“Barbara Allen” is a traditional Scottish ballad; it later travelled to America both orally and in print, where it became a popular folk song. Ethnomusicologists Steve Roud and Julia Bishop described it as “far and away the most widely collected song in the English language—equally popular in England, Scotland and Ireland, and with hundreds of versions collected over the years in North America.” The ballad generally follows a standard plot, although narrative details vary between versions. A servant asks Barbara Allen to attend on his sick master. She visits the bedside of the heartbroken young man, who pleads for her love. She refuses, claiming that he had slighted her while drinking with friends; he dies soon thereafter. Barbara Allen later hears his funeral bells tolling; stricken with grief, she dies as well. They are buried in the same church, a rose grows from his grave, a briar from hers, the plants form a true lovers’ knot
Songs with Banjo from Harold Hagler
