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The Single Man's Warning / Be Careful in Choosing a Wife

[ Roud 4744 ; Ballad Index ReSh095 ; VWML HAM/4/25/9 ; Bodleian Roud 4744 ; trad.]

The Young Tradition sang The Single Man's Warning in 1967 on their second album, So Cheerfully Round. Heather Wood noted:

When prowling round Cecil Sharp House I discovered that they have all the Sharp Manuscripts on microfilm. It's a tiring process—his writing is somewhat illegible and the cracks on the film become confused with the lines on which the music is writ—but it can be rewarding. The Single Man's Warning is from this source. It was collected in 1903 from Tom Sprachlan of Hambridge, Somerset [ Roud S251887 ; VWML HAM/4/25/9 ; Bodleian Roud S251887 ]. I think Tom must have had matrimonial problems; several of his songs are on this theme. This was a song I thought to sing as a solo, but it was not to be. One of the trials of being in a group, I suppose.

Sharp found no other versions, and did not publish the song; the text first appeared in James Reeves' The Idiom of the People (1958).

Paul Sartin sang Be Careful in Choosing a Wife in 2008 on Belshazzar's Feast's WildGoose CD The Food of Love. Their source is Edith Sartin from Corscombe, Dorset, collected by H.E.D. Hammond in July 1906 [ VWML HAM/4/25/9 ] .

Compare to this Martin Carthy's I Was a Young Man and Tony Rose's longer version Poor Man's Sorrow. (Roud 1572).

Lyrics

Tom Sprachlan sings The Single Man's Warning	The Young Tradition sing The Single Man's Warning
Come all you young men that are going to be wed Don't be trapped like a bird with a small bit of bread I'd have you be careful in choosing of a wife O, for when you are trapped you remember it through life With fol di diddle di do, fol di diddle day.	Come all you young men that are going to be wed: Don't be caught like a bird with a small piece of bread. I will have you be careful in choosing a wife For when you are trapped you'll remember it through life. Right fol di diddle di do, fol di diddle day
O when that you are wed and a squaller it is born A poor man may work his fingers to the bone He hears a midwife and a nurse, and a gossiping crew And a poor man can hardly pull himself through With fol … (chorus after each verse)	O when you are wed and a squaller is born A poor man may work his fingers to the bone. He hears a midwife and a nurse, and a gossiping crew And a poor man can hardly pull himself through. Right fol … (chorus after each verse)
When I go home to breakfast, to breakfast at eight The devil of a spark of a fire in the grate And the turk of a sign of a breakfast for me And my wife she lay a-snoring like a pig all in the stye	When I come home to breakfast, to breakfast at eight, There's the devil of a spark of a fire in the grate And the turk of a sign of a breakfast for me And my wife she lies a-snoring like a pig in the sty.
If I asked her to rise, she'd fly in a pet And bawl out by God there's time enough yet Get the breakfast thee self and be off to thee work Don't bide here for to idle and lurk.	If I asked her to rise, she will fly in a pet And bawl out, “By God, well, there's time enough yet. Get your breakfast yourself and be off to your work And don't just bide here for to idle and lurk.”
When dinner time come to home I repair And a hundred to one if I find my wife there She's gossipin' about with the child upon her knee And the turk of a sign of a dinner for me.	When dinner time comes to my home I repair But a hundred to one if I find my wife there. She's a-gossipin' around with the child on her knee And the turk of a sign of a dinner for me.
When I go home at night sadly tired from my work When I open the door she'll let fly like a Turk Take the squalling young brat and get him off to sleep For all the day long no peace I can get.
O but if I should offer the job to refuse With the tongs and the poker she will me abuse And if these are the comforts attending of our life Good luck to the man that has got such a wife
And O if I could be but single again The finest of ladies should never me trepan Single I'd remain all the days of my life Good luck to the man that has got such a wife	O if I could be but single again The finest of ladies would never me trepan. Single I'd remain all the days of my life, How happy is he that avoided a wife.