I'll tell me ma
Text
(refrain):
I'll tell me ma when I go home
The boys won't leave the girls alone
They pull my hair, they steal my comb
But that's all right till I get home
She is handsome, she is pretty
She is the belle of Belfast city
She is courting one, two, three
Please, won't you tell me, who is she?
Albert Mooney says he loves her
All the boys are fighting for her
Knock at the door and ring the bell
Saying, oh my true love, are you well?
Out she comes, white as snow
Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes
Old Johnny Murray says she'll die
If she doesn't get the fellow with the roving eye
(Refrain)
Let the wind and the rain and the hail go high
Snow come tumbling from the sky
She's as nice as apple pie
She'll get a fellow by and by
When she gets a lad of her own
She won't tell her ma when she gets home
Let them all come as they will
It's Albert Mooney she loves still
(refrain)
I'll Tell Me Ma is a well-known nursery rhyme in English-speaking countries. In the refrain a girl is described who comes from Belfast , in some versions also from Dublin or other cities.
The chorus suggests that it is more about young children, as it describes pranks like “pulling the hair” and stealing a comb. The stanzas indicate a slightly older age of the girl, as it describes how she loves a certain boy but keeps this a secret from her mother, as she introduces herself to someone else for her daughter.
The origin of the melody and the lyrics are unknown. It was collected by Alice Bertha Gomme in England and Ireland, 1890-1894.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Alice Bertha Gomme: The traditional games of England, Scotland and Ireland: with tunes, singing rhymes and methods of playing according to the variants extant and recorded in different parts of the kingdom . Nutt, London 1894, 1898, p. 387, ISBN 978-0500273166 .