| This song is one of a genre of mock rustic songs in which the singer is a bumbling agricultural worker and the girlfriend, rather than being the dainty precious young things of earlier love songs, is also a plump simple land girl. These songs are often enhanced by being sung in mock local dialect. Others of the type include “Buttercup Joe”, “Down in the fields where the buttercups all grow” and “Farmer Giles”. This particular ditty was written and composed as “She’s Proud and she’s Beautiful” by George Bastow & Fred W. Leigh in 1906 and performed by George Bastow (1871-1914) and a full set of words can be found here. Despite its being written in 1906, the song did not come to the attention of folk song collectors until the 1960s. It seems it was widespread amongst country singers in the south and east of England, and probably sung more times than is reflected in the collecting records.
Notes by Gwilym Davies April 2020 |