Uploaded March 2021 | Updated September 2026, 6 days ago
NOTES: "He's Gone Away" from Carl Sandburg's 1927 The American Songbag.
Sandburg begins his first chapter DRAMAS AND PORTRAITS with the song "He's Gone Away." In studying the roots of Sandburg's selection, several songs show up as closely related.
According to The Traditional Ballad Index, William A. Larkins notebook of lyrics is the earliest date of this song in their collective index.
"This song (which includes the variation represented in Carl Sandburg's 1927 American Songbag), is officially a catch-all. Other song titles in this category are The True Lover's Farewell, Red Rosy Bush, and Turtle Dove."
The Traditional Ballad Index "When William A. Larkin started his "book of all songs" in April, I866, he may not have realized that he was making a valuable contribution to folklore. Like Chaucer's young squire, he was twenty years of age at the time, and did considerable singing "when called upon by his friends." Evidently he wrote these [45] old album songs down to sing at such times.
His statement, "These are selected from the best songs he knows, which he believes to be the best selected songs in this country" seems to indicate that his judgment did not err too far, inasmuch as folk song scholarship [later] confirmed . . . ." (The Old Album of William A. Larkin by Ruth Ann Musick, Journal of American Folklore Volume 60, No. 237, July-September 1947).
I took Larkin's lyrics and put it to a tune collected by Cecil Sharpe and Maude Karpeles in his English Folk-Songs from the Southern Appalachians. There are tentacles going back to the British Isles, but this will be elaborated upon at a later date.
NOTES: "He's Gone Away" from Carl Sandburg's 1927 The American Songbag.
Sandburg begins his first chapter DRAMAS AND PORTRAITS with the song "He's Gone Away." In studying the roots of Sandburg's selection, several songs show up as closely related.
According to The Traditional Ballad Index, William A. Larkins notebook of lyrics is the earliest date of this song in their collective index.
"This song (which includes the variation represented in Carl Sandburg's 1927 American Songbag), is officially a catch-all. Other song titles in this category are The True Lover's Farewell, Red Rosy Bush, and Turtle Dove."
The Traditional Ballad Index "When William A. Larkin started his "book of all songs" in April, I866, he may not have realized that he was making a valuable contribution to folklore. Like Chaucer's young squire, he was twenty years of age at the time, and did considerable singing "when called upon by his friends." Evidently he wrote these [45] old album songs down to sing at such times.
His statement, "These are selected from the best songs he knows, which he believes to be the best selected songs in this country" seems to indicate that his judgment did not err too far, inasmuch as folk song scholarship [later] confirmed . . . ." (The Old Album of William A. Larkin by Ruth Ann Musick, Journal of American Folklore Volume 60, No. 237, July-September 1947).
I took Larkin's lyrics and put it to a tune collected by Cecil Sharpe and Maude Karpeles in his English Folk-Songs from the Southern Appalachians. There are tentacles going back to the British Isles, but this will be elaborated upon at a later date.
