> Eliza Carthy > Songs > Waking Dreams

The Drowsy Sleeper / Arise Arise / Awake Awake / Silver Dagger / Waking Dreams

[ Roud 22620 , 22621 ; Master title: The Drowsy Sleeper I ; Laws M4 ; Henry H722 ; Ballad Index LM04 ; VWML CJS2/9/2333 , CJS2/10/1891 ; DT SILVDAG , SILVDAG4 ; Mudcat 17334 , 160090 ; trad.]

Steve Roud catalogues most of the English versions of this song as Roud 22620 and the American versions as Roud 22621.

Hedy West sang Drowsy Sleeper in 1963 on her eponymous Vanguard album, Hedy West. She noted:

Grandma and Uncle Gus learned Drowsy Sleeper from Virge West while he was courting their older sister, Molly. I have supplied a segment of the third verse, which was incomplete when I learned it.

Peggy Seeger and Tom Paley sang Who’s That Knocking at My Window? (The Drowsy Sleeper) on their 1965 album Who’s Going to Shoe Your Pretty Little Foot?.

John Wright sang Awake, Awake, You Drowsy Sleeper in 1978 on his Topic album Unaccompanied. He noted:

Awake, Awake You Drowsy Sleeper is from the Sharp manuscripts, no 1309, collected from Jack Barnard, Bridgewater, 4/4/07. There is a French song that begins Reveillez-vous belle endormie which is also about elopement, has the same poetic metre and, most surprising of all, is found with almost the same tune as that used here.

Maggie Boyle sang Silver Dagger in 1992 on her and Steve Tilston’s album Of Moor and Mesa. They noted:

This song is most certainly the victim/beneficiary of folk-song tradition. Apparently derived from the English song Go From My Window, this Appalachian version is adapted here once more by the inclusion of a verse written by Steve.

Steve Tilston’s daughter Martha Tilston sang Silver Dagger on her 2006 album Of Milkmaids & Architects.

Maddie Southorn sang Who Is At My Window Weeping? in 2005 on her Fellside CD The Pilgrim Soul. She noted that

This is a Canadian variant of The Drowsy Sleeper and is well known throughout the US and Canada.

The Devil’s Interval (Emily Portman, Lauren McCormick and Jim Causley) sang Silver Dagger in 2006 on their WildGoose album Blood and Honey. They noted:

We like to name our own sources unlike Dolly Parton, our source for this song, who failed to name her own source… Of course one can have too many condiments! It features on Dolly’s album The Grass Is Blue, but there are many other versions of this widely collected traditional song, also known as Arise Arise.

This video shows them rehearsing in April 2015:

Josienne Clarke sang The Silver Dagger in 2011 on her and Ben Walker’s CD The Seas Are Deep.

Bryony Griffith sang Arise Arise on her and Will Hampson’s 2011 CD Lady Diamond, followed by the tune The Rowling Hornpipe. They noted:

Known as Drowsy Sleeper from the book The Seeds of Love compiled by Stephen Sedley. The Rowling Hornpipe from the Joseph Kershaw MS The Music of a 19^th Century Saddleworth Fiddle Player published by INWAC.

Fay Hield and Nancy Kerr sang Awake Awake on the Full English’s eponymous 2013 Topic CD, The Full English. Fay noted:

Awake, Awake appears in many versions from England to the Appalachians, with a similar first verse, but from there they diverge and have different shaped tunes. Typically the father sends the lover away and his daughter pines, often to death. I have built this version from various texts, changing the tune and altered the ending to have him turning tail and she wishing him to return even if he is a bit of a cad. Controversial and callous treatment of a sacred text or the folk process at work? Discuss!

Eliza Carthy sang Waking Dreams, a version of Awake Awake collected from Marina Russell of Weymouth in 1907 by Henry Hammond, on her and Martin Carthy’s 2014 duo album, The Moral of the Elephant. She noted:

The original comes from Marina Russell of Dorset, words and tune. I started to add bits of other songs years ago, and finally settled on this as we were recording. It’s a song about loneliness for me, watching the world turn without you and the shock of suddenly being left behind in the dark, when you had just grown used to the lights being on again. The universe so often has different plans for us than we imagine for ourselves, even—or perhaps especially—when we’re too busy getting by to dream.

Marion Fleetwood sang Silver Dagger on her 2015 CD Holding Space.

Burd Ellen sang Awake Awake on their 2019 CD Silver Came. Debbie Armour noted:

On the perennial but pertinent subject of the persistent man. This is an American tune in the Silver Dagger song family. Suzannah Park learned it from her granny and was kind enough to share it with the world.

Amy and Gavin Davenport sang Drowsy Sleeper on their 2019 CD A Boat of Promises. They noted:

Silver Dagger is perhaps the best-known version of this song, itself really just a collection of floating verses. We’ve cherry picked a few here. Folk music in Liverpool always has had on foot in the Atlantic and Amy has sung a version of it for many years, learned from the Green Moose’s very own Silkie Hamilton.

Lucy Farrell sang Awake Awake in 2020 on her and Andrew Waite’s CD Calm the Lions.

Gigspanner Big Band sang Awake Awake in 2020 on their CD Natural Invention. They noted:

This song is taken from Cecil Sharp’s English Folk Songs From the Southern Appalachians. The tune at the end, Ellen Smith, was found in unpublished extra notes from the collection, in the archive at Cecil Sharp House, London. Handwritten next to the notation was the comment, “played by two youths, the one playing the air on the fiddle (con-sordini, i.e. by hinging over clasp knife with partially opened blade on the bridge), accompanied by the other with arpeggios on the banjo. The thing was very skilfully played, plumb in tune, and its constant repetition had a quasi-hypnotic effect on me and apparently also on the players…” (Cecil Sharp, manuscript notes, 30 July 1917).

