Album
Farm and Fun Time (1948)
“Love, Oh Careless Love” — usually known simply as “Careless Love” — is a traditional song of obscure origin that seems to have emerged around the turn of the twentieth century. Folklorists trace some of its threads to older British song, and it gathered “floating” verses common to many laments of love and ruin.
The song became a cornerstone of early American vernacular music, sung in the blues, in the brass-band and jazz traditions of New Orleans, and across country and folk music. Its lyric is a warning and a lament — careless love that brings a young woman or man to grief, sorrow, and shame — and that universal theme carried it into nearly every corner of American song.
“Careless Love” passed naturally into bluegrass, where its plain melody and hard-luck story found a comfortable home.
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