History
The earliest known mention of the song is in Samuel Pepys' diary for January 2. 1666 (ed. Robert Latham & William Matthews, Vol. vii, London:, p. 1.) where he recalls the fun and games at a New Years party
"... but above all, my dear Mrs Knipp with whom I sang; and in perfect pleasure I was to hear her sing, and especially her little Scotch song of Barbary Allen."
From this Roud & Bishop infer that the song was "brand new, or at least in vogue" and was quite possibly written for the stage as Elizabeth Knepp was a professional actress, singer and dancer.
Barbara Allen's cruelty: or, the young-man's tragedy. With Barbara Allen's amentation for her unkindness to her lover, and her self, was published as a broadside ballad in London c.1690. However, it appears to have been well known before since the song was to be sung 'To the tune of Brbara Allen.' Further editions were printed in Britain throughout the eighteenth century, several of which were printed in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Edinburgh or Aberdeen indicating that the song was of Scottish or northern English origin. The ballad was first printed in the United States in 1836.
Read more about this topic: Barbara Allen (song)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)