Come all young maids, so fair and gay, That glory in your prime, [prime,] Be wise, beware, keep your gardens clear, Let no man steal your time, [let no man steal your time.]
For when your time it is all gone, There’ll no man care for you, And the very place where my time was, Is spread all over with rue.
The gardener’s son was standing by, Three flowers he plucked for me, The pink, the blue, the violet, too, And the red rosy three.
I’ll cut off the primrose top, And plant a willow tree, So that the whole world may plainly see, How my love slighted me.
Slighted lovers they must live, Although they live in pain, For the grass that grows in yon green moor, In time will rise again.
Somers titles this song text “The Last Song My Father Sang” which is likely a reference to his Irish-born father Martin Somers.
(Most printed versions highlight the double meaning of thyme/time by spelling it “thyme” but Somers’ book spells the word “time.” Somers’ text doesn’t indicate repeated words at the end of the 2nd or 4th lines but I’ve suggested them here to work with Patrick Green’s melody.)
Martin Somers, father of James Somers, as pictured in Jim’s Western Gems. Martin was born in Ireland around 1831 and settled near Cardwell, Ontario, about 60km from the southern tip of Georgian Bay. Nearby placenames to Cardwell include many Irish references such as: Athlone, Achill, Ballycroy, Kilmanagh, Erin and Sligo.
Come all you sons of freedom in Minnesot-i-ay, Come all you roving lumberjacks and listen to my strain, On the banks of the Rum River where the limpid waters flow, We will range the wild woods over and once more a-lumbering go,
And once more a lumbering go, We will range the wild woods over and once more a-lumbering go.
With our cross-cut saws and axes we will make the woods resound, And many a tall and stately tree will come crashing to the ground, With cant-hooks on our shoulders to our boot tops deep in snow, We will range the wild woods over and once more a-lumbering go,
And once more a lumbering go, We will range the wild woods over and once more a-lumbering go.
You may talk about your farms, your houses and fine places, But pity not the shanty boys while dashing on their sleigh, For around the good campfire at night we’ll sing while wild winds blow, And we’ll range the wild woods over and once more a-lumbering go,
And once more a-lumbering go, We will range the wild woods over and once more a-lumbering go.
Then when navigation opens and the water runs so free, We’ll drive logs to St. Anthony once more our girls to see, They will all be there to welcome us and our hearts in rapture flow, We will stay with them through summer then once more a-lumbering go,
And once more a-lumbering go, We will stay with them through summer, then once more a-lumbering go.
When our youthful days are ended and our stories are growing old, We’ll take to us each man a wife and settle on the farm, Enough to eat, to drink, to wear; content through life we go, We will tell our wives of our hard times, and no more a-lumbering go,
And no more a-lumbering go, We will tell our wives of our hard times, and no more a-lumbering go.
I am working this month with St. Paul playwright Jeremiah Gamble of the Bucket Brigade Theater on a new play called Shanty Boys of Pine County that will feature songs and stories from my research. One song we were considering for the play is “Once More A-Lumbering Go” (sometimes called “The Logger’s Boast”) as recorded by Alan Lomax in St. Louis, Michigan in 1938 from the singing of Carl Lathrop. I learned Lathrop’s version years ago. It features place names of the Saginaw area and, as I am always drawn to Minnesota-specific songs, I stopped singing it at some point.
Much to my delight, when I started looking around for other versions, I came across a fragment localized to the Rum River here in Minnesota! It turns up in an intriguing article published April 27, 1947 in the Minneapolis Journal about the establishment here of a Folk Arts Foundation of Minnesota. The article references the Finnish and Scots Gaelic songs recorded by Sidney Robertson in northeastern Minnesota (see Laura MacKenzie’s wonderful From Uig to Duluthproject!) and calls for more field recording to be done in Minnesota.
The article includes a fragment of “Once More A-Lumbering Go” submitted by Elizabeth Sadley of Minneapolis. Sadley writes:
…I am sending you the words, as far as I can recall, of a lumberjack song that my mother used to sing.
My mother has been dead several years, and the verses here are only a fragment of the entire song. Perhaps some one of my mother’s generation can complete the words. The tune is very simple.
My family moved to Princeton, Minn., about 1875. My father operated two grist mills and supplied the lumber camps in the Mille Lac lake area. This song was sung by the lumberjacks who floated the logs down both branches of the Rum river to the saw mills.
Sadley’s fragment is lines 3 & 4 of the first and last verses above along with the chorus of verse one. I created lines 1 & 2 of the first and fourth verses to further localize the song to the Rum River story and transcribed the rest of the text and melody from Lomax’s recording of Lathrop.
It was on a Christmas evening as I lay down to sleep, I heard a boy of six years old on his mother’s knee did weep, Saying “once I had a father dear who did me kind embrace And if he was here, he would dry those tears flowing down my mother’s face”
Oh where is that tall and gallant ship that first bore him away, With topsails soft and painted decks born by the breeze away, While other ships are coming in splitting the icy foam, Oh why don’t my father’s ship come in, and why don’t he come home?
Oh, dear son, your father has tarried for to cross the stormy sea, The ocean and the hurricane sweeps he’ll never come back to me, Dear son your father’s dead and gone to the home of the brave, The stormy ocean and winter winds sweep o’er your father’s grave
Oh well I do remember when he took me on his knee, And gave me all the fruits he bore from off that India tree, He said six months he would be gone and here leave us alone, But by those stormy winter winds, twelve months are past and gone.
Oh hush my darling little son your innocent life is done, Now you and I are all that’s left for to lament and mourn, You are the darling of my heart I will press you to my side, And they rose their eyes to heaven and the son and mother died.
We return to Beaver Island, Michigan this month for a song from the repertoire of singer Johnny Green recorded by Alan Lomax during his 1938 visit to the island.
This dark and sorrowful lament for a father lost at sea appears in several collections across the north woods from the Canadian Maritimes to Ontario. Lomax’s recording of John Green is accessible via the Library of Congress website under the title (probably resulting from a mishearing of the first line) “Christmas Eve.”
Anita Best and Genevieve Lehr printed a version from Annie Green of Newfoundland in their book Come & I Will Sing You. Annie Green closed the song this way:
“My boy you’re the pride of all my heart,” as she pressed him to her breast, And closed her eyes to the yonder skies where the weary ones find rest.
