Digital Tradition Mirror

Come My Love Come

Come My Love Come
(Nancy Till)

 Down in d' canebrake
 Close by the mill
 There lives a colored girl
 Her name is Nancy Gill.
 I told her I loved her
 I loved her very long
 I'm gonna serenade her
 And this'll be my song:

 Cho: Come my love come
 My boat lies low
 She lies high and dry
 On the O-hi-o,
 Come my love come
 Won't you come along with me?
 And I'll take you down to Tennessee

 Down in d' canebrake
 Some happy day
 You'll hear the wedding bells
 A ringin' might gay
 There's gonna be a cabin
 And in a trundle bed
 There'll be a pickaninny
 And all because I said:
 Chorus:

 Down in d' canebrake
 That's where I'll stay
 'Long side my Nancy Gill
 Till we are laid away
 And when I get to heaven
 And Peter lets us in
 I'll start my wings a flappin'
 And sing to her again:
 Chorus:

Collected from the songs of Charles Edward Prewett, British Columbia
Light Horse, minstrel shows, Vernon B.C,. Canada (ca. 1915). A version
with similar first verse and chorus is in the Levy Sheet Music Collection
under the title Nancy Till.

Anne and Frank Warner, collected a fragment of this song from
Eleazar Tillett of Wanchese, NC (Outer Banks) in 1951 and it was
recorded by Jeff Warner and Jeff Davis as Come Love Come on the
album Wilder Joy (Flying Fish 1986), a compilation of two songs
Nancy Till and Dan Emmett's (Mt. Vernon, OH) "Boatsman Dance"
of the 1840s

Frank Brown of Duke Univ. also collected a version of this song in 1926
from Charles Tillett, Eleazar Tillett's husband. [Brown, Frank C. Folk
Songs from North Carolina. Durham: Duke University Press, 1952.
(Vol. III of the Seven vol. Frank C. Brown Collection of North
 Carolina Folklore, p. 491

MC
apr00

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!

Contents: ? A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Main Page