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About the Composer
Linda Tutas Haugen
Linda Tutas Haugen (Ephraim Bay Publishing)
Lily Monroe
Fun, empowering and loved by singers and conductors!
SSAA, violin and piano
A charming female warrior ballad with heroine, Lily Monroe, who is strong, proactive and courageous, this story re-examines the notions of gender and heroism. Fun, empowering and loved by singers and conductors! This is the fourth movement from Appalachian Love Songs – Women’s Reflections on Love, Loss and Strength.
Composer’s Notes
The ballad Lily Monroe, is also known as Jackaroe, Jack Munro, or Jack Went A-Sailing. The earliest form of Jack Monroe appeared at the University of Oxford around 1800. Cecil Sharp and Maud Karpeles collected 20 variants of this song in Appalachia between 1908-18, some of which had 17 verses! There are several melodies associated with these collections. This setting is based on a less common tune collected by Alan Lomax, and similar to a melody collected in Kentucky by Howard Brockway and Loraine Wyman in 1916. Also included in the left hand melody of the piano introduction of this setting, is a more common tune used later in the century. In the refrain, “Lay the lily o, O lay the lily o,” the lily flower symbolizes purity.
This text is unusual because unlike so many old narratives, the woman is not passively living in response to being a victim or controlled by others in their stories. (Jackie Fraser left for war because Lily’s father had threatened to throw each of them into a
dungeon unless they parted.) Lily Monroe’s strength and heroic action is unusual. Alan Lomax writes about this song: “To a mountain singer’s fancy, this British ballad might conjure up any war in history that had been important in her life, from the American Revolution to World War II.”
Two interesting facts related to this piece are: 1) there was a whole category of female warrior ballads that first appeared in the 1600’s which were popular throughout the early 1700’s and survived through folklore and songs to the present; and 2) there were
documented histories of women soldiers in Great Britain and Europe who fought bravely, some who reached high levels of command and received military pensions as early as the 1700s and 1800s.
– Linda Tutas Haugen
Text
There was a wealthy merchant,
In London town did dwell.
He had a lovely daughter,
The truth to you I’ll tell.
Refrain: Lay the lily o,
O lay the lily o.
Her suitors they were plenty,
And men of high degree,
Yet none but Jackie Fraser
Her true love e’re could be.
Her Jack, he went a-sailing
With trouble on his mind.
A-leaving of his country
And his darling girl behind.
She went down to a tailor
And dressed in men’s array,
And to the war department
She quickly went that day.
“Before you come on board sir,
Your name I’d like to know.”
She smiled in all her count’nance,
They call me Jackaroe.
“Your waist is slim and slender,
Your fingers they are small,
Your face it is too tender
To brave a cannon ball.”
“I know my waist is slender,
My fingers they are small
But it would not make me tremble
To see ten thousand fall.”
The drum began to beat,
The fife began to play.
Straight to the field of battle
They all did march away.
The war soon being over,
She hunted all around,
Among the dead and wounded,
Her darling boy she found.
She picked him up all in her arms
And carried him to town,
She sent for a doctor
Who healed his bloody wounds.
This couple they got married,
In happiness they dwell,
This story to their children
So often they do tell.
– Traditional
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Music from Linda Tutas Haugen (Ephraim Bay Publishing)
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