One I Love – Redux
Number 68, February 1, 2025
In October of 2023 I wrote a blog about the tune “One I Love,” authored by Jean Ritchie. I wrote then to describe the song from my research:
“… I’ve found Jean’s recording of this song included on a 2004 compilation on Elektra Records called “Jean Ritchie: Mountain Hearth and Home.” It had appeared originally on another Elektra album “A Time For Singing” from 1965. In her song notes for the 2004 recording, Jean wrote the following:
“I have heard old people sing bits of this lovely sad song, mostly the first verse and the “Over the mountains” one, and there is one printed text in the Sharp collection (Cecil Sharp, folklorist), though an altogether different tune. My verses, besides those two, come from my own indistinct memories and from my own invention, for, if I like a song very much, I won’t let it remain a short fragment.”
This passage seems to suggest that the source material for Jean’s ultimate version for this song was not from herself, but from collected folklore and oral tradition. It certainly was the way of the Ritchie family to collect, re-work and re-tool bits of songs they heard and shared down through the generations into their own unique forms. So though it may have been collected, Jean was correct in putting her name on the song she developed, performed and recorded for many years.
Today I found another artist covering this song, Irish singer Shawn James. James cites the original source material as “a traditional” song of Ireland, but then also places Jean Ritchie in his notes, and includes her lyrics (see below).
Shawn James performs Jean Ritchie’s “One I Love” at the Caves of Cushendun in Northern Ireland on August 21, 2017.
So what we can infer here is that Jean did collect the song at its source, but created her own version, i.e. “my verses.” And she did compose this melody, which she herself and Shawn James use in their recordings.
It’s another great find in the historical saga of the phenomenon of oral tradition.
Still True Today
It’s truly fascinating to realize that this song’s point of view, placed in a cultural context, is a rare find among love songs: defending one’s choice to the rest of the world. And the resonance of this point of view persists for us today. How many millions of people continue to be ostracized, rejected, even attacked and punished for who they love?
One I Love
by Jean Ritchie
All of my friends fell out with me,
Because I kept your company;
But let them say whatever they will,
I love my love with a free good will.
Refrain:
One I Love, two, he loves, three, he’s true to me.
They tell me he’s poor, they tell me he’s young,
I tell them all to hold their tongue,
If they could part the sand and the sea,
Then they might part my love and me.
Refrain
For when the fire to ice will turn
And when the icy sea will burn
And when those rocks will melt in the sun,
My love for you has just begun.
Refrain
Over the mountains he must go
Because his fortune is so low,
With an aching heart and a troubled mind
For leaving his love so far behind.
Refrain
It’s when I’m awake I’ll find no rest
Until your head lies on my breast,
And when I’m asleep I’m dreaming of
My one, my dear, my absent love.
Refrain
My previous blog is HERE. https://folkworks.org/blog/one-i-love/
And as always, thanks for reading!
Love and Blessings,

Photo by Cam Sanders
Susie
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Award-winning recording artist, Broadway singer, journalist, educator and critically-acclaimed powerhouse vocalist, Susie Glaze has been called “one of the most beautiful voices in bluegrass and folk music today” by Roz Larman of KPFK’s Folk Scene. LA Weekly voted her ensemble Best New Folk in their Best of LA Weekly for 2019, calling Susie “an incomparable vocalist.” “A flat out superb vocalist… Glaze delivers warm, amber-toned vocals that explore the psychic depth of a lyric with deft acuity and technical perfection.” As an educator, Susie has lectured at USC Thornton School of Music and Cal State Northridge on “Balladry to Bluegrass,” illuminating the historical path of ancient folk forms in the United Kingdom to the United States via immigration into the mountains of Appalachia. Susie has taught workshops since 2018 at California music camps RiverTunes and Vocáli Voice Camp. She is a current specialist in performance and historian on the work of American folk music icon, Jean Ritchie. Susie now offers private voice coaching online via the Zoom platform. www.susieglaze.com
One I Love – Redux
Number 68, February 1, 2025