Barbara Allen (song)

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

"Barbara Allen"
Song lyrics published 1840 in the Forget Me Not Songster
Song
Published17th century (earliest known)
GenreBroadside ballad, folksong
Songwriter(s)Unknown

"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.

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]

  1. ^ Raph, Theodore (1 October 1986). American Song Treasury: 100 Favorites. Dover. p. 20. This folk song originated in Scotland and dates back at least to the beginning of the seventeenth century
  2. ^ Arthur Gribben, ed., The Great Famine and the Irish Diaspora in America, University of Massachusetts Press (1 March 1999), pg. 112.
  3. ^ "Late Junction: Never heard of Barbara Allen? The world's most collected ballad has been around for 450 years". BBC Radio 3. Retrieved 7 February 2016.
  4. ^ Roud, Steve & Julia Bishop (2012). The New Penguin Book of Folk Songs. Penguin. pp. 406–7. ISBN 978-0-141-19461-5.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Coffin - British Traditional - 87-90 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Keefer, Jane (2011). "Barbara/Barbry Allen". Ibiblio. Retrieved 16 January 2013.