> 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 ; Wiltshire 39 , 903 ; Mudcat 157768 ; trad.]

Sabine Baring-Gould, Henry Fleetwood Sheppard: Songs of the West Bob Copper: Early To Rise The Copper Family: The Copper Family Song Book Frank Kidson: Traditional Tunes

Ron and Bob Copper sang When Adam Was First 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 Created (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.

Andy Turner learned When Adam Was First Created from the Copper Family’s repertoire. He sang it as the 8 November 2022 entry of his project A Folk Song a Week.

Lyrics

The Copper Family sing When Adam Was First Created

When Adam was first created
And lord of the universe crowned,
His happiness was not completed
Until that a helpmate was found.

He had all things in food that were wanting,
To keep and support him in life,
He’d horses and foxes for hunting,
Which some men love more than a wife.

He’d a garden so planted by nature
Men cannot produce in his life,
But yet the all-wise Creator
Still saw that he wanted a wife.

Then Adam he lay in a slumber
And there he lost part of his side,
And when he awoke with a wonder,
He beheld his most beautiful bride.

In transport he gazed upon her,
His happiness now was complete,
He praised his beautiful donor,
Who had thus bestowed him a mate.

She was not took out of his head, sir,
To reign and to triumph o’er man;
Nor was she took out of his feet, sir,
By man to be trampled upon.

But she was took out of his side, sir,
His equal and partner to be,
But as they’re united in one, sir,
The man is the top of the tree.

Then let not the fair be despised
By man, as she’s part of himself,
For woman by Adam was prized
More than the whole world full of wealth.

Man without woman’s a beggar,
Suppose the whole world he possessed;
And the beggar that’s got a good woman
With more than the world he is blest.

George Townshend sings When Adam Was First Created

When Adam at was first created
And lord of the universe crowned,
His happiness was not completed
Until that a helpmate was found.

He’d all things in food that were wanting,
To keep and support him in life,
He’d horses and foxes for hunting,
Which some men love more than a wife.

He’d a garden so planted by nature
Man cannot produce in his life,
But yet the all-wise Creator
Still saw that he wanted a wife.

Then Adam he lay in a slumber
And there he lost part of his side,
And when he awoke with a wonder,
He beheld his most beautiful bride.

In raptures he gazed upon her,
His happiness now was complete,
He praised his beautiful donor,
Who had thus bestowed him a mate.

She was not took out of his head, sir,
To reign and triumph o’er man;
Nor was she took out of his feet, sir,
By man to be trampled upon.

But she was took out of his side, sir,
His equal and partner to be,
But as they’re united in one, sir,
The man is the top of the tree.

Then let not the fair be despised
By man, as she’s part of himself,
For woman by Adam was prized
More than the whole world full of wealth.

Man without woman’s a beggar,
Suppose the whole world he possessed;
And the beggar that’s got a good woman
With more than the world he is blest.