"Foggy Dew" or "Foggy, Foggy Dew" is an English folk song. The song describes the outcome of an affair between a young weaver and a girl he courted for some time. She initially comes to his bed because she is afraid of the "foggy, foggy dew" but it seems she often returned. Early versions of the song refer to her fear of the "bugaboo" rather than the foggy dew. It is cataloged as Laws No. O03 and Roud Folk Song Index No. 558.
"Foggy, Foggy Dew"
The song is a lamentful ballad of a lover. It was published on a broadside around 1815, though there are very many versions: Cecil Sharp collected eight versions. Burl Ives, who popularized the song in the United States in the 1940s, claimed that a version dated to colonial America, and he was once jailed in Mona, Utah, for singing it in public, when authorities deemed it a bawdy song. BBC Radio likewise restricted broadcast of the song to programmes covering folk tunes or the works of Benjamin Britten. The tune is a late 18th- or early 19th-century revision of "When I First Came to Court", licensed in 1689.
When I was a bachelor, I liv'd all alone I worked at the weaver's trade And the only, only thing that I ever did wrong Was to woo a fair young maid. I wooed her in the wintertime And in the summer, too And the only, only thing that I did that was wrong Was to keep her from the foggy, foggy dew. One night she came to my bedside When I was fast asleep. She laid her head upon my bed And she began to weep. She sighed, she cried, she damn near died She said what shall I do? So I hauled her into bed and covered up her head Just to keep her from the foggy foggy dew. So, I am a bachelor, I live with my son And we work at the weaver's trade. And every single time that I look into his eyes He reminds me of that fair young maid. He reminds me of the wintertime And of the summer, too, And of the many, many times that I held her in my arms Just to keep her from the foggy, foggy, dew.
A further verse, generally used as the penultimate one, is:
Twas in the first part of the night That we did sport and play And in the second part of the night She in my arms did lay When morning came, she said to me Oh sir, I am undone. Oh hold your row, you silly young gal The foggy dew is gone.
