Soldier, soldier won't you marry me
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"Soldier, Soldier, Won't You Marry Me?" (Roud 489), also known as "Soldier John" and "Soldier, Soldier," is an English traditional folk song.[1] Fresno State University gives the earliest collected date as 1903 in America, and it was collected many times in Tennessee and North Carolina in the early 1900s.[2] It was printed in "Games and Songs of American Children" by William Wells Newell. However the song was collected many times over in a short period of time, including Cecil Sharp in 1917, Anne Gilchrist in Scotland in 1919 and Seamus Ennis in Ireland.[3][4] Among many classical arrangements, Peter Pears made an arrangement of the song in 1936.[5]
The song concerns a woman seeking marriage of a soldier, who demurs for want of proper apparel (hat, coat, boots, etc.). She proceeds to fetch him, from her grandfather's chest, each article he asks for, one by one, in each respective verse. At the end, asked once again to marry her, the soldier, all dressed in her grandfather's clothing, refuses once more, revealing that he is already married.
