A Folk Song A Day

Jon reminisces, “I got this from an Appalachian source recording on vinyl in Cecil Sharp House. I spent a couple of quite magical days in the listening room aged 21 or so, in the days before internet music.” Aaaah! The joys of the black stuff. There are several variations on this theme and at least one alternate title of Fair And Tender Maidens, where the message seems to be the unfaithfulness of men in general, from the perspective of an obviously wronged young lady. A cautionary tale then. It’s famously been adapted and recorded by Dolly Parton amongst others and this Mudat links to her version, simply called Little Sparrow.  I picked up elsewhere an American collection of songs called Folk- Songs Of The South, which has a couple of variants pointing to this being from the USA. The text, however, at the top of this link also draws similarities to O Waly Waly (Child ballad #92), which would link us back to Water Is Wide on 13^th of September. In all cases it seems to be infidelity at the root, which manifests itself in various ways in folk song and is a common enough theme down the ages, but I’m quite taken with the bird eavesdropping on the perfidious lover. Parton’s version also brings out the fragility of the bird, whilst Jon’s victim is more straightforwardly succumbing to melancholic depond.

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I must confess that Jon threw me a real curve ball with this, possibly down to the original source for him being, “From the same tape that I learnt Across The Line from. That tape was partly responsible for getting me into Peter Bellamy as I bootlegged (taped – Ed.) Songs & Rummy Conjuring Tricks on the back of it, even though I thought it was awful. Repeat listening thanks to auto-reverse cured me of my ignorance.” His given title of Blow The Wind High-O (or Ho) seemed to be a completely different song, so it took a bit of Googling to get to the correct title of 10,000 Miles Away (perhaps obvious because of the lyrics!) and once again to the pen of Joseph Bryan Geoghegan (as with Hey John Barleycorn on Sept 20^th), dated 1870. Mudcat has it amongst his know compositions here and again this is the best stab at painting the picture of his life. Certainly the lyrical reference to catching the train chimes with that and this Mudcat thread will tell you more about both the song and its author, although perhaps appropriately for the nautical theme has a couple of red herrings in the mix (including yet another song.) So, not a sailors’ song at all more of  a Victorian theatre, Music Hall number or parlour song. Jolly good though.

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I’m giving nothing away here by saying this will be on Hedonism and acts as a nice trailer for that October  4^th release. Jon says of this, “Can’t remember when I first heard this song but I know it best from the brilliant Magpie Lane CD Six For Gold. Magpie lane are something of a super-group in Oxfordshire, but relatively unknown elsewhere. Well worth checking out.” Martin Carthy recorded this as well on his debut, eponymous album with Dave Swarbrick and Mainly Norfolk has their tasty re-write as well as Martin’s sleeve notes, which allude to the age as around 1640. Mudact has more here including an additional first verse that’s not often used. There also seems to be a Scottish variant of Tae (or To) The begging I Will Go, which generally has different verses with much the same sentiment and the words certainly fit the same tune.

To keep up with titbits on the Bellowhead release by the way, follow the Properganda Online link (here for you as well),  to the left, we’ve posted an interview with John Leckie this week. We’ll probably have a little celebration here come release date, but I just thought you should know that there’ll doubtless be more going on over there, so to speak.

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I’ll note that Jon says, “Another big song at camp, or at least it was when I was young, but these things go in cycles.” I’ll also note that the lyrics Jon sings to this are markedly different to the sets that I can find and a might more salty. Mainly Norfolk covers Lloyd and the Watersons (Folksons) and mentions Bellamy’s version, which also pretty much follows the same line as those two. So I was at a bit of a loss to explain where Jon’s words came from or indeed the sense of this shanty. I’ll refer you to this Mudcat post as it’s interesting (if slightly wayward) in terms of the rhythmic and the work element of the song. Other than that, I can only cop out and say that many shanties seem to have any number of variants and probably changed at will. Further searches at Mudcat have revealed all manner of debate about the meanings and origins of “Go down you blood red roses.” I’ll leave that to your discretion as to how much time you have on your hands, but if you can add here, please do.

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Referring to Barry Dransfield again, Jon Simply says of this, “Another one from the brilliant Be Your Own Man.” And there’s a special bonus here as those bright young people at Bright Young Folk have recorded Jon and Fay performing this, followed by a goodly interview with the man himself. I urge you to follow the link through to that site if you haven’t already bookmarked it as a favourite, as there’s some cracking content to be had. I should also add my thanks as this video is well worth watching. Bright Young Folk is update daily, so you can add to your folk fix with a simple click of the mouse. As far as this particular song goes, Wiki has the goods here and what this lacks, Mainly Norfolk, in inimitable fashion, offers sleeve notes and lyrical variations aplenty. So a further debt of gratitude is due to Reinhard.

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