Traditional Folk Music - songs & tunes popular in the 60's folk revival

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Tavern In The Town

TML # 010031

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Singer laments her lover, who courted her ardently but now goes to a tavern and courts others while leaving her pining. She hopefully anticipates dying and being buried. The overlap between this song and the "Butcher Boy" cluster is obvious; whether they're the same song is a Talmudic question. -PJS The 1891 sheet music credits this piece to F. J. Adams. The earliest known printing of "Tavern" (as opposed to the presumably related Cornish miners' song "There is an Alehouse in Yonder Town"), however, does not give the name. Alan Lomax calls "Hard Ain't It Hard" a reworking of this piece, and I'm going along on the principle that it certainly isn't a traditional song (given that it's by Woody Guthrie). - RBW

There is a tavern in the town, in the town
And there my true love sits him down, sits him down,
And drinks his wine as merry as can be,
And never, never thinks of me.

cho:   Fare thee well, for I must leave thee,
Do not let this parting grieve thee,
And remember that the best of friends
Must part, must part.

Adieu, adieu kind friends, yes, adieu
I can no longer stay with you, stay with you,
I'll hang my harp on the weeping willow tree,
And may the world go well with thee.

He left me for a damsel dark, damsel dark,
Each Friday night they used to spark,
Used to spark,
And now my love who once was true to me
Takes this dark damsel on his knee.

And now I see him nevermore, nevermore;
He never knocks upon my door, on my door;
Oh, woe is me; he pinned a little note,
And these were all the words he wrote:

Oh, dig my grave both wide and deep, wide and deep;
Put tombstones at my head and feet, head and feet
And on my breast you may carve a turtle dove,
To signify I died of love.

This royalty free score was generated by the Traditional Music Library On Line Tunebook (Shareware Version). As-is copies of this score may be freely distributed. Further info from WWW.TRADITIONALMUSIC.CO.UK