> June Tabor > Songs > I Love My Love

One I Love / I Love My Love

[ Roud 3612 ; Ballad Index ShAp190 ; Folkinfo 690 ; Mudcat 8182 ; trad.]

Jean Ritchie sang One I Love in 1965 on her Warner album A Time for Singing. She noted:

I have heard old people sing bits of this lovely sad song, mostly the first verse and the “Over the mountains” one, and there is one printed text in the Sharp collection, though with an altogether different tune. My verses, besides those two, come from my own indistinct memories and from my own invention, for, if I like a song very much, I won’t let it die just because it’s incomplete.

German duo Sperris & Wicca sang I Love My Love on rheir 2002 album Polyvonne.

June Tabor sang I Love My Love in 2007 on her Topic CD Apples. She noted:

Collected by Cecil Sharp and Maud Karpeles from Mrs Ellen Webb of Cane River, Burnsville, North Carolina on 21 September 1918. Sharp had written in 1917 “my sole purpose in visiting this country was to collect the traditional songs and ballads which… were still being sung there. I naturally expected to find conditions very similar to those which I had encountered in England when engaged on the same quest. But of this I was soon to be agreeably disillusioned. Instead… of having to confine my attention to the aged as in England… I discovered I could get what I wanted from pretty nearly everyone I met, young and old. In fact, I found myself for the first time in my life in a community in which singing was as common and almost as universal a practice as speaking.”

For a riveting account of Sharp and Karpeles’ adventures while song-collecting in the Appalachian Mountains of the south-eastern United States, see Mike Yates’ excellent introduction to Dear Companion (EFDSS 2004).

Lyrics

Jean Ritchie sings One I Love

All of my friends fell out with me
Because I kept your company.
But let them say whatever they will.
I love my love with a free good will.
One, I love. Two, he loves. Three, he’s true to me.

They tell me he’s poor, they tell me he’s young.
I tell them all to hold their tongue,
If they could part the sand and the sea
Then they might part my love and me.
One, I love. Two, he loves. Three, he’s true to me.

For when the fire to ice will turn,
And when the icy sea will burn
And when those rocks will melt in the sun
My love for you has just begun.
One, I love. Two, he loves. Three, he’s true to me.

Over the mountains he must go
Because his fortune is so low.
With an aching heart and a troubled mind
For leaving his love so far behind.
One, I love. Two, he loves. Three, he’s true to me.

It’s when I am awake I’ll find no rest
Until your head lies on my breast,
And when I’m asleep I’m dreaming of
My one, my dear, my absent love.
One, I love. Two, he loves. Three, he’s true to me.

June Tabor sings I Love My Love

All my friends fell out with me
Because I kept my love’s company.
But let them say or do what they will:
I love my love with a free good will.

Over the mountain I must go
Because my fortune is so low,
With an aching heart and a troubled mind
At leaving my true love behind.

The powers above look down and see
The parting of true love and me.
’Tis as hard to part the moon and sky
As it is to part true love and I.

When I have gold she has her part,
When I have none she has my heart,
And I gave that heart with a free good will
Upon my honour I love her still.

The winter’s past and the summer’s come,
The trees are blooming one by one,
And if my true love chooses to stay
I’ll stay with her till the break of day.