Fair and Tender Ladies
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
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Lyrics:
Come all you fair and tender ladies
Take warning how you court young men
They're like a bright star on a cloudy morning
They will first appear and then they're gone
They'll tell to you some loving story
To make you think that they love you true
Straightway they'll go and court some other
Oh that's the love that they have for you
I wish I were some little sparrow
And I had wings and I could fly
I would fly away to my false true lover
And while he'll talk I would sit and cry
But I am not some little sparrow
I have no wings nor can I fly
So I'll sit down here in grief and sorrow
And try to pass my troubles by
I wish I had known before I courted
That love had been so hard to gain
I'd of locked my heart in a box of golden
And fastened it down with a silver chain
Young men never cast your eye on beauty
For beauty is a thing that will decay
For the prettiest flowers that grow in the garden
How soon they'll wither, and fade away
One of the loveliest melodies from the Southern mountains.<br> Prior to the 1960s, the song was usually known as "Tiny Sparrow"<br> or "Little Sparrow". Some versions substituted "Swallow" for<br> "Sparrow". In more recent times, the song's title sometimes finds<br> "Maidens" substituted for "Ladies," and "Come All Ye" or<br> "Come All You" is sometimes omitted.<br> It has been recorded by Edna and Jean Ritchie, The Carter Family,<br> Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Odetta, Peter, Paul and Mary, The Kingston Trio,<br> Leon Bibb, Makem and Clancy, Emmylou Harris, Bob Dylan,<br> Dave Van Ronk, The Rankin Family and The Country Gentlemen.<br> It was printed in John and Alan Lomax's Best Loved American Folk Songs,<br> Alan Lomax's Folk Songs of North America and Sharp's English Folk Songs<br> in the Southern Appalachians.<br> <br>
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