Index of songs in
Come And I Will Sing You
Collected by Anita Best
and Genevieve Lehr
Published by
University of Toronto Press
©1985/2003. All Rights Reserved
(V)=Video
(Titles in parentheses are alternate titles)
Aspell And Carter
August Gale, The
Banks Of Sweet Dundee, The (Undaunted Mary) (V)
Betsy Beauty (Betsy, Betsy From London Fair)
Blow Below The Belt, The
Blue Wave, The
Bold Hawke
Bold Larkin (Harkin's Voyage) (Bull Yorkens)
Bonny Blue-Eyed Jane
Brule Boys, The
Buck Goat Song, The
Caroline From Edinboro (Edinburgh) Town (V)
Carroll Bán (Carroll Bawn) (V)
Champion Of Court Hill, The
Charming Blue-Eyed Mary
Charming Sally Ann
Chrissey's Dick
Come And I Will Sing You (Vx2)
Common Sailors (V)
Constant Farmer's Son
Dark-Eyed Sailor, The (V)
(Fair Phoebe And Her Dark-Eyed Sailor)
Dark-Eyed Susan (Black-Eyed Susan)
Dole Song, The
Drunken Captain, The (In Canso Strait)
Ella M Rudolph, The (Loss Of The Ella M Rudolph)
Elsie M Hart, The
Excel, The
False Limkin (Bold Lamkin)
Fanny's Harbour Bawn
Fishing On The Labrador
Florizel, The (The Wreck Of The Steamship Florizel)
Gallant Brigantine, The
General Rawlinson, The
George Alfred Beckett
Gigantic, The
Glen Alone, The
Glenora, The
Grá Geal Mo Chroí (Bright Love Of My Heart)
Grand Falls Tragedy, The
Green Mossy Banks Of The Lea, The
Gull Cove
Heave Away! (V)
Herring, The (The Jolly Herring) (V)
Hoban Boys, The
Hole In The Wall, The
Huntingdown Shore, The
Hush-Oh-Bye Baby
In Memoriam
Jack The Sailor (Tarry Sailor)
Jam On Gary's Rock, The (The Jam On Gerry's Rock) (V)
Jerry Ryan (Gerry Ryan)
Jim Harris (V)
Jimmy Whelan (Jimmy Whalen) (V)
John Barbour (Young Barbour) (Willie O Winsbury)
Jolly Jack Tar (Jolly Jack) (Yarmouth Town) (V)
Kate From Branch, The (Kate O'Branch)
Leaving Of Merasheen, The (Merasheen Isle Farewell)
Liverpool Pilot, The
Lonely Waterloo (V)
Lord Bateman (V)
Loss Of The Snorre, The
Lovely Katie-O (Cruel Katie-O)
Maggie, The (The Wreck Of The Maggie)
Maid Of Newfoundland
Maurice Crotty
Maurice Hogan's Song (Now I'm Sixty-Four)
McClure, The
Me Old Ragadoo (My Old Ragado)
Merchants, The
Moonshine Informer, The
Mr Costler
Murphy In The Cupboard
My Dear, I'm Bound For Canaday
My Good-Looking Man
O'Reilly The Fisherman (John O'Reilly)
Old Smite, The (The Wreck Of The Semmity)
Penny Fair, The
Petty Harbour Bait Skiff, The (V)
Pretty Caroline (V)
Pretty Polly (Creeping And Crawling)
Prison Of Newfoundland, The (V)
(The Prisoner Of Newfoundland)
Quiet Village Tilting, The
Ravenal, The
Red Rocks Of Bell Isle, The
Sailor Courted, A (V)
(A Sailor Courted A Farmer's Daughter)
Schooner Marion Rogers, The
Schooner Mary Ann, The
(Bound Down For Newfoundland)
Siúl A Ghrá
Skipper Dan
Soup Supper In Clattice Harbour
(The Buns Of Daily Bread)
South Carolina State
Southern Cross, The
Spanish Captain, The
Steamship Deane, The
Susan, The
Sweet Town Of Anthony, The
Taking Gear In The Night
They Locked Me Up In Bonavist' Jail
Thomas And Nancy
Thomas J Hodder, The
Tobacco Song, The (V)
Tobias Murphy And Tom Hann
(Two Vessels Lost At Cape St Mary's)
Trois Navires De Blé (Three Wheat Ships) (Vx2)
Union From St John's, The (The Wreck Of The Union) (Vx2)
Valley Of Kilbride, The (V)
Virgin On The Strand, The (Virgin Mary's Bank)
Water Witch, The (Vx2)
Waterford Strike, The
Wave Over Wave(Vx2)
We Left The Port Of Sydney
Why Don't Father's Ship Come In?
