“I'll Be There, Mary Dear”
Description
A soldier bids farewell to his sweetheart, giving her a golden leaf to remember him by. He loses an arm in battle, but friends tell him him one arm is enough to hold her. When he returns home, however, he finds her dead and buried; he is heartbroken
Notes
The similarity to "The Girl I Left in Sunny Tennessee" is obvious, but the words and tune are different, and there are plot elements here that aren't in that song, so I separate them. Meanwhile, I'd give long odds this dates from just after the Civil War. - PJS
It's easy to see why Paul thinks so (I would have guessed the same thing had I not seen a recent article by Lyle Lofgren about the piece), but in fact this -- like "The Girl I Left in Sunny Tennessee" -- dates from soon after the Spanish-American War. (Lofgren points out that there is a reference to the soldier taking a "transport" back home, strengthening the ties to 1898.) Presumably the latter war re-inspired this sort of tear-jerker, even though the casualties were less than in the Civil War. Mostly because the war was shorter; the troops were often as ill-clothed, ill-fed, and ill-cared-for as they had been a third of a century earlier. - RBW
Recordings
- Richard Harold, "Mary Dear" (Columbia 15426-D, 1929; rec. 1928)
- Roy Harvey and the North Carolina Ramblers, "I'll Be There, Mary Dear" (Brunswick 234/Aurora 22032, 1928)
- Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers, "Goodbye, Mary Dear" (Columbis 14546-D, 1929)
References
- Rorrer, p. 84, "Goodbye Mary Dear" (1 text)
- Roud #12394
- BI, RcGoMaDe