Cynthia -
Here's what I found in my library.
I have two books with the tune and words in them. The one with the
most info is "Best Loved American Folk Songs" by Alan and John Lomax
published in 1947. The other is a Alan Lomax book published in 1960,
"Folk Songs of North America"
Here's a transcript of the text from the first book describing "The
Streets of Laredo".
<quote>
After "The Chisholm Trail" the most popular Western ballad is
the story of the young cowboy who rode the familiar road from rum to
ruin. The hundred-odd examples of this ballad in my collection have
located the scene of the cowbow's death in almost as many Western
towns. As a matter of fact , the young man died in the British Isles,
not of gunshot wounds, but of syphilis. Whereupon all the gay ladies
of the town, grateful for his generousity to them, followed his
coffin to the cemetery. We have one Irish version sung in Cork about
the year 1790 which identifies the young man as a soldier and has him
take his last journey with the ruffle of military drums:
My jewel, my joy, don't trouble me with the drums,
Sound the dead march as my corpse goes along;
And over my body throw handfuls of laurel,
And let them all know that I'm going to my rest.
An early English version discovers the "unfortunate lad down
by Lock Hospital, wrapped in flannel, so hard was his fate." Here the
balladeer goes into medical details:
Had she but told me when she disordered me,
Had she but told me of it in time,
I might have got salts and pills of white mercury,
But now I'm cut down in the height of my Prime.
Apparently the grim message of thios ballad suited your
moralizing folk-singer so well that a warning to young ladies was
soon composed. This variant, current in England, is also known to
United States singers and begins, in one form:
One morning, one morning, one morning in May,
I spied a young lady all clad in white linen,
All clad in white linen and as cold as the clay.
When I was a young girl, I used to see pleasure,
When I was a young girl, I used to drink ale,
Right out of the ale-house, and into the jail-house,
Out of the barroom and down to my grave.
Go send for the preacher to come and pray for me,
Go send for the doctor to heal up my wounds,
My poor head is aching, my sad heart is breaking,
My body's salivated and Hell is my doom.
<end quote>
The text then goes on to show how the words ultimately morphed into
the words for the St James Infirmary Blues.
The Alan Lomax version in the later book (1960), the tune is entitled
"The Dying Cowboy" and references the 1910 Lomax collection "Cowboy
Songs". The tune is slightly different and in a differnt key than
the one in the 1947 book. It also suggests that the tune is known
as "One Morning in May" in non-cowboy circles.
Cynthia, if you are interested in photocopies of these pages please
contact me off-list with your mailing address.
It's so obvious that this tune and words are part of the folk
tradition, it's quite astounding (and absurd) to me that someone
would have the chutzpah to claim these tunes and words. Further the
cost to someone to "enforce" such a ridiculous claim against what
will undoubtably be a "modest" publication wouldn't be worth it.
I'm certainly not an expert in these matters but I believe that the
tune in a setting you made specifically for the clairsach would be
copyrightable **by you**. Also if you need to include words, to use
whatever verson you'd like to but to footnote and reference the
source as in a scholarly journal.
Hope this is useful,
John
>That tune is known in America as "the Streets of Laredo". Someone here claims
>copyright to those words and the familiar melody (also used for the Bard of
>Armagh) and that someone will not allow me permission to use it if I sell the
>book outside of the U.S., which as a book for the CLARSACH I most certainly
>want to do! (All the other tunes in the book are public domain.)
>
>The ancestor of this song is "The Unfortunate Rake". I have been trying to
>find a citation for that song, and for the melody. My research indicates that
>it was published as a broadside in London in 1790, but I can't find any copy
>of that.
>
>Does anyone know an early printing of this melody? Early words, that pre-date
>the American ones? Any ideas or leads will be VERY welcome. I want to go to
>press so I can get this project off my desk, and move on to the next one!
--
90 Trefethen Ave
Peaks Island, ME 04108
Tel 207-766-5797
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