Who Liveth So Merry

Who liveth so merry: an anonymous Tudor ballad describing a variety of working people.

The first mention of the song is in the Stationers' Register in 1557/8, when a ballad "who lyve so mery and make suche sporte as thay yat be of the pooreste sorte" was licensed to John Wally and Mrs Toy. The first surviving musical source dates from 1609, where it appears as one of the Freeman's Songs of Four Voices in Thomas Ravenscroft's Deuteromelia. The ballad remained popular throughout the 17th Century, appearing in a number of different printed sources.

Eleanor Cramer: Soprano
Richard de Winter: Tenor
Sam Brown: lute
Alison Kinder: bass viol
Tamsin Lewis: alto

Who liveth so merry in all this land
As doth the poor widow who selleth the sand
And ever she sings as I can guess
Will you buy any sand, any sand mistress

The broomsman he makes his living most sweet
With selling his brooms from street to street
Who could imagine a pleasanter thing
Than all the day long doing nothing but sing

And the chimney sweeper all the long day
He singeth and sweepeth the soot away
And when he gets home although he be weary
With his sweet wife he makes himself full merry

But the cobbler he sits and he cobbles till noon
He works at his shoes till they be done
And doth he not fear and doth he not say
For he knows that his work very soon will decay

The merchantman sails across the sea
He lies at his shipboard with little ease
He's always in fear that the rock it be near
How can he be merry and be of good cheer

And the servingman waiteth from street to street
With blowing his nails and beating his feet
He serveth for forty shillings a year
How can he be merry and be of good cheer

Who liveth so merry and be of such sport
As those that be of the poorest sort
The poorest sort whosoever they be
They gather together by one two and three

Images from
The Cries of London (16th Century), Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge
Jost Amman: Das Ständebuch, 1568
A pleasant new dialogue: or, The discourse between the serving-man and the husband-man, 1640