Lord Lovel
Channel: Stephen Griffith
Date: 2020-04-20

Day 35 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series  (folksongindex.com)

Sandburg writes about this about Lord Lovel, "Among the most widespread ballads in the United States is "Lord Lovel." The version here  is from the collection of Reed Smith of the University of South Carolina; the melody is from W. R.  Dehon and the text from Caroline S. Dickinson. The mood and way of this song is peculiar. It  is to be sung and not read. Why this is so, Mr. Smith explains in this note: "'Lord Lovel' clearly shows how necessary it is to deal with ballads as songs and not merely as poems. The text of 'Lord  Lovel' is sad and mournful. The tune, however, is lilting and rollicking, and with the triple repetition of the last word of the fourth line, turns the tear into a smile. The difference between reading  it as a poem and singing it as a song is the difference between tragedy and comedy."

Although Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, treated this as an entirely serious ballad, Bertrand H. Bronson, The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads calls it "too too insipid," and believes it survives only because of its tune. Comic versions are common. Flemming G. Andersen suggests that this is because of the very sentimental ending, which invites exaggeration. (from the Traditional Ballad Index).