> The Copper Family > Songs > When Adam Was First Created (Old Adam)
Old Adam / When Adam Was First Created
[
Roud 728
; Master title: Old Adam
; G/D 7:1269
; Ballad Index GrD71269
; VWML HAM/5/35/23
; Bodleian
Roud 728
; Wiltshire
39
, 903
; trad.]
Ron and Bob Copper sang When Adam Was Fist Created on 2 February 1955 on the BBC recording BBC 21543 made by Peter Kennedy. Bob and John Copper sang it in 1971 on the Copper Family's Leader 4 LP box set A Song for Every Season. And John Copper and Jon Dudley sang Old Adam in 1995 on the Copper Family's CD Coppersongs 2..
George Townshend of Lewes, Sussex, sang When Adam Was First Creeated (Old Adam) to Brian Matthews on 18 February 1960. This recording was included in 2000 and in 2012 on his Musical Traditions anthology Come Hand to Me the Glass. Brian Matthews and Rod Stradling commented in the album's booklet:
With some 50 collected instances (the great majority from southern England), this song might be accounted quite common … but most are from book sources, and only four broadsides and three other sound recordings are known—all by the Copper family. The song was quite popular in the USA and Sharp heard it in N Carolina around 1916, and Greig found a couple of examples in Scotland.
Lyrics
The Copper Family sing When Adam Was First Created | George Townshend sings When Adam Was First Created |
---|---|
When Adam was first created |
When Adam at was first created |
He had all things in food that were wanting, |
He'd all things in food that were wanting, |
He'd a garden so planted by nature |
He'd a garden so planted by nature |
Then Adam he lay in a slumber |
Then Adam he lay in a slumber |
In transport he gazed upon her, |
In raptures he gazed upon her, |
She was not took out of his head, sir, |
She was not took out of his head, sir, |
But she was took out of his side, sir, |
But she was took out of his side, sir, |
Then let not the fair be despised |
Then let not the fair be despised |
Man without woman's a beggar, |
Man without woman's a beggar, |