“I Love My Sailor Boy”
Description
The singer overhears a girl declare, "Let my friends say what they will, I love my sailor boy." She praises his appearance and virtues. Her mother calls her foolish and bids her wed a "steady farmer's son." The girl disdains such a lover
Supplemental text
I Love My Sailor Boy
Partial text(s)
*** A ***
From Franz Rickaby, Ballads and Songs of the Shanty-Boy
(1926), p. 203. Apparently from M. C. Dean's The Flying Cloud.
Abroad as I rambled one morning in May,
So carelessly I rambled down Liverpool's streets so gay.
I overheard a fair maid, and this was all her cry,
"And ley my friends say what they will, I love my sailor boy."
(4 additional stanzas)
Notes
This song is one of those items where every line has parallels elsewhere (especially in "Adieu Sweet Lovely Nancy," but the parallels are truly to numerous to list). I'm not really sure it exists on its own. But when in doubt, we split. - RBW
Cross references
- cf. "The Farmer and the Shanty Boy" (theme)
- cf. "Adieu Sweet Lovely Nancy" (lyrics)
References
- Dean, pp. 84-85, "I Love My Sailor Boy" (1 text)
- Rickaby (notes to #10, "The Shanty-boy and the Farmer's Son"), "I Love My Sailor Boy" (1 text)
- ST Rick203 (Partial)
- Roud #9603
- BI, Rick203