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Soldier's Farewell

from Heading For Home by Peggy Seeger

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SOLDIER'S FAREWELL

traditional USA

Peggy first heard Soldier's Farewell while her mother was transcribing songs for the songbook American Folk Songs for Children. It was a three-verse fragment from the Library of Congress Folk Archive: AFS 1564B2 - 1565A, entitled "I'm Goin' To Join the Army," sung with banjo by J. M. Mullins and recorded in West Liberty, Kentucky, in 1937 by Alan and Elizabeth Lomax. In that recording it was a three-verse fragment which Peggy collated with other versions to make the one sung here. Other singers and other versions from Missouri (Belden and Randolph) and North Carolina (Frank C. Brown) allude to the Civil War as the setting for the song. Peggy has also recorded this song with her brother Mike on Rounder CD 11543, vol. 1 of American Folk Songs for Children. (Joe Hickerson, August 2003)

5-string BANJO TUNING: sung in the key of F; tuning: high A, low F, low A, C, F)

lyrics

I'm going to join the army
I'm going to volunteer
I'm going to be a soldier
Before another year.

I'm going to Pensacola
To tarry awhile;
Far from you, my darling,
More than a hundred miles.

O hear the cannon roaring,
See the bullets fly
Hear the drum a-beating
To drown the soldier's cry.

O stay at home, dear Johnny,
Make me your wife
If you go to Pensacola
They'll surely take your life.

They'll put you in the center,
There you'll be slain
It'll burst my heart asunder
To never see you again.

Let me go with you, Johnny
I'll travel at your side
When the war is over
Then I will be your bride.

No stay at home, dear Nancy
Lead a single life
If I do come back again
I'll make you my wife.

They marched him through the country
Marched him into town
He marched to Pensacola
And there they shot him down.

I'm weary of the fighting
Weary of the war
Farewell, my Johnny
I'll never see you no more.

credits

from Heading For Home, released October 7, 2003

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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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