Day 24: Adieu, Sweet Lovely Nancy
Song Information
According to Bellamy on Won't You Go My Way, he says “My favourite of all the English Folk songs I ever heard”. With that in mind, I felt this should be the one to “finish” it (ignore the fact that there's another song tomorrow). As Bellamy says “It's not surprising this comes from the singing of the Copper family, who've got all the best songs anyway”. This was first collected in 1898 from James and Thomas Copper as the first ever song collected from them by Kate Lee and was published in first issue of the Journal of the Folk Song Society in 1899.
For reasons that are now lost to time, every woman that was the lover of a sailor in a traditional song was called Nancy. If you treat this song along with Pretty Nancy of Yarmouth, you've got 2 acts in a story (where this song says “I'm off to the sea love” and Pretty Nancy says “Oh no, I'm at sea and having a hard time”). If only Claudy Banks was set in Yarmouth and used “Nancy” instead of “Betsy” then you could have a nice little trio.
Ralph Vaughan Williams collected another variant “Adieu To Lovely Nancy” from Mr Cooper in Plaistow (in Sussex). Cooper feels like an easy enough corruption of Copper and Rottingdean is a mere 40 miles away from Plaistow that I'd not be surprised if Mr Cooper was a distant relation of the Copper family (though there's no evidence that's true). The tune that was collected is very different though.
Listen to the Song
Lyrics
Here’s adieu, sweet lovely Nancy, ten thousand times adieu,
I’m a-going around the ocean, love, to seek for something new.
Come change your ring with me, dear girl,
Come change your ring with me,
For it might be a token of true love while I am on the sea.
When I am far upon the sea you knows not where I am.
Kind letters I will write to you from every foreign land.
The secrets of your mind, dear girl,
Are the best of my good will,
So let my body be where it might, my heart is with you still.
There’s a heavy storm a-rising, see how it gather round,
While we poor sailors are on the sea, are fighting for the crown.
Our officers commanded us
And them we must obey,
Expecting every moment for to get cast away.
There are tinkers, tailors and shoemakers, lie snoring in their sleep,
While we poor souls on the ocean wide are ploughing through the deep.
There’s nothing to defend us, love,
Nor to keep us from the cold,
On the ocean wide, where we must bide like jolly seamen bold.
But when the wars are all over there’ll be peace on every shore,
We will drink to our wives and our children and the girls that we adore.
We’ll call for liquor merrily,
And spend our money free,
And when our money it is all gone we’ll boldly go to sea.