A Folk Song A Day

Jon recalls this one as “Sung by James Davidson at the Talking Heads in Southampton. Listening to James sing this with a beautiful, delicate guitar accompaniment on a boozy Sunday afternoon must rank as one of my most profound musical experiences. Icarus is often taken as a metaphor for over ambition, but I think it’s more a metaphor for the human condition.”

Written by Anne Lister, London born, Cardiff raised and French resident at the time the song surfaced into the wider folk world via Maggie Holland. According to her bio, which you can read here, Anne had been a regular on the folk club scene from her teens and was teaching English in France when she wrote this song. It permeated its way back to the UK, where Maggie, Martin Simpson and Nic Jones picked it up. This is another of the very worthy songs not of the tradition that Jon handles particularly well for me, as the drama and sentiments are brought to life. As for the fable element, I think there are various ways of looking at it, but Anne’s take seems infused with noble calling. It’s a lovely piece of writing and in what has been an exceptional month, yet another highlight.

Jon attributes this “As sung by Ian Giles at the Half Moon. I’m not sure where he got it from but I’m using a mixture of words remembered from him and words from Dick Gaughan, which seem pretty close to Ian’s version. As to the story, good riddance I say (to him, not the sisters.)”

Some of you may be familiar with Nic Jones’ version which you’ll find at Mainly Norfolk. This is another of the Child Ballads #14 in this case and very much of the senseless murder variety although not realising it’s your own sisters you’re slaying, as some of the versions including Jon’s have it, is very careless indeed. In the some of the variants the third sister is saved by a brother. It’s interesting to note that this is another of the epics that seem to be widespread across Europe, although I wonder which is the more common storyline. It’s also appeared across the Atlantic and it’s interesting to see Nic’s version transcribed at Mainly Norfolk concluding with the baddy being fed to the rattlesnakes, which immediately identifies that as from the USA. I ran across a Mudcat thread that debated the ‘wee pen knife’ that seems to be a common enough weapon of choice for the murderously minded. I must admit it seems a curious description for the fatal implement, but realistically appears too often to be any sort of mis-translation. Wiki here to see the variations as collected by Child.

Jon brings up another interesting that we haven’t linked to often saying  “This is from the excellent CDR producing label Musical Traditions who specialise in making various recordings of ‘source singers’ available, despite there being no commercial impetus for doing so! You can check them out at here – well worth looking in to. This is a sweet little song from Charlie Bridger.”

Mainly Norfolk names the author of this as W.C. Robey with the suggestion that it was written in America at the end of C19th. Unfortunately efforts to turn up any more information on either the song or its author have hit dead ends. There’s a tantalising glimpse of another song from his pen called He Never Laughed