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Song From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rosemary Lane "is an English folksong: a ballad ( Roud #269, Laws K43) that tells a story about the seduction of a domestic servant by a sailor. According to Roud and Bishop[1]
"An extremely widespread song, in Britain and America. Its potential for bawdry means that it was popular in male-centred contexts such as rugby clubs, army barracks and particularly in the navy, where it can still be heard, but traditional versions were often collected from women as well as men."
An adaptation of the song is known as "Bell Bottom Trousers".
One variant of the song begins with the words:
When I was in service in Rosemary Lane
I won the goodwill of my master and my dame
Till a sailor came there one night to lay
And that was the beginning of my misery.
The sailor seduces the servant and makes grand promises of money as he departs, but in fact he leaves her pregnant and alone to ponder her child's future:
Now if it’s a boy, he will fight for the King,
And if it’s a girl she will wear a gold ring;
She will wear a gold ring and a dress all of flame
And remember my service in Rosemary Lane.[2]
Variants of the song exist under titles including "Once When I Was a Servant", "Ambletown", "The Oak and the Ash" (Roud 1367), "Home, Dearie, Home", "The Lass that Loved a Sailor", and "When I was Young".[2][3] The song first was attested in a broadside ballad dating to between 1809 and 1815.[2] The textual history is complex, and verses have been added freely to versions of this song or borrowed into songs circulated under other titles by oral tradition.[3]
Home, dear home, and it's home we must be,
Home, dear home, to my dear country,
Where the oak and the ash, and the bonny birken tree
They are all growing green in my own country.[5]
For it's home, dearie, home — it's home I want to be.
Our topsails are hoisted, and we'll away to sea.
O, the oak and the ash and the bonnie birken tree
They're all growing green in the old countrie.
[. . .]
O, if it be a lass, she shall wear a golden ring;
And if it be a lad, he shall fight for his king:
With his dirk and his hat and his little jacket blue
He shall walk the quarter-deck as his daddie used to do.[7]
If you have a daughter, bounce her on your knee,
And if you have a son, send the bastard out to sea!
Performers who have recorded this song or one of its variants include Anne Briggs, Martin Carthy, Liam Clancy, Chris Willett,[3] Bert Jansch, Espers, Paul Wassif[9] and Rebecca Hall, Charlotte Greig and John Molineux.
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