(The Ship That Never Came)
Wreck Of The Annie Roberts, The
Wreck Of The Christabel, The
Wreck Of The Danny Goodwin, The
(The Loss Of The Danny Goodwin)
Wreck Of The Riseover, The
Wreck Of The Union, The
(The Union From St John's)
Genevieve Lehr was born in Bonavista Bay, Newfoundland. During the 1970s and 1980s, she developed an interest in folk music, regional language differences and dialect literature. In the early 'eighties, she travelled around Newfoundland collecting songs and stories in the more remote communities where the old song making and singing tradition, which had been brought to Newfoundland by early settlers from the British Isles and Ireland, continued to thrive. She eventually graduated from Memorial University of Newfoundland with a B.A. in Linguistics and a partially completed M.A. in the area of dialect literature. Several years later she completed a B.Ed. and an M.Ed. from the University of Ottawa. Over the years, she has held jobs ranging from fish plant worker to research assistant to writing for the Encyclopaedia of Newfoundland under the hawkish eye of Joey Smallwood. She teaches part time in the public schools in Halifax and is working on a second manuscript, as well as on a collaboration of poetry and song. She has published poems in a variety of literary journals including TickleAce, ARC, and the Fiddlehead. In 2004, a chapbook, Design of Wings, was published by Running the Goat Press, St John's. Her first collection of poems, The Sorrowing House was published in the same year by Brick Books. ~ Courtesy of the League of Canadian Poets.
Anita Best was born in the small fishing village of Merasheen, in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland. Her ancestors came from Somerset, England, in the late 1700s and were engaged in the inshore and bank fishery until Merasheen was depopulated by government in 1968. On both sides of the family, there were wonderful singers of old ballads, tragic sea songs and comical ditties, as well as the occasional storyteller who gathered everyone around on the long winter nights. Anita married Young Pius Power in 1977 and went back to a small fishing village not too far away from where she was born - Southeast Bight. Pius's father, Old Pius, was a great singer and storyteller. So she added his songs and stories to her family repertoire whilst fishing with the Power family from a small schooner in Placentia Bay. In that repertoire were also a number of songs from Bonavista Bay and the French west coast of Newfoundland which she came upon while teaching school around the island. Influenced as a teenager by the folk revivals in England and Ireland, she was one of the founding members of what was likely the first "traditional-rock" band in Canada, Figgy Duff. She left the band after a short time to continue teaching and other cultural pursuits. She has followed careers in broadcasting, university lecturing and archiving around Newfoundland and Labrador, always returning to singing and storytelling when Fortune allows. After leaving The Bight in the 1980s, Anita studied folklore at Memorial University and settled in St John's again with her daughter Kate. She works from St John's as a university lecturer, ballad singer and storyteller, and also a heritage consultant with a specialty in cultural policy. She travels around Canada, in the USA and Europe in her storytelling and singing career. Currently she is working with bookmaker Marnie Parsons on a small hand-printed collection of songs by Placentia Bay song maker Peter Leonard, as well as a collection of five fairy tales as told by her late father-in-law.
