Darling Boy, The

DESCRIPTION: The singer says "love is the occasion of my down fall ... I have lost my love fighting for sweet liberty." She denies he left her pregnant: "he loves me too well for to serve me so." She wishes she could fly to him and will welcome him home with kisses
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1820 (broadside, Bodleian Firth c.18(125))
KEYWORDS: love war separation nonballad
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South))
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Gardham-EarliestVersions, "DARLING BOY, THE"
Reeves/Sharp-TheIdiomOfThePeople 47, "I Wish I Had Never Known" (1 text)
Roud #1452
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Firth c.18(125), "The Darling Boy" ("I wish I had ne'er known no one at all"), J. Pitts (London), 1802-1819; also Harding B 25(473), "The Darling Boy"; Johnson Ballads 1519 [or 1520][both almost entirely illegible unless read using one of "The Darling Boy" broadsides as an aid], "I Wish I Had Never Lov'd No One at All. A new song" ("I wish I had never lov'd no one at all"), S.B. Clouter (Bristol), no date, "Performer: Brown, R".
ALTERNATE TITLES:
I Wish I Had Never Loved No One at All
I Wish I Had Never Seen No Man at All
NOTES [114 words]: Reeves/Sharp-TheIdiomOfThePeople ends on a different note: "Well some do wear spencers and I don't wear none And they that don't let me can leave me alone He'll have me or leave me and so let me go For I don't care a straw if he have me or no." This may have floated to or from "Love Me or No." "Spencer" is "[after George John, 2d Earl Spencer 1834 Eng. politician] ... 2: a woman's fitted jacket of waist length or shorter" (source: Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged, 1976). [I have one reference to "spencers" from 1813: J.P. Malcolm, An Historical Sketch of the Art of Caricaturing (London, 1813 ("Digitized by Google")), p. 146] - BS
Last updated in version 6.8
File: ReSh047

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