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Barbara Allen (song)

"Barbara Allen" (Child 84, Roud 54) is a traditional folk song that is popular throughout the English-speaking world and beyond. It tells of how the eponymous character denies a dying man's love, then dies of grief soon after his untimely death.

"Scarlet Town" redirects here. For the song, see Scarlet Town (song).

"Barbara Allen"

17th century (earliest known)

Unknown

The song began as a ballad in the seventeenth century or earlier, before quickly spreading (both orally and in print) throughout Britain and Ireland and later North America.[1][2][3] Ethnomusicologists Steve Roud and Julia Bishop described it as "far and away the most widely collected song in the English language—equally popular in England, Scotland and Ireland, and with hundreds of versions collected over the years in North America."[4]


As with most folk songs, "Barbara Allen" has been published and performed under many different titles, including "The Ballet of Barbara Allen", "Barbara Allen's Cruelty", "Barbarous Ellen",[5] "Edelin", "Hard Hearted Barbary Ellen", "Sad Ballet Of Little Johnnie Green", "Sir John Graham", "Bonny Barbara Allan", "Barbry Allen" among others.[6]

A servant asks Barbara to attend on his sick master.

She visits the bedside of the heartbroken young man, who then pleads for her love.

She refuses, claiming he had slighted her while drinking with friends.

He dies soon after and Barbara hears his funeral bells tolling; stricken with grief, she dies as well.

They are buried in the same church; a grows from his grave, a briar from hers, and the plants form a true lovers' knot.[7][5]

rose

The ballad generally follows a standard plot, although narrative details vary between versions.

Melody[edit]

A vast array of tunes were traditionally used for "Barbara Allen". Many American versions are pentatonic and without a clear tonic note,[9] such as the Ritchie family version. English versions are more rooted in the major mode. The minor-mode Scottish tune seems to be the oldest, as it is the version found in James Oswald's Caledonian Pocket Companion which was written in the mid-1700s.[32] That tune survived in the oral tradition in Scotland until the twentieth century; a version sung by a Mrs. Ann Lyell (1869–1945) collected by James Madison Carpenter from in the 1930s can be heard on the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library website,[33] and Ewan MacColl recorded a version learned from his mother Betsy Miller.[34] Whilst printed versions of the lyrics influenced the versions performed by traditional singers, the tunes were rarely printed so they are thought to have been passed on from person to person through the centuries and evolved more organically.[9]

(1940)

Tom Brown's School Days

(1951; released in the U.S. as A Christmas Carol)

Scrooge

(1958; Warner Brothers cartoon)

Robin Hood Daffy

(1958), sung by Claire Bloom.

The Buccaneer

(1974; short film[54])

Parker Adderson, Philosopher

's Oscar-winning The Piano (1993)

Jane Campion

(2000)

Best in Show

(2000)

Songcatcher

(2004)[55]

A Love Song for Bobby Long

The song has been adapted and retold in numerous non-musical contexts. In the early twentieth century, the American writer Robert E. Howard wove verses of the song into a civil war ghost story that was posthumously published under the title ""For the Love of Barbara Allen"."[51] Howard Richardson and William Berney's 1942 stage play Dark of the Moon is based on the ballad, as a reference to the influence of English, Irish and Scottish folktales and songs in Appalachia. It was also retold as a radio drama on the program Suspense, which aired 20 October 1952, and was entitled "The Death of Barbara Allen" with Anne Baxter in the titular role. A British radio play titled Barbara Allen featured Honeysuckle Weeks and Keith Barron; it was written by David Pownall[52] and premiered on BBC Radio 7 on 16 February 2009.[53] In The Hunger Games prequel novel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, characters from the Covey are given first names based on traditional ballads. The character Barb Azure Baird's first name is based on Barbara Allen.


The song has also been sampled, quoted, and featured as a dramatic device in numerous films:

via the British Library's Roxburghe collection

Late 17th-century English broadside printing of "Barbara Allen's Cruelty"

at Google Books

Scan of "Bonny Barbara Allen" in 1904 edition of Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads

at Project Gutenberg

Recording of "Barbara Allen" as performed by Frank Luther in 1928

Scan of "Barbara Allan" broadside printed in 1855

Contemporary sheet music for one version of the song

Online transcripts of Barbara Allen

Recordings for the ballad are also available at at University of California, Santa Barbara

the English Broadside Ballad Archive

can be found at Mainly Norfolk.

A list of performances and recordings of the song