We learned Come and I Will Sing You from the incredible band Nowell Sing We Clear (Tony Barrand, John Roberts, Fred Breunig, & Andy Davis), that toured New England for 40 years with a pageant of midwinter carols. Nowell Sing We Clear was one of our major early musical influences and formed an integral part of the tapestry of folklore and culture in which we were brought up (also, Lauren was literally brought up by Nowell, since Fred is her father).
Come and I Will Sing You is a holiday counting song, a best known through The Twelve Days of Christmas but including many other great songs such as Green Grow the Rushes-O, Stay and I’ll Sing, Children Go Where I Send Thee, and Jolly Old Hawk among others. This particular song was collected from singers in Oregon and includes several inexplicable items like “nine of them’s aunt Mary-Ann,” “eight of them are the filly shine white,” and “six are the six that never did mix.” Although even the more straightforward numbers sometimes can be a little confusing; one audience member thought we had sung “three are the three that sing badly” instead of “that’s in Bethlee.”
When we first sang our arrangement of Come and I Will Sing You for Lauren’s dad, he was quite surprised by the direction we had taken, with our driving groove and suspense-building bass lines. But he must have come around to our version, because when Nowell invited us to be in their 2019 reunion show, he suggested that we open the second half of the concert with it.
You can hear Nowell’s version of Come and I Will Sing You on their CD Nowell Sing We Four, and it is included in their songbook, both available at NowellSingWeClear.com
Lyrics:
Come and I will sing you,
What shall I sing you?
I will sing you one of them,
What shall be the one of them?
One is one and all alone
Come to me dilly, come a-dally, come a-dilly
Alone, and ever shall remain so
Two are the Chris-a-mas babes in green
Three are the three that’s in Bethlee
Four are the carollers at the door
Five are the oxen standing by
Six are the six that never did mix
Seven are the shiners up in the sky
Eight of them are the filly-shine white
Nine of them’s Aunt Mary-Ann
Ten are the ten command-i-ments
Eleven, eleven all gone to heaven
Twelve are the followers all in a row
