Steeleye Span - Old Maid in the Garrett/Tam Lin lyrics
[Steeleye Span - Old Maid in the Garrett/Tam Lin lyrics]
Traditional
I was told by my Aunt
I was told by my mother
That going to a wedding
Is the makings of another well if this be so
Then I'll go without a bidding
O kind Providence
Won't you send me to a wedding
And it's Oh dear me how will it be
If I die an old maid in a garret
Now there's my sister Jean
She's not handsome or good looking
Scarcely sixteen
And a fella she was courting
Now she's twenty-four
She's a son and a daughter
Here am I, forty-four
And I've never had an offer
I can cook and I can sew
I can keep a house right tidy
Rise up in the morning
And get the breakfast ready
There's nothing in this wide world
That makes my heart so cheery
As a wee fat man to call me his own deary
So come landsman or come townsman
Come tinker or come tailor
Come fiddler, come dancer
Come ploughman or come sailor
Come rich man, come poor man
Come fool or come witty come any man at all
Won't you marry out of pity?
They say that the women are
Worse than the men they go down to Hell
And they're thrown out again
I was told by my Aunt
I was told by my mother
That going to a wedding
Is the makings of another well if this be so
Then I'll go without a bidding
O kind Providence
Won't you send me to a wedding
And it's Oh dear me how will it be
If I die an old maid in a garret
Now there's my sister Jean
She's not handsome or good looking
Scarcely sixteen
And a fella she was courting
Now she's twenty-four
She's a son and a daughter
Here am I, forty-four
And I've never had an offer
I can cook and I can sew
I can keep a house right tidy
Rise up in the morning
And get the breakfast ready
There's nothing in this wide world
That makes my heart so cheery
As a wee fat man to call me his own deary
So come landsman or come townsman
Come tinker or come tailor
Come fiddler, come dancer
Come ploughman or come sailor
Come rich man, come poor man
Come fool or come witty come any man at all
Won't you marry out of pity?
They say that the women are
Worse than the men they go down to Hell
And they're thrown out again