Just Awearyin' for You explained

"Just Awearyin' for You" is a parlor song, one of that genre's all-time hits.

History

The lyrics were written by Frank Lebby Stanton and published in his Songs of the Soil (1894). The tune was composed by Carrie Jacobs-Bond and published as part of Seven Songs as Unpretentious as the Wild Rose in 1901. Harry T. Burleigh also composed a tune (copyrighted in 1906),[1] but it never approached the popularity of the Jacobs-Bond tune. Although Stanton originally wrote the lyrics in dialect ("Jes' a-wearyin' fer you") for a column in the Atlanta Constitution, the song has generally circulated with the more mainstreamed diction of the Jacobs-Bond version.

Sentimental yet artful,[2] "Just Awearyin' for You" has been recorded by numerous performers, including Elizabeth Spencer, Evan Williams, Anna Case,[3] Sophie Braslau,[4] Eleanor Steber,[5] Gladys Swarthout,[6] Thomas Allen and Malcolm Martineau (piano),[7] Johnny Hartman,[8] John Arwyn Davies,[9] Jane Morgan,[10] Peggy Balensuela (mezzo soprano) and William Hughes (piano),[11] Bing Crosby (1934 and 1945)[12] and Paul Robeson.[13] In 1934 Jay Wilbur and his band did a foxtrot rendition.[14] [15]

Set to the key of C, "Just Awearyin' for You" appears in Mel Bay's Modern Guitar Method Grade 6.[16]

Along with "I Love You Truly" and "A Perfect Day", "Just Awearyin' for You" forms the triumvirate of works for which Jacobs-Bond is remembered. A dedicatory phrase "To F. B." atop the musical score (on p. 3 of the sheet music) refers to her second husband, Frederic Bond.[17]

Prior to publication with her tune, Jacobs-Bond was unaware that the lyrics were written by Stanton; she thought them anonymous as indicated in the Chicago newspaper from which she took them. Once the oversight became apparent, Jacobs-Bond resolved the situation amicably with D. Appleton & Company, which had published Stanton's Songs of the Soil, thus providing Stanton with a royalty stream that by his own admission brought him more revenue than everything else in Songs of the Soil combined.[18] "Linger Not" and "Until God's Day" are two other songs on which Stanton and Jacobs-Bond collaborated.[19]

Notes and References

  1. See Professor De Lerma's essay Henry "Harry" T. Burleigh (1866-1949): African American Composer, Arranger & Baritone" which notes the tune for "Just Awearyin' for You" by African-American composer Harry T. Burleigh:

    Just a-wearying for you, for medium voice and piano. New York: William Maxwell, 1906. 6p. Text: Frank L. Stanton. Library: Library of Congress.

  2. The sentimentality of the lyrics has occasionally become an interest of analogists and parodists, as in Mark Steyn's 2007 May 9 commentary on Barack Obama titled "Just a-wearyin' for you" in National Review and . In a more serious direction Arthur and Rosalind Eedle have undertaken to revise the lyrics to cause "Just Awearyin' for You" to become a hymn welcoming Jesus Christ ("Just a Wearyin' for You" in Prophetic Telegraph, No. 99 [June 1997]).
  3. (accessed 2010 February 11), distinguished by Case's special attention to trilling the "r"s.
  4. (recorded by Columbia Records in 1928 June).
  5. (accessed 2010 February 11).
  6. https://www.youtube.com/videos?ytsession=uH-agNs9WnMg0xtADBqq3vnuSafwCs8NouU6jvY0wynATe_SQXJ-87jz7mWkEJpfoGCKo_cP9w9sqpwDmWpK33EEvaXaR_Sh8gKWwOkmpKupvirq0HX1gqTuzHaSODXvXcJDfrl5_r0ml0M50x8l_h5vDkT3XjW3EWKJG8shF_poEl1L9SyhbJDQlre-5S-cQclBhGlHa76sFFxj9FEiw9tj5eYA-gR5qWhqo2DL8eGhOXVMFZDQ_jeLzXo78L7oA3FeM8qYobr_58DFiz4-GENwrL9uGLAk-sDsOKfaJ3VvE-JAjK5HqmFdaMpS2bOYOHb1CNlMn_H5WGmdhZQ9PBJqGt3Xr_0Lu0xbancLuYHE2oSD6FhVPw Swarthout rendition removed from YouTube.
  7. http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Hyperion/CDA67374 Allen and Martineau rendition
  8. (accessed 2010 February 11).
  9. (accessed 2010 February 11).
  10. http://www.bing.com/music/songs/search?q=just+a-wearyin'+for+you&selected=22F17706-0100-11DB-89CA-0019B92A3933&qpvt=just+a-wearyin'+for+you&FORM=DTPMUA Jane Morgan rendition.
  11. Songs my grandmother taught me: Songs of Carrie Jacobs-Bond (Albany, NY: Albany Records, 2001), ASIN B000QWU5PW.
  12. Web site: A Bing Crosby Discography. BING magazine. International Club Crosby. July 28, 2017.
  13. (accessed 2010 February 11).
  14. (accessed 2011-04-04).
  15. Cf. the live [organ rendition and interpretation] (accessed 2011-04-04).
  16. News: Mel. Bay. 2005. Modern Guitar Method Grade 6. Expanded. Pacific, Missouri. Mel Bay Publications. 7. 978-0-7866-7760-3 .
  17. For further information see the article on Carrie Jacobs-Bond.
  18. Max Morath, I Love You Truly: A Biographical Novel Based on the Life of Carrie Jacobs-Bond (New York: iUniverse, 2008),, pp. 14-17. Stanton's name is absent from the frontispiece of the first edition (inset), but was later added above the score on page 3 of the sheet music.
  19. News: The music of Carrie Jacobs-Bond (1861–1946) . 2012-07-17 . 1999-12-13 . Benjamin Robert . Tubb. PDMusic.

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