This song is a direct descendant of one composed by the unruly song-writer George Wither in about 1670. There is an early manuscript of Wither’s song in Baring-Gould’s papers and the lineage is clear - though a lot of the words are different! Chappell, writing in 1859, talked of the song’s ‘enduring popularity’, though he believed that the quality of the song had deteriorated as it had been re-iterated. Baring-Gould collected it from a number of singers around Dartmoor and I have usually introduced the version that we sing as coming from Anne Roberts of Scobbetor. In preparing this recording we went back to the manuscripts and checked every song that we sing and hauled words and tune back as close to the original as we could. In this case we found that, after having learned it in the ‘Jolly Porter’ in Exeter more than 30 years ago I had changed it beyond recovery. Looking back to George Wither’s original I can see that I am part of a long line.
Tobacco is an Indian Weed
Grows green at morn, cut down at eve
Shows our decay, all flesh is hay
Pray think on this, when you smoke tobacco
The pipe that is so lily-white
Wherein so many take delight
Gone with a touch, man's life is such
Pray think on this, when you smoke tobacco
The pipe that is so foul within
Shows how the soul is stain’d with sin
It doth require the purging fire
Pray think on this, when you smoke tobacco
The ashes that are left behind
Do serve to put us all in mind
That unto dust return we must
Pray think on this, when you smoke tobacco
The smoke that doth so high ascend
Shows that our life must have an end
The vapour's gone, man's life is done
Pray think on this, when you smoke tobacco