Palace Grand (The Sad Song)
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ballad
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
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Lyrics:
He came from his palace grand,
He came to my cottage door.
His words were few but his looks
Will linger for ever more.
The look in his sad dark eyes,
More tender than words could be,
But I was nothing to him
And he was the world to me.
There in her garden she stands,
All dressed in fine satin and lace.
Lady Mary so cold and so strange
Who finds in his heart no place.
He knew I would be his bride
With a kiss for a lifetime fee,
But I was nothing to him
And he was the world to me.
And now in his palace grand
on a flower strewn bed he lies.
His beautiful lids are closed
O'er his beautiful sad dark eyes
And among the mourners who mourn,
Why should I a mourner be?
When I was nothing to him
And he was the world to me.
And how will it be with our souls
When we meet in that spirit land?
What the human heart ne'er knows
Will the spirit then understand?
Or in some celestial form
Will our sorrows repeated be,
Will I still be nothing to him
Though he is the world to me.
This song is from the Ozarks. It appears in Vance Randolph's<br> Ozark Folksongs.<br> This version was sung by May Kennedy McCord, Springfield,<br> Missouri, May 14, 1934. Mrs. McCord learned it near Galena,<br> Missouri, about 1900. When Randolph recorded Mrs. McCord singing<br> this in 1941, she titled it "Lady Mary." Max Hunter, who also<br> recorded her rendition of the song, used the title by<br> which his mother had sung it "Palace Grand".<br> <br> This piece has no local title, but Carl Sandburg,<br> who heard it at Springfield, Missouri, in 1930, always called it<br> "The Sad Song."<br> <br> The origins of this song have not been traced, but it would<br> appear to be a sheet-music composition of the 1880s or 1890s.<br> Evelyn Beers learned it from May Kennedy McCord and has sung it<br> frequently. Joan Baez also recorded the piece; she learned it from<br> Randolph's text. It was also recorded by Cathy Barton and Dave Para<br> on their album "Ballad of the Boonslick".<br> <br> I learned it from the Joan Baez recording and The Joan Baez Songbook.<br>
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