Old Ties (1926 Uncle Dave Macon song)

Macon released Old Ties in 1926. Norman Blake recorded it 53 years later.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=old+ties+dave+macon

Macon is credited on Blake's album but I'm assuming the lyrics long predate Macon's 1926 song. Here are the lyrics:

https://lyrics.fandom.com/wiki/Uncle_Dave_Macon:Old_Ties

I have searched quite a bit and I found an 1883 book by Alexander C. Brasncom (Mystic Romances of the Blue and the Grey) that I can't tell if it's an account of real interactions or fiction (so the author penned these lyrics) but it has an exact main paragraph of the song that's repeated and says it was from an old Southern sentimental song called "The Broken Spell")

Vain, vain are the vows we have plighted

Would that we'd never had met

Love's a flower that blooms to be blighted

And the star of hope a rose but to set

https://books.google.com/books?id=MzJAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA189&lpg=PA189&dq=vain+are+th…=onepage&q=vain%20are%20the%20vows%20we%20have%20plighted&f=false

Hoping one of you wizards can help me put this to bed as to where this originated as I can't very well say Macon wrote this now and this is eating at me now to resolve this.

Mark,

Good find.

The chorus in Old Ties was absolutely "borrowed from "Broken Spell". see page 189 on thge next link:

https://archive.org/details/mysticromancesof00bran/page/188/mode/2up

But if Macon wrote an original tune for it and adapted the lyrics his name can be added to the credits (as adapter).

But apparently in 1855 Thaddeus K Preuss already wrote (adpted for piano) this song.

https://www.loc.gov/item/sm1855.590980/

I didn't check if the tune here is the same.

JoJo greets

Thx Jojo...I had seen that other link to Preuss's sheet music but when I looked at the sheet music it didn't have that key opening paragraph of the song. So that 1883 book that referred to the Broken Spell's opening key paragraph that I was hoping to see on lyric sheets somewhere, maybe I could just say Traditional and just refer to all this..But I don't know how to refer to that book. Maybe it's just easier to say Traditional and move on? I only found Macon's and Blake's versions. But Macon's song is quite good actually.

While I have your attention, are you also good at the fiddle tunes?

This comes up when I search for song “Roses are blooming”. It is not the song I am looking for. Hit version is by Silva tones.

Quote from Peter Ward

This comes up when I search for song “Roses are blooming”. It is not the song I am looking for. Hit version is by Silva tones.

That song isn't on site yet, but seeing that it was also recorded by Doc Williams, I'll look into adding it.

Roses Are Blooming is now on site. I've found several additional versions that I will add soon.