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LOW DOWN IN THE BROOM 'Twas on last Monday's morning, the day appointed was To walk out into a meadow-green field to meet a bonny lass. To meet a bonny lassie, to bear her company, For she's low down, she's in the broom, a-waiting there for me. I look'd over my left shoulder, to see whom I could see, There I spied my own true love, come tripping down to me; Her heart being brisk and bonny, to bear me company, For she's low down, she's in the broom, she's a-waiting there for me. I took hold of her lily-white hand, and merrily was her heart, "And now we're met together, I hope we ne'er shall part." "Oh part, my dear? no never, until the day we die." For she's low down, she's in the broom, she's a-waiting there for me. Noted by W.P. Merrick from Henry Hills of Lodsworth, Sussex, in 1900 From The Journal of the Folk Song Society, vol.I, issue 3, 1901. Ms. Armstrong's line How sweet and pleasant was the day I kept [him] company see ms to have been introduced from another set of the song printed in Frank Purslow 's The Wanton Seed (EFDS Publications, 1968) which had a longer text collated fr om two traditional examples from Hampshire, and a broadside. There are two examples of a broadside issue by an unknown printer at Bodleian Li brary Broadside Ballads, the clearer of the two being: Whitsun Monday. A new song ("It was on Whitsun-Monday ...") There is also a Scottish Low Down in the Broom, beginning My daddy is a canker't carle , which is a relative (textually) of the English versions; the sexes of t he participants there follow Ms. Armstrong's arrangement. Opinions differ as to which is the older; Frank Kidson thought the English song to be the "original", while Frank Purslow considered the reverse to be more likely. Of the Scottish ve rsion, the Bodleian has two issues by Catnach of Seven Dials on large songsheets , and the following: Low down in the broom ("My daddy is a canker'd carle ...") -printer and date unk nown. The unnamed "old Sussex singer" was Henry Hills of Lodsworth in Sussex, and this song was noted from him by W. P. Merrick in January, 1900. Frankie Armstrong se ems to have altered his text somewhat (and reversed the sexes of the participant s), so, on the basis that it's always best to go back to a traditional source wh ere we can, here it is as he sang it filename[LOWBROM2 MD  8note Sheet |
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