Annotation:Pretty Little Pink
X:0 T: No Score C: The Traditional Tune Archive M: K: x
PRETTY LITTLE PINK. AKA - "My Pretty Little Pink." AKA and see “Blue Eyed Girl/Blue Eyed Gal,” “Blue Eyes Run Me Crazy,” “Fare Thee Well My Pretty Little Miss,” “Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss,” “Susannah Gal (1)/Suzanna Gal (1),” “Western Country.” American, Song and Reel. USA; Kentucky, southwestern Va. A driving banjo tune recorded in the 1920's by eastern Kentucky musicians. It was also recorded in 1939 by Herbert Halpert for the Library of Congress (AFS 02742 A01) from the singing and fiddle playing and singing of Franklin County, Virginia, musician H.L. Maxey. Halpert also recorded the song from the singing of Goldie Hamilton (Hamiltontown, near Wide, Va.) and Austin Harmon (Maryville, Tenn.), also in 1939. By the 1930’s the song was a staple in the repertoires of country radio singers such as Bradley Kincaid, Skyland Scotty, and Grandpa Jones, says Charles Wolfe (1991). See note for “annotation:Western Country.”
The title (as well as an alternate title) comes from a common verse set to the tune:
Fly around my pretty little pink,
Fly around my daisy;
Fly around my pretty little pink,
Your blue eyes run me crazy.
Lap dulcimer player I.D. Stamper, of Whitesbury, Kentucky, sang:
Oh, come, little pink,
Let me tell you what I think,
Been a long time makin' up your mind.
An' you do think
You're the prettiest little pink
That ever the sunshine knows.
But I truly understan'
That you love another man,
And how can your little heart be mine?
African-American collector Thomas Talley, in his book Negro Folk Rhymes (1922, reprinted in 1991 edited by Charles Wolfe), printed a version of the song that goes:
My pretty liddle Pink,
I once did think,
Dat we-uns sho’ would marry;
But I’se done give up,
Hain’t got no hope,
I hain’t got no time to tarry.
I’ll drink coffee dat flows,
From oaks dat grows,
‘Long de river dat flows wid brandy.
