Little Eyes or Little Lize (Lil' Lize) is a folksong that is popular in

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...

, England, UK, although it originated in America. There is a claim that it was written by

Buford Abner James Buford Abner (November 10, 1917 – November 19, 2011) was an American songwriter, musician and singer who worked during the early days of country music, working in both secular and gospel country music genres. With his brother Merle Abner, ...

of the Swannee River Boys in the late 1940s or early 1950s however the lyrics are found in the notated version of minstrel shows dating from the 1890s suggesting that it was from a preexisting folk song. The first known recording is from the 1950s by an American harmony group called the

Delta Rhythm Boys The Delta Rhythm Boys was an American vocal group active from 1934 to 1987. The group was formed at Langston University in Langston, Oklahoma, in 1934 by Carl Jones, Traverse Crawford, Otha Lee Gaines, and Kelsey Pharr. They moved to Dillard U ...

. Cornish miners working in America brought the song back to Cornwall and it was later taken up by a group from

Camborne Camborne ( kw, Kammbronn) is a town in Cornwall, England. The population at the 2011 Census was 20,845. The northern edge of the parish includes a section of the South West Coast Path, Hell's Mouth and Deadman's Cove. Camborne was formerl ...

called the Joy Boys in 1955. After a few alterations it became a local hit and is still sung widely across Cornwall, but is rarely heard elsewhere. The song was adopted into the Cornish “shout” singing tradition and variation versions have been collected showing local variations. A variation of the lyrics include a version in the Cornish Language from an original translation by

Ken George Kenneth John George is a British oceanographer, poet, and linguist. He is noted as being the originator of Kernewek Kemmyn, an orthography for the revived Cornish language which he claims is more faithful to Middle Cornish phonology than its precu ...

, demonstrating the significance of the song in its adopted community. The Cornish band Crowns, cover the song on their 2012 album Stitches in the Flag. Before the crowns, several Cornish singers and groups had already recorded their own versions of the song including the internationally known folk-singer

Brenda Wootton Brenda Wootton (née Ellery) (10 February 1928 – 11 March 1994) was a British folk singer and poet and was seen as an ambassador for Cornish tradition and culture in all the Celtic nations and as far as Australia and Canada. Early lif ...

(1928 –1994) who was considered an ambassador for the Cornish tradition. More recently the song was released by

Fisherman's Friends The Fisherman's Friends are a folk music group from Port Isaac, Cornwall, who sing sea shanties. They have been performing locally since 1995, and signed a record deal with Universal Music in March 2010. Whilst essentially an a cappella group, ...

of Port Isaac for their 2019 album, ‘Keep Hauling’ which featured songs from the movie of the same name; this version has amassed hundreds of thousands of online plays.

References

Cornish folk songs {{folk-song-stub