The Lover's Lament A
Channel: Stephen Griffith
Date: 2020-05-24

Day 69 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series  (folksongindex)

This is a treasure I discovered in Carl's Sandburg's American Songbag. It sounds familiar but that may be due to the borrowed phrases from other songs. I can't find a recording of this, and am not sure if it is a borrowed tune from another song.

Sandburg writes: "Blendings from five or six old ballads are in this song of parting lovers. “Her lips was like some musical instrument," and other lines, are extraordinary. The pangs of separation find voice in an upward sliding wail. It is communicated by Neeta Marquis of Los Angeles, who says it is too finely sweet a  song to be among the lost and forgotten things of melodic art." I agree.