballads, &c Belonging to the County of Durham_, 1834 (references are to the 1969 reprint), p. 65, "A Pitman's Love Song" (1 text)
Roud #8738
RECORDINGS:
A. L. Lloyd, "I Wish My Love" (on Lloyd2) = "I Wish, I Wish" (on Lloyd 3) [same recording, changed title]
ALTERNATE TITLES:
A Pitman's Love Song
NOTES [32 words]: Lloyd notes, "Rather to my own surprise I find myself too prudish to sing [the last verse], though I'm impressed by its intensity," but he reprints it in his book "Folk Song in England." - PJS
Last updated in version 3.1
File: RcIWML

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