I Had A Sister Sally Who Was Younger Than I Am (Don't Let Me Die An Old Maid): A Song History

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In this lament an unmarried woman recalls how easily her sisters found suitors and declares herself ready to wed nearly anyone, and the Traditional Ballad Index catalogues it as "The Old Maid's Song (I)" (Roud 802).[1] The earliest date the Index gives is a broadside of 1636, and it reports George Lyman Kittredge's view that the folk song reworks "The Wooing Maid," a seventeenth-century broadside ballad by Martin Parker.[1] The Index records versions from England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, and the United States, the Appalachians among them, and lists printed texts under titles including "Take Her Out of Pity," "The Spinster's Lament," and "Sister Sally."[1]

Wood engraving of a young woman seated at a window

Henry Wolf, Girl Reading at a Window, wood engraving, 1867–1916. Shown for its mood; it has no connection to the song.

Booklet notes to Ellen and Kevin Mitchell's 2001 album Have a Drop Mair, quoted on Mainly Norfolk, report that the collectors Baring-Gould, Sharp, Hammond, and Gardiner each came across the song in the first years of the twentieth century, and count four Scottish versions in the Greig-Duncan collection.[2] Peggy Seeger recorded it as "The Old Maid's Song" on Folk Songs of Courting and Complaint, a 1955 Folkways album whose notes describe the singer's plea to be married "out of pity."[3] Her version opens with a younger sister named Sally, while other singers gave the sisters names such as Kate or Jean.[3][2] Later recordings include those by Sandy Paton (1959), the Reivers (1960), Sweeney's Men (1967), and Steeleye Span (1996), and the Roud index files the song under the title "Don't Let Me Die an Old Maid."[2]

Aubrey Atwater includes it in Song By Song, Volume II, her tablature collection of traditional songs for dulcimer, with words printed for many of them.[4]

Our book that contains the song "I Had A Sister Sally Who Was Younger Than I Am (Don't Let Me Die An Old Maid)"

Sources

  1. Traditional Ballad Index: "Old Maid's Song (I), The".
  2. Mainly Norfolk: "Don’t Let Me Die an Old Maid / The Old Maid in the Garrett / Maids at 18".
  3. Smithsonian Folkways: "Folk Songs of Courting and Complaint" (Peggy Seeger, FA 2049, liner notes).
  4. Aubrey Atwater: "Song By Song, Vol. II".
  5. Image: Henry Wolf, Girl Reading at a Window, wood engraving, 1867–1916. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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