Just Awearyin' for You
{{Short description|Song performed by Paul Robeson}}
File:Jacobs-Bond JUST AWEARYIN' FOR YOU cover.jpg
{{Listen|filename=Just Awearyin for You Elizabeth Spencer 1911.ogg|title="Just Awearyin' for You"|description=1911 recording of Elizabeth Spencer (soprano) singing "Just Awearyin' for You" without the "morning" stanza which has the birds' "notes / That come trilling from their throats"|format=Ogg}}
{{Listen|filename=Just Awearyin' for You 1911.ogg|title="Just Awearyin' for You"|description=1911 recording of Evan Williams (tenor) singing "Just Awearyin' for You" with all three stanzas|format=Ogg}}
"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),See Professor De Lerma's essay [http://chevalierdesaintgeorges.homestead.com/Burleigh.html#19 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. 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,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 [http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjYzNzZmNDQyMTUwYzdhYjhlNjg2MDg1ODU5NTFjM2M= "Just a-wearyin' for you"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080321002459/http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjYzNzZmNDQyMTUwYzdhYjhlNjg2MDg1ODU5NTFjM2M= |date=2008-03-21 }} in National Review and {{YouTube|ePnUfnmIzGA|Bobskins imitation of Robeson}}. 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 ([http://www.oxleigh.freeserve.co.uk/pt99.htm "Just a Wearyin' for You"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090304201011/http://www.oxleigh.freeserve.co.uk/pt99.htm |date=2009-03-04 }} in Prophetic Telegraph, No. 99 [June 1997]). "Just Awearyin' for You" has been recorded by numerous performers, including Elizabeth Spencer, Evan Williams, Anna Case,{{YouTube|It2ysYBLrKU|Anna Case rendition}} (accessed 2010 February 11), distinguished by Case's special attention to trilling the "r"s. Sophie Braslau,{{YouTube|l8hkxCNW-x4|Sophie Braslau rendition}} (recorded by Columbia Records in 1928 June). Eleanor Steber,{{YouTube|PBHhb3ROy3k|Steber rendition}} (accessed 2010 February 11). Gladys Swarthout,[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.] Thomas Allen and Malcolm Martineau (piano),[http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Hyperion/CDA67374 Allen and Martineau rendition] (accessed 2010 February 11). See also [http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/tw.asp?w=W4385 Hyperion version with commentary] by Andrew Lamb (writer) (accessed 2010 February 17). Johnny Hartman,{{YouTube|IMLp0SsRveg|Hartman rendition}} (accessed 2010 February 11). John Arwyn Davies,{{YouTube|N3p4PYidn1U|Davies rendition}} (accessed 2010 February 11). Jane Morgan,[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.] Peggy Balensuela (mezzo soprano) and William Hughes (piano),[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000QWSGXK Songs my grandmother taught me: Songs of Carrie Jacobs-Bond] (Albany, NY: Albany Records, 2001), ASIN B000QWU5PW. Bing Crosby (1934 and 1945){{cite web|title=A Bing Crosby Discography|url=http://www.bingmagazine.co.uk/bingmagazine/crosby1bDecca.html|website=BING magazine|publisher=International Club Crosby|accessdate=July 28, 2017}} and Paul Robeson.{{YouTube|02wdY6p9CSs|Robeson rendition}} (accessed 2010 February 11). In 1934 Jay Wilbur and his band did a foxtrot rendition.{{YouTube|9yOcViKRUKE|Jay Wilbur foxtrot rendition}} (accessed 2011-04-04).Cf. the live [organ rendition and interpretation] (accessed 2011-04-04).
Set to the key of C, "Just Awearyin' for You" appears in Mel Bay's Modern Guitar Method Grade 6.{{cite news
|first = Mel
|last = Bay
|year = 2005
|title = Modern Guitar Method Grade 6
|edition = Expanded
|place = Pacific, Missouri
|publisher = Mel Bay Publications
|page = 7
|isbn = 978-0-7866-7760-3
}}
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.For further information see the article on Carrie Jacobs-Bond.
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.Max Morath, I Love You Truly: A Biographical Novel Based on the Life of Carrie Jacobs-Bond (New York: iUniverse, 2008), {{ISBN|978-0-595-53017-5}}, 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. "Linger Not" and "Until God's Day" are two other songs on which Stanton and Jacobs-Bond collaborated.{{cite news
| url = http://www.pdmusic.org/bond.html
| title = The music of Carrie Jacobs-Bond (1861–1946)
| accessdate = 2012-07-17
| date = 1999-12-13
| first = Benjamin Robert
| last = Tubb
| magazine = PDMusic
}}