“Still Growing” / “The Trees They Do Grow High”
<<<Back to page 2
Baezâs ends like Eriksenâs with the young husbandâs death, and no explanation thereof.  Several though include one additional verse, as mentioned above, wherein the widow takes comfort in the fact that sheâll raise their child into a grown man.  Take, for example, this version by the remarkable Fred Jordan of Shropshire.  Though the recording itself is later than Baezâs, 1966, the notes on the back of the album make clear that Jordan learned the song from his mother.  We hear as well yet another tone in his singing; more traditional for sure, and neither melancholy nor upbeat.
Lyrics for âThe Bonny Boyâ by Fred Jordan
Though there is the additional last verse, these are essentially the same lyrics as Baezâs. Â Take away the first verse and you basically have Eriksenâs set of lyrics. Â If we treat Burnsâs revision as an outlier, almost every example we can find â whether from Scotland, Ireland, England, Nova Scotia, or Connecticut â seems to match up with remarkable lyric consistency.
Coda â âThat put an end to his growingâ
To sum up, we have a ballad that seems to be at least three to four hundred years old, though does not depend on any specific historical reference for its currency. Â It spread widely and endured in the repertoire of traditional singers in England, Ireland, Scotland, eastern Canada and the United States, and even Australia. Â Further, it found renewed popularity among singers of the Folk Revival both in America and Britain, and it stays popular today. Where does all this leave us?
Itâs a mistake to focus on only one main reason for this songâs persistence and wide appeal. Â Folk Revival singers for example probably found something with which to connect in the character of the controlling father. Â Did the original writer paint him negatively on purpose? Â We canât know, of course, but it need not have been so. Â Though a man controls the woman in the song from start to finish, she does not suffer directly because of her fatherâs actions. Â In all versions she finds both affection and desire for her young groom, and rather quickly at that. Â Nature frustrates her by making her wait, and death ends her marriage.
That doesnât mean the song couldnât work for rebellious young men and women in the 1960âs. Â What may have been a simple fact of life among the gentry when the song was written could easily be recast by later generations as implicit criticism of controlling parents or patriarchy.
On the other hand, this may not be at all why the song remains popular today, in a world where parental control just ainât what it used to be. Â I know it doesnât resonate with me, at least. So what does? Â Obviously this is a love song as well, and no doubt this fact helped make the song attractive over several centuries and continents. Â I canât help thinking, though, that the untimely death of the young groom in the story is also a key factor in the songâs ability to endure. Â Again, I know such is the case in my own attraction to the song.
You may think that strange. Â I fully admit to being an odd fellow. Â Yet Iâve lived long enough now to know that this particular theme ranks right up there with love in capturing our attention across time, geography, and culture.
âAlas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancyâŚâ
In broadest terms, this is a song more or less from the time and place that produced Shakespeare. Â It allows a listener to become like Hamlet with the jesterâs skull, to see a friend or family member in the character of the strong bonny boy now gone before his time. Â Perhaps more to the point, it allows us to see ourselves as we move inevitably towards our ending.
How we deal with all that is as varied as the delivery we see in this song over time. Â Mix up parental control, love, and untimely death into a solid ballad and we get that perfect equation for what David Atkinson calls âinherent instability in meaning.â Â As my writing partner Ken pointed out to me in discussing the ballad, the lack of specificity with regards to the bonny boyâs death adds to that âmake it up as you go alongâ dynamic. Â Most of us no longer live in a world of high infant mortality, plague, or constant warfare. Â So one singer in one time treats it as a tragedy, another treats it as matter of fact, and yet another turns it into something almost silly. Â None of it is wrong. Â It can be perfectly valid with different meanings through the ages.
I suppose one way of seeing this song is that none of it matters. Â We all stop growing in the end. Â Why bother with all this old mess? Â For me, that way doesnât work. Â All of these songs matter to me, and the reason I keep writing about them is simple â the two best ways I have to face my own mortality are to write and to sing.
Thanks for reading and listening this week, folks!