Johnny Todd
Music File
John Renfro Davis

Information
Lyrics
This song appears in Frank Kidson's Traditional Tunes: A Collection of Ballad Airs (1891). Kidson collected it in Liverpool, England. Johnny Todd, he took a notion
For to cross the ocean wide
And he's left his own true love behind him
Walking by the Liverpool tide

For a week, she wept with sorrow
Tore her hair and wrung her hands
Till she met another handsome sailor
Walking by the Liverpool sands

Fair young maid are you a weeping
For your Johnny gone to sea
If you'll wed with me tomorrow
I will kind and constant be

I will buy you sheets and blankets
I'll buy you a wedding ring
You shall have a silver cradle
For to rock the baby in

Johnny Todd came home from sailing
Sailing on the ocean wide
And he's found his fair and false one
Was another sailor's bride

All young men who go a sailing
For to fight the foreign foe
Do not leave your own true love like johnny
Marry her before you go

Related Links
From The Digital Tradition Folksong Database
and Steve Round's Folksong Index