Bella Hardy sang Awake Awake on her 2022 CD Love Songs. She noted:

The tune and first verse were half-remembered from the singing of Elisbeth LaPrelle; the words are from Maggie Boyle’s singing of Silver Dagger.

Thomm Jutz sang Awake! Awake!, as collected from Mary Sands of Allanstand, Northern Carolina, on 1 August 1916 by Cecil Sharp [VWML CJS2/9/2333] , in 2023 on Martin Simpson’s and his Topic album of songs collected from Mary Sands and Jane Gentry, Nothing But Green Willow.

Lyrics

Maggie Boyle sings Silver Dagger

Oh, don’t sing love songs, you’ll wake my mother,
She’s sleeping here, right by my side.
And in her right hand, a silver dagger,
She says that I can’t be your bride.

All men are false, says my mother,
They tell you wicked, loving lies.
And in the next breath they’ll court another,
They’ll leave you ere the sun does rise.

My daddy is a handsome devil,
He has a chain five miles long.
On every link a heart does dangle
Of another maid he’s loved and wronged.

Oh then go home to your own garden,
Oh then go home, return no more.
No other man may come a-courting,
No other lover cross my door.

(repeat first verse)

The Devil’s Interval sing Silver Dagger

Don’t sing love songs, you’ll wake my mother,
She’s sleeping here, right by my side.
In her right hand is a silver dagger,
She says that I can’t be your bride.

Young men are false, so says my mother,
They tell you wicked, loving lies.
And then they’ll go and court some other,
Leave you alone to pine and cry.

My daddy is a handsome devil,
He’s got a chain that’s five miles long.
On every link a heart does dangle
Of another maid he’s loved and wronged.

Go court another tender maiden
In hopes that she might be your wife.
For I’ve been warned, so I’ve decided
To sleep alone all of my life.

(repeat first verse)

Bryony Griffith sings Arise, Arise

“Arise, arise, my drowsy sleeper,
Awake, awake, it’s almost day.
Oh come unto your bedroom window
And hear what your true love does say.”

“Begone, begone, you’ll awake my mother,
My father too will quickly hear;
Go tell your tale unto another
And whisper softly all in her ear.”

“Oh then, oh then, go ask your father,
If he’ll consent you my bride to be.
If he denies you, come and tell me
And it’s the last time I’ll visit thee.”

“My father’s in his chamber, writing,
And noting down on his merchandise,
And in his hand he holds a letter
And it speaks much of your dispraise.”

“To my dispraise, love, to my dispraise, love,
To my dispraise, love, how can it be?
I have never slighted, nor yet denied you
Until this night you’ve denied of me.

“Oh then, oh then, go ask your mother
If she’ll consent you my bride to be.
If she denies you, come and tell me
And it’s the last time I’ll visit thee.”

“My mother’s in her chamber sleeping,
And words of love she will not hear,
Go tell your tale unto another
And whisper softly all in her ear.”

“The fish shall fly, the sea run dry, love,
The rocks shall melt all in the sun;
And the labouring man shall forget his labour,
Before that I shall return again.”

The Full English sing Awake, Awake

Awake, awake, you drowsy sleeper,
Awake, awake, it is dawn of day.
How can you lie there so long in sleeping
Since you have stolen my heart away?
Awake, awake, it is dawn of day.
How can you lie there so long in sleeping
Since you have stolen my heart away?

Be gone, be gone, you will wake my father,
My mother she will you quickly hear.
Go tell your tales to some other lover
And whisper softly all in her ear.
Awake, awake, it is dawn of day.
Go tell your tales to some other lover
And whisper softly all in her ear.

I won’t be gone for I have no other,
You are the girl I do much admire.
’Tis I my dear who do love you deeply
And thoughts of love that have brought me here.
Awake, awake, it is dawn of day.
’Tis I my dear who do love you deeply
And thoughts of love that have brought me here.

The old man heard the young couple talking,
So nimble he stepped out from his bed.
He put his head to the bedroom window,
Young Johnny dear, he has turned and fled.
Awake, awake, it is dawn of day.
He put his head to the bedroom window,
Young Johnny dear, he has turned and fled.

So much for love and the valiant hearted,
So much for faithful and strong young men.
I’ll turn my bed on the morrow morning
And call young Johnny return again.
Awake, awake, it is dawn of day.
I’ll turn my bed on the morrow morning
And call young Johnny return again.

Eliza Carthy sings Waking Dreams

Awake, awake, you drowsy traitor,
Awake, arise, it’s almost day.
How can you sleep such treacherous slumbers
When you have all my heart away?

You learned my secrets, warmed in comfort
But left me cold now so it seems.
You left me lying, prone to crying
And beset my waking dreams.

Farewell my friends, farewell my family,
Now I am bound while he goes free.
I will go down to those far white mountains
Where the air is thin and you cannot see.

I thought I heard your voice a-shouting,
I thought I heard you loud and clear.
But it was just a faithless echo
And you were nothing that I could call dear.

I loved his face, I loved his body,
I loved his voice when he sang with me.
And every day brought port and brandy
To toast his name in a glass or three.

Now take my heart, I do not need it.
I’m through with love, I’m safe alone.
And I ’ll sit here on my white mountain
And watch your beauty turn to stone.