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Joan Baez sings the British folk song 'The Trees They Do Grow High' from her 1961 Vanguard album 'Joan Baez, Vol. 2'. The song lyrics are in the video and listed below along with some notes on the song. [Vinyl/Lyrics/9-Images/WAV] The Trees They Do Grow High Singer - Joan Baez The trees, they grow high and the leaves they do grow green Many is the time my true love I've seen Many an hour I've watched him all alone He's young but he's daily growing Father, dear father, you've done me great wrong You've married me to a boy who is too young I'm twice twelve and he is but fourteen He's young but he's daily growing Daughter, dear daughter, I've done you no wrong I've married you to a great lord's son He'll make a lord for you to wait upon He's young but he's daily growing Father, dear father, if you'll see fit We'll send him to college for one year yet I'll tie blue ribbons all around his head To let the maidens know that he's married One day, I was looking o'er my father's castle wall I spied all the boys a-playing with the ball My own true love was the flower of them all He's young but he's daily growing At the age of fourteen, he was a married man At the age of fifteen, the father of a son At the age of sixteen, his grave it was green And death had put an end to his growing Songwriter: Traditional Song © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC [Lyrics from LyricFind] Wikipedia states: “The Trees They Grow So High“ is a British folk song. The song is known by many titles, including “The Trees They Do Grow High“, “Daily Growing“, “Long A-Growing“ and “Lady Mary Ann“. A two-verse fragment of the song is found in the Scottish manuscript collection of the 1770s of David Herd. This was used by Robert Burns as the basis for his poem “Lady Mary Ann“ (published 1792). The subject of the song is an arranged marriage of a young girl by her father to a boy who is even younger than she. There are numerous versions of both the tune and lyrics. In one set of lyrics the groom is twelve when he marries and a father at 13. According to Roud and Bishop: “Judging by the number of versions gathered in the major manuscript collections and later sound recordings, this song has been a firm favourite with singers in Britain, Ireland and North America for a long time, the wording varies surprisingly little across the English versions and the story is always the same, and these probably derive from nineteenth-century broadside printings, of which there are many.“ The words may have been based on the 17th-century wedding of Lord Craigston, John Urquhart to Elizabeth Innes and her subsequent marriage to Alexander Brodie in 1635. She was several years older than Brodie. Baring-Gould and other scholars note, however, that the ballad may be older, as child marriages were common in the Middle Ages.
