The Foggy, Foggy Dew

You’re listening to one of the many English folk ballads brought to American shores, and

You’re on the Sound Beat

Those young drifters; Seems they’d use anything to get a fair maiden to their bed. In this case it was the Foggy, Foggy Dew. Carl Sandburg recorded this version in 1937, one of the songs he collected for his seminal work, The American Songbag.

In almost hilarious contrast to lyrics found on today’s airwaves, this song was considered quite bawdy at the time…and even later. Burl Ives claimed to have been jailed in Montana in 1940 for performing the song.

Learn more about Sandburg’s American Songbag right here.

Photo: Actress Marilyn Monroe is shown with poet Carl Sandburg in this December 1961 photo taken in New York City. Photographer Len Steckler shot the black-and-white images of Monroe when she unexpectedly arrived at his apartment in December, 1961, to visit his friend, Pulitzer-prize winning poet Sandburg.