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I'm talking about this song:

For years now, I've tried to find a Wikipedia article on it, or any information at all. Oddly, I've been unable to. All I know is that a Swedish-language song "stole" the melody of this song. There's a brief mention of "the English folk song Monday Morning" on the Swedish Wikipedia page for that song, but it's not linked to an article, even in Swedish.

There is no mention of it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monday_Morning

How can such a famous-sounding and great song not have a Wikipedia article or even mention on that "disambiguation" page? It seems to me like it's almost on par with "Greensleaves" musically!

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  • You can add a Wikipedia page for it --the info @Angst found for you could be a start. Wikipedia is crowd-sourced, so the answer to "why isn't there a page for this" is usually "no one made one."
    – Chris Sunami
    Nov 30, 2020 at 17:56

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I believe it is the same song as Peter Paul and Mary's Monday Morning from their 1965 recording "A song will rise". The discogs entry for the single gives arranger rather than composer credits for the song to P P and M and their musical directory Milton Okun.

Arranged By, Adapted By – Travers, Okun, Stookey, Yarrow

, so I guess it is a traditional folk song.

Other (folk music) sources mention the song with different words and different names: which is kind of what happens with folk music. There looks to be more information in a scanned online copy of the "Journal of Folk Song", 1905, Number 6 Volume 2 where the song is referred to as "At the sign of the Bonny Blue Bell".
The words are a bit different, but the first lines, apart from the day, are pretty much alike :

"As I was a - walking one morning in the spring,
To hear the birds whistle and the nightingale sing

I heard a fair damsel so sweetly sung she,
Saying, "I will be married on a Tuesday morning."

the article mentions some other songs with similar tunes or themes, but also says :

The whole ballad, under the heading " I shall be married on Monday morning," is printed on a broadside by Williamson, Newcastle, circa 1850. This may be a version of the 17th or 18th century original.

Part of it runs :

" As I was a- walking one morning in Spring
I heard a fair maiden most charmingly sing,
All under her cow as she sat milking,
Saying 'I shall be married next Monday morning.' "

some other sources in this article, which mentions other performances of various versions of the song with different titles, different words: "Mainly Norfolk" website

  • Various: EFDSS LP Traditional English Love Songs. singer: Harry Cox:1953, album:1965
  • Frank Purslow and John Pearse : "Rap-a-Tap-Tap: English Folk Songs Miss Pringle Never Taught Us", 1960
  • Various: "Ballads and Songs of Tradition." singer William Harrison Burnett 1962, album 2000
  • John Goodluck: "Monday's Childe" 1977
  • Eliza Carthy: "Rice" 1998
  • Kieron Means: "Far As My Eyes Can See" 2006
  • The Foxglove Trio : "Like Diamond Glances" 2013
  • Rosie Upton : "Basket of Oysters" 2014
  • The Hungarian Group "Long Grey Beard and a Head that's Bald" 2017
  • Owen Ralph : "Chamber Folk" 2018
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