Untitled Document

Banjo made by Jeff Menzies

.John Gorka - Careless Love

Love, oh, love, oh careless love,
Love, oh, love, oh careless love,
Love, oh, love, oh careless love,
You see what love has done to me.

I love my mama and papa too,
I love my mama and papa too,
I love my mama and papa too,
I’d leave them both to go with you.

What, oh what, will mama say,
What, oh what, will mama say,
What, oh what, will mama say,
When she learns I’ve gone astray.

Once I wore my apron low,
Once I wore my apron low,
Once I wore my apron low,
I couldn’t scarcely keep you from my door.

Now my apron strings don’t pin,
Now my apron strings don’t pin,
Now my apron strings don’t pin,
You pass my door and you don’t come in.

Careless Love

Robert V. Wells in Life Flows On in Endless Song: Folk Songs and American History (Music in American Life) says, "Until 1880, when divorce became more acceptable, marriage ended primarily through death, or occasionally abandonment, so the choice of a spouse required special care. Careless Love could lead to all kinds of problems."

The story of the song, Careless Love, lies between the lines. "Once I wore my apron low" to the best of my knowledge means an apron that ties around the waist. When the woman narrator sings, "Now my apron strings don't pin," she's saying her growing pregnancy is keeping her beau away. Her choice was "careless."

According to Malcolm Douglas, in the Mudcat Discussion forum: "The tune is basically 'The Sprig of Thyme', and 'Careless Love' frequently includes floating verses familiar from songs like 'Died For Love'; so its antecedents are essentially British, though re-made in America with new stylistic influences."

In the United States the song can be traced back to 1880. Vance Randolph collected a version in 1948 that was learned in 1880. Alan Lomax says, "In my opinion mountain songs like Careless Love provided the mould into which the Delta singers poured their free, bluesy hollers." W.C. Handy writes about Careless Love and his composition Loveless Love in his autobiography, Father of the Blues: "Loveless Love is another of my songs of which one part has an easily traceable folk ancestry. It was based on the Careless Love melody that I had played first in Bessemer in 1892 and that had since become popular all over the South."

RECORDINGS: Dock Boggs, Delmore Brothers, Fats Domino, W.C. Handy, Lonnie Johnson, Brownie McGhee, Pete Seeger, Bessie Smith, Ernest V. Stoneman, Madeleine Peyroux, Wynton Marsalis and Eric Clapton


....Louis Armstrong & Bessie Smith, 1925	......Lonnie Johnson (1928)	.............. Blind Boy Fuller (1937)	.....................Lead Belly (1948)	..............Pete Seeger (1964)