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Love Is Teasing

from Love Call Me Home by Peggy Seeger

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Peggy says she learned the tune of "Love Is Teasing" from the influential traditional singer, Jean Ritchie. Jean sings it in her "high lonesome" Appalachian style but actually learned "O Love Is Teasin'" (her version of the song) in 1946 from Peggy Staunton, an Irish kitchen and dining-room worker at New York City's Henry Street Settlement. Jean, a young social worker from Kentucky, lived at the Settlement's dorm when she first arrived in the city. As Jean reminisces in an internet discussion on Mudcat Café (topical thread "New Book/CD: 'The Rose & The Briar'"), "we used to swap songs and jig-steps in the dining room after everybody else had gone."

The words of "Love is Teasing" resemble those found in three similar songs, "O Waly, Waly," "The Water is Wide," and "Down in the Meadows" and all of these can be traced back to the ballad "Jamie Douglas" (Child 204). In "Jamie Douglas," a bride has been falsely accused of infidelity and is sent back to her father with an aching heart. All of the shorter songs have whittled away the narrative over time leaving nothing but an emotional core. Various versions journeyed back and forth between Ireland, Britain, and North America, and singers often augment whatever verses they have learned with others from a common stock of associated "floating" verses. Peggy has done this here, giving her unique stamp to a universal emotion. Songs of this sort, in which narrative plays no role and emotions are conveyed through rich imagery, are called lyric songs and play an important role in British and American repertoire.

For further bibliographical reference and recordings consult:

The Traditional Ballad Index: An Annotated Bibliography of the Folk Songs of the English-Speaking World
www.csufresno.edu/folklore/ballads/K149.html

Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Resources
www.ibiblio.org/folkindex/l12.htm - Loviste

lyrics

05 LOVE IS TEASING

words and music: traditional USA
O. Love is Teasin'© Arr., additional words, music, Jean Ritchie. From the singing of Peggy Stanton (born Co. Sligo, Eire) at Henry St. Settlement, NYC, in 1947.

Love is teasing, love is pleasing
Love is a jewel when first 'tis new
But love grows older then waxes colder
And fades away like morning dew.

I left my father, I left my mother
I left my brothers and sisters too
I left my home and kind relations
I left them all just to follow you.

O, if I'd known before I courted
That love had-a been such a killin' thing
I'd have locked my heart in a box of golden
And pinned it up with a silver pin.

I never thought when love was a-borning
That it would grow wings and fly away
How many a bright sunshiny morning
Turns out a dark and a dreary day.

So girls, beware of false true lovers
And never mind what they do or say
They're like the stars on a summer's morning
You think they're near and they're far away.

Love is teasing, love is pleasing
Love is a jewel when first 'tis new
But love grows older then waxes colder
And fades away like morning dew.

credits

from Love Call Me Home, released April 26, 2005

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Peggy Seeger Oxford, UK

Peggy is one of the most influential folk singers on either side of the Atlantic. She is Pete Seeger’s half-sister and Ruth Crawford Seeger’s daughter; her first life partner was the English songwriter Ewan MacColl, who wrote First Time Ever I Saw Your Face for her. She has made more than 22 solo recordings to date. Please check ewanmaccoll.bandcamp.com for other albums featuring Peggy. ... more

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