Green Grows the Laurels
Track Information
Original Track ID
SA1961.44.A3
Original Tape ID
Summary
In this version of 'Green Grows the Laurel', a young woman [who has been abandoned] laments her former sweetheart's treatment of her; "He passes my window both early and late / And the looks that he gives me it makes my heart break." When he sends her a letter, she writes back, telling him not to write again.
Charlotte Higgins first learned the song as a little girl from a singer in a street in Stromness, Orkney. Maurice Fleming remarks on having heard an American version of the song on the radio; it was called 'Green Lilacs'.
Item Notes
3 verses and choruses of 4 lines; part of verse 3 obscured owing to tape error.
See:
Greig-Duncan vol. 6, pp. 152-155
'Bothy Songs & Ballads' (J. Ord, 1930) p. 182
Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads, Firth c.18(245)
'Herd Laddie o the Glen' (A. McMorland, 2006) pp. 66-67
'Folksongs of Britain & Ireland' (P. Kennedy, 1975) p. 358
'Sam Henry's Songs of the People' (G. Huntington, 1990) p. 260
'Folk-Song of the North-East' (G. Greig, K. Goldstein & A. Argo, 1963 reprint) art. LXX
'Travellers' Songs from England and Scotland' (E. MacColl & P. Seeger, 1977) pp. 212-215
'Jeannie Robertson: Emergent Singer, Transformative Voice' (J. Porter & H. Gower, 1995) pp. 229-230
Recording Location
County - Angus
Parish - Dundee
Village/Place - Dundee
Language
English
Genre
Collection
Source Type
Reel to reel
Audio Quality
Fair