Complete Lyrics:
I never cease to be amazed at how few religious songs there are in oral tradition. In some areas, not a single religious song (as opposed to church hymns or Christmas carols) can be found.
But since we missed Christmas, I decided we had to do something for Easter. Casting about, rather desperately, for something found on this side of the water, I finally was reminded of The Joys of Mary, a song well-known in Britain but also collected several times in North America, both south and north.
The stress on Mary in this song implies that it predates the Reformation; only Catholics venerate Mary to this degree. And so it proves. The first references to Mary's joys is in the poem Marie Moder, Wel Thee Be. This poem, known in some fifty manuscripts, dates from the fourteenth century; the Rawlinson manuscript RL XIV #122 gives this text:
Marie, for thy joyes five,
Help me to lyve in clene lyve;
For the teres thou lette under the rode,
Send me grace of lyves fode
(Text corrected to represent Chaucerian dialect, as printed in Robert D. Stevick, One Hundred Middle English Lyrics. In modern English, this is roughly "Mary, for your five joys, Help me to live a clean life; For the tears you shed under the cross, Send me grace to live life well.")
The song itself cannot be shown to be quite that old, but Richard Hill took down a version around 1504. A. L. Lloyd, in the notes to the record All Bells in Paradise by The Valley Folk (the group from whom I first heard the song) mentions a fourteenth-century text, but I believe this refers to Marie Moder, Wel Thee Be.
As time passed, the number of joys tended to increase (to as many as twelve), but seven is the standard number. Indeed, the song is often titled Joys Seven.
The version I print here is (tsk, tsk) English, from the Oxford Book of Carols no less, but it's almost identical with the American version collected by Helen Hartness Flanders from Mrs. C. G. Erskine in 1939. (The tune is just different enough that I decided to go with the melody I know.) There is a rather different southern version in Alan Lomax's Folk Songs of North America, but - as happens much, much too often with the Lomaxes - we do not know the direct source.
Every version I've heard sung was performed a capella. The guitar chords shown here are what I forced upon it to get both melody and harmony out of one poor innocent little stringed instrument. If, however, you just want to play rhythm and let something else do the harmony parts, you can just play the first chord marked for each measure and ignore the rest.
Or you can do the song the way it was meant to be and sing it a
capella.
I'd love to hear some good bluegrass harmony here.
Complete Lyrics:
The first good joy that Mary had,
It was the joy of one,
To see the blessed Jesus Christ
When he was first her son,
When he was first her son, good man,
And blessed may he be,
Both father, son, and holy ghost
Through all eternity.
The next good joy that Mary had,
It was the joy of two,
To see her own son Jesus Christ
To make the lame to go.
To make the lame to go, good man,
And blessed may he be,
Both father, son, and holy ghost
Through all eternity.
Similarly:
The next good joy that Mary had,
It was the joy of three,
To see her own son Jesus Christ
To make the blind to see.
The next good joy that Mary had,
It was the joy of four,
To see her own son Jesus Christ
To read the Bible o'er.
The next good joy that Mary had,
It was the joy of five,
To see her own son Jesus Christ
To bring the dead alive.
The next good joy that Mary had,
It was the joy of six,
To see her own son Jesus Christ
Upon the crucifix.
The last good joy that Mary had,
It was the joy of seven,
To see her own son Jesus Christ
To wear the crown of heaven.
The titles of this song vary almost as widely as the versions; the New England text of Flanders and Olney (pp. 211-213) is The Seven Joys of Mary. In the Oxford Book of Ballads we have The Twelve Good Joys. The Oxford Book of Carols (#70, with extensive notes on variants) calls it Joys Seven." In Lomax's Folk Songs of North America, it is The Seven Blessings of Mary." And it is often seen on recordings as The Joys of Mary." For further references, see the books cited.
The poem Mary Moder, Wel Thee Be can be found as #46 in Stevick's One Hundred Middle English Lyrics. It has been printed in other collections of the sort, but under other titles.