Fine Sally
This video of me singing ‘Fine Sally’ (7:27 - 11:09) back in October, 2020 (which is when I officially learned this song) was for a virtual library fundraiser. I also sing Awake, Awake (0:19 - 3:03) and Soldier Traveling from the North (15:21 - 18:12). I talk about this project and how much it means to me, my family, and my community in Part 1. Thank you Phillip Solomon for all the things!
aka: A Rich Irish Lady/The Fair Damsel from London/Sally and Billy/The Sailor from Dover/Pretty Sally.
‘Fine Sally’ is a ballad that I was familiar with but had never actually learned. In EFSftSA, our version of ‘Fine Sally’ can be found under ‘The Brown Girl’ in the table of contents. Upon starting to research the song, I found out that this is yet another ballad that branches off into two, each with many versions of its own. For non-academic, simplicity only reasons, I will deem one branch ‘Fine Sally’ and the other branch ‘The Brown Girl’. Each story is told from Sally’s perspective. In ‘Fine Sally,’ she is a rich lady from London but in ‘The Brown Girl,’ she is too brown to be worthy of her own true love. Both have tragic endings where one or the other of the lovers threatens to dance on the grave of their beloved. Ah, romance. Both ballads have a pronounced ‘broad side’ ring to them…a broadside ballad being one that was mass produced in the 16th and 17th centuries as entertaining little ditties for the common man. The tabloids of the day, you might say.
‘The Brown Girl’ is the sister song of the version I learned and feels like a different song altogether. It had such a fascinating story, though, and piqued my interest so much that ‘Fine Sally’ itself got a little sidelined for a moment. Just to follow that thread to the end, ‘The Brown Girl’ (Roud 180 and Child 295) is about a woman scorned because her skin is too brown. Her lover sends her a Dear Jane letter wherein he breaks things off. Then later he finds himself love sick and calls to her to come and restore him with her love. She laughs at his bedside and states that she will dance on his grave. Love it.
‘Fine Sally,’ on the other hand, is about a rich lady who scorns the advances of a young doctor. Sally pays for that decision later when she falls ill and he is called “…for want of a cure.” The rueful young doctor is the one who will be doing the grave dancing. As I have said before, for all of their enduring through the generations, ballads are malleable in the hands and minds of each ballad singer who chooses to belt them out. Though the stories are centuries old, they are still relevant, to be made current and fresh by each of us as we forge our individual links in the generations long chain. Each ballad singer who has passed these songs down had life experiences, social morays, religious beliefs, and community expectations that shaped which ballads survived and in what condition. Allow me to speculate here and say that perhaps the woman in ‘The Brown Girl’ was a bit too aggressive and the story evolved to attempt to be a bit more of a moral lesson for women.
One of the things that I ADORE about this project is that I get to listen to Mother reminisce about her past. She gets this faraway look in her eyes and describes everything in such detail that I feel like I am there with her all those years ago. I eat up these story telling performances put on just for me. We laugh A LOT, branch off into non-ballad singing topics, and speak about our ancestors like they are just passed instead of dead for a hundred years.
Mother learned ‘Fine Sally’ from Cas Wallin (One of these days I promise I am going to tell you all about how Cas, Mary Sands and us are all related) while sitting on the church steps near the old Sodom Store. The kids roamed in a pack in those days and they had all been sitting in the shade having a soda. All of the other children had gotten bored and wandered off when Cas offered to ‘learn’ her a ballad. She was intrigued because of its unusual cadence and Cas’ ability to hold uncomfortable notes. Of course Cas never had any true vocal training, but he was still the church choir director. Mother and I both enjoyed Cas’ ability to keep a solid beat but at the same time stress crazy notes and dance all around the tune itself.
Cas also told her the story of how Mary Sands came to be a ballad contributor to EFSftSA. Twice a year, Mary Sands and her brother Mitch would go to Greeneville, TN to sell vegetables and animals. Greeneville is about 31 miles from here and it used to take them two days of hard travel to get there. The pair headed out on July 31, 1916 and stopped to spend the night at Allenstand, which was a little less than half way there. Cecil Sharp happened to be staying there too, and she ended up singing ‘Fine Sally’ for him that night. On their return trip, they once again stopped to stay at Allenstand and on August 5, 1916 Mary Sands sang ‘My Dearest Dear’ for Cecil Sharp. Mother says she always loved this story because Mr. Sharp caught them by chance and in that moment decided the ballad singing fate of my mother, whose mother was being born at the same time she was singing ‘My Dearest Dear.’ Cecil Sharp later visited Mary Sands at her home in the community that was then referred to as Whiterock, near the Presbyterian Hospital. When he came back the next time in 1918, she was 8.5 months pregnant and only sang 3 to 4 more songs. She did introduce him to some of her other family members who also sang ballads. Mother found out a lot of this information from Sharp’s diaries. I was fascinated when I heard there were DIARIES, but mother says it is just a bunch of complaining about the primitive mode of travel, his overall hatred of foot logs, and, most of all, the terrible food. I KNOW he isn’t talking about biscuits and gravy or soup beans and corn bread!
I always loved this song because it was about a girl named Sally, and my best friend from kindergarten is named Sally. 40 some-odd years later, I still think Ms. Sally is mighty fine!