Remembering The Old Songs:

DEAR COMPANION

by Lyle Lofgren

(Originally published: Inside Bluegrass, January 2005)

Perhaps the richest vein in traditional music expresses first-person displeasure over abandonment by a lover. Conventionally, if the narrator is male, the abandonee is confused or angered (or both) by the lover's inconstancy. That fits the old concept of woman as property. Conversely, a female narrator tends to dwell on past memories and sorrow over a lover that is all too constant: constantly missing, that is, often leaving only a baby behind as a momento that he once cared for her.

The abandonment songs seldom go into specifics, so they tend to collect verses from each other. That makes it hard to separate them into distinct songs. Some, such as The Wagonner's Lad, remain fairly pure. Others, such as the Fond Affection family, become quite muddled. This month's song is unmuddled, perhaps because it's a recomposition on the theme by a skilled traditional singer, Jean Ritchie.

The Ritchie family, from Viper, Kentucky, was a rich trove of Appalachian music. Cecil Sharp, the English folklorist, collected songs from Jean's aunts in 1917. Jean's sister Edna once recorded a song called Dear Companion that used a modal tune and a text I'd classify as Fond Affection. Jean, in 1963, wrote this cogent, poetic version and composed a clean tune to go with it. I had her recording of it once, but lost it somewhere. When I met up with the song again, on a favorite 1978 LP by the San Francisco all-female Any Old Time String Band (fortunately reissued as Arhoolie CD 433, I Bid You Goodnight), I learned it and have been singing it ever since without any self-consciousness about being the wrong gender for the song. If you're male and have a problem with it, it's easy enough to change "he" to "she," but then the form of the plaint won't fit the traditional mold.

In looking through my LP collection, I find two other slightly-variant renditions of Jean's song: Alice Gerrard & Mike Seeger (Greenhays / Flying Fish, 1980) and Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt & Emmylou Harris on Trio (Warner Bros., 1987). I'm sticking with my version from the Any Old Time ladies, particularly since I find I've changed the tune slightly in the years I've been singing it. Incidentally, the 8/4 time notation isn't a modernist affectation. I found I had fewer ties crossing bar lines this way, and it fits the poetic metrical stresses better.

[CLICK HERE FOR SHEET MUSIC (pdf file)]

Complete Lyrics:
1. Oh have you seen my dear companion,
For he was all this world to me;
They say he's gone to a far-off country,
And he cares no more for me.
Do you remember that day last summer,
The sun so high, the sky so blue;
The little birds all sang so sweetly
The day I gave my heart to you.

2. Oh have you seen my dear companion,
For he was all this world to me;
They say he's gone to court another,
And so he cares no more for me.
Oh, when the dark falls on the mountain,
And all the world has gone to sleep,
I will go down by the bedrock waters
And there I'll lay me down and weep.

3. Oh have you seen my dear companion,
For he was all this world to me;
But now the stars have turned against me,
And so he cares no more for me.
I wish I was some sparrow flying,
I'd fly to a high and lonesome place,
There join the bluebirds in their crying
Remembering you and your dear face.

CODA:
Oh have you seen my dear companion,
Oh have you seen my dear companion,
Oh have you seen my dear companion,
For he was all this world to me.


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