Folk and Traditional Song Lyrics:
Buttercup Joe

Buttercup Joe

Buttercup Joe

Now do I be a very young country boy
My father came from Fareham.
He had another six just like I;
By Christ, how he could rare 'em.
Now, do  my mum make dumplings nice --
I bet you'd like to try 'em.
I've yet to find me a better one,
A country boy like I am.

   CHORUS:
   For I can drive a plow and milk a cow;
   I can reap and mow.
   I'm as fresh as a daisy that grows in the field,
   And they calls I "Buttercup Joe."

Now there be a pretty girl that I love,
They calls her "our Mary."
She works busy as a bumblebee
Down in old Jones's dairy.
Now work and cook and irk and sew
And use the smoothing iron,
And I'm gonna take her for a wife,
A country boy like I am.

Now we're gonna buy us our own barn
When I put by some money.
We'll put the bees in sacks of corn;
They can make us bread and honey.
And I'll have hops in every field
And a big oast-house to dry 'em.
I'll brew the best ale in the land,
A country boy like I am.

Now Mary, her was family,
And I will not propose it.
She's got one of them on the way,
And I don't think that she knows it.
So we'll get married in yonder church
Before it's lambing ti-em,
And settle down to raise some girls
And country boys like I am.

Recorded by Michael Cooney on "Singer of Old Songs." and Roberts
and Barrand on "Spencer the Rover etc."  The original source, as well
as the song being satirized, have apparently been lost in the mists
of time. RW
RW