There's More Pretty Girls Than One: A Song History

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"There's More Pretty Girls Than One" is an American lyric song of rambling and parting rather than a story ballad: its singer is a wanderer who ignores his mother's urging to settle down and consoles himself that every town holds more than one pretty girl.[1] The Traditional Ballad Index gives its earliest date as 1909, citing the Journal of American Folklore, and lists versions from collections of Southern Appalachian, North Carolina (the Frank C. Brown Collection) and Texas folk song, among others.[1] Because it is built almost entirely of floating verses, the Index's editors treat it as a close relative of "Danville Girl" and fold the "Goodbye, Little Bonnie Blue Eyes" texts into the same loose family, warning that almost any verse can end up attached to it.[1]

Young woman in a red bodice and full skirt seated with a letter, looking pensive

Winslow Homer, Life in Camp, Part 2: The Girl He Left Behind, color lithograph, 1864. Winslow Homer's sweetheart left at home, from an 1864 print series, shown for the song's parting wanderer; the lithograph has no connection to the song.

One early recording, made in Charlotte, North Carolina, on August 11, 1927, was the Carolina Tar Heels' "Good-bye, my Bonnie, good-bye," with Dock Walsh on banjo and vocals and Gwen Foster on guitar and harmonica; the label credited the two men as its writers.[2] Gennett cut a version titled "There's More Pretty Girls Than One" on April 11, 1929, and issued it on the Challenge label under the name Crocker and Cannon.[3] The Ballad Index lists further 1930s discs by the Ozarkers, the Prairie Ramblers, Riley Puckett and, as "Bonnie Blue Eyes," the Carter Family.[1] The Arthur Smith Trio, with Arthur Smith on fiddle and Alton and Rabon Delmore on guitar and tenor guitar, recorded it for Victor on February 17, 1936, for release on Bluebird.[4] The trio returned with a "Part 2" a year later in Charlotte, and the Index lists a 1938 answer record by the same trio and a 1938 "Part 3" by Howard Dixon and Frank Gerald.[5][1]

Woody Guthrie later recorded it as "More Pretty Gals," and it appears in the songbook of the revival band the New Lost City Ramblers.[1] It is one of 38 song files in Maureen Sellers's Simply Duets, published by Fingers Of Steel, where it is arranged as melody and harmony parts for mountain dulcimer duet in DAD tuning.[6]

Our book that contains the song "There's More Pretty Girls Than One"

Sources

  1. The Traditional Ballad Index: "More Pretty Girls Than One".
  2. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor matrix BVE-39793. Good-bye, my Bonnie, good-bye / Carolina Tar Heels".
  3. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Challenge 423 (10-in.)".
  4. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor matrix BS-99189. There's more pretty girls than one / Arthur Smith Trio".
  5. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor matrix BS-07099. There's more pretty girls than one, part 2 / Arthur Smith Trio".
  6. Fingers Of Steel: "Maureen Sellers, Simply Duets".
  7. Image: Winslow Homer, Life in Camp, Part 2: The Girl He Left Behind, color lithograph, 1864. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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