Black, black is the color of my true love's hair, Her lips are something rosy fair, The pertest face and the daintiest hands I love the grass whereon she stands. I love my love and well she knows, I love the grass whereon she goes; If she on earth no more I see, My life will quickly leave me. I go to Troublesome to mourne, to weep, But satisfied I ne'er can sleep; I'll write her a note in a few little lines, I'll suffer death ten thousand times. Black, black is the color of my true love's hair, Her lips are sometimes rosy fair, The pertest face and the daintiest hands I love the grass whereon she stands.
Notes provided by Laura Prichard:
1. American John Jacob Niles (1892-1980) included a chapter on this song in his More Songs of the Hill-Folk: Ten Ballads and Tragic Legends from Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia (G. Schirmer, 1936), attributing the source as “Airy, on Troublesome Creek, Perry County, Kentucky,” (pp. 20-21) after transcribing songs learned from the Combs family. G. Schirmer also published Niles’ own arrangement of the song for voice and piano in 1950.
2. Note on this version of the text: The composer writes that his version of the the song “was composed between 1916 and 1921. I had come home from eastern Kentucky, singing this song to an entirely different tune - a tune not unlike the public-domain material employed even today. My father liked the lyrics, but thought the tune was downright terrible, So I wrote myself a new tune, ending it in a nice modal manner. My composition has been ‘discovered’ by many an aspiring folk-singer.” In December 1962, he wrote in a letter to Sing Out Magazine: “I was amused one time to hear a folksinger tell me he thought it was a ‘dirty trick’ on my part to have written the tune of “Black is the Color.” Personally I do not feel that my having written some of the most widely used songs in American folk music today should be held against me.
Text Authorship:
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by John Jacob Niles (1892 - 1980), "Black is the color of my true love's hair", 1921 [ voice and piano ], appears in George Crumb's Unto the Hills: American Songbook III [sung text checked 1 time]
Set in a modified version by Robert M. Abramson, Luciano Berio.
Set in a modified version by Anonymous/Unidentified Artist.
Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Laura Prichard [Guest Editor]
This text was added to the website: 2005-10-12
Line count: 16
Word count: 119