Wagoner's Lad

Wagoner's Lad (also known as My Horses Ain't Hungry) is a popular song, which first appeared without credit and without sheet music in a 1734 book, The Vocal Miscellany.

Description

Hard is the fortune of all woman kind...

A young woman is courted by the "boy from the wagon" of the song's title. Her parents do not like the boy because he is poor. He tells her that he is self-sufficient and is not ashamed of his condition, and announces that he will leave; she asks him to stay, but he refuses. She complains about the hard fate of women.

Other versions

This song, which barely qualifies as a ballad even in its completed forms, has spawned many derivative tunes; the best known being On Top of Old Smokey. However, some versions of this are very difficult to distinguish from Rye Whisky, as the two songs have many lines in common. Bob Dylan stated that the melodic structure of his song Farewell, Angelina was taken from an early 1850s Scottish sailors' song by George Scroggie called Farewell to Tarwathie: this latter song, in turn, was inspired by the old traditional tune of Wagoner's Lad.

Recordings

In the 78 rpm era it was recorded by Grayson & Whitter (as My Mind Is to Marry), Buell Kazee (Brunswick 213B, 1928), Kelly Harrell (Victor 20103, 1926, as My Horses Ain't Hungry), and Vernon Dalhart (Edison 52077, 1927, also as My Horses Ain't Hungry).