Blow the Candle Out

sung unaccompanied by Edgar Button

Recorded on “The Barley Mow” Songs from the Village Inn collected by Peter Kennedy, HMV E.M.I. 7EG 8288 Side 1, Track 2.

Duration: 2 min 26 sec.

Recorded under the auspices of the EFDSS.

The song has been in print since 1720 (see: D’Urfey Vol. VI, p. 342, The London Prentice) and has been widely collected throughout the British Isles and the United States since then. Cf. Legman Roll Me In Your Arms; Kennedy 396, no. 170, and note p. 426.

1. It’s of a young apprentice who went to court his dear,
   The moon was shining bright-e-ly, the stars were twinkling clear,
   When he went to his love’s window to ease her of her pain,
   And she quick-e-ly rose and let him in and went to bed again.
2. My father and my mother on yonder room do lay,
   They are embracing one another and so may you and I,
   They are embracing one another without a fear or doubt,
   Saying: Take me in your arms, my love, and blow the candle out.
3. My mother she’d be ang-e-ry if she should come to know,
   My father he’s be angry too, to prove my overthrow.
   I wouldn’t forfeit five guineas now that they should find me out,
   Saying: Take me in your arms, my love, and blow the candle out.
4. O when your baby it is born you may dandle it on your knee,
   And if it be a baby boy then name it after me.
   For when nine months are over my apprenticeship is out,
   I’ll return and do my duty and blow the candle out.7
5. Now six months they were over, six months and a day.
   He wrote his love a letter that he was going away.
   He wrote his love a letter without a fear or doubt,
   Saying he never should return again to blow the candle out.
6. Come, all you pretty young local girls, a warning take by me,
   And don’t be quick to fall in love with everyone you see,
   For when they’re in their prenticeship they’ll swear their time is out,
   Then they’ll leave you, as mine left me, to blow the candle out.

This version was recorded at “The Eel’s Foot”, Thebberton, near Leiston on the marshes at East Bridge, Suffolk, and is given by Kennedy 1984, p. 396 with notes on page 426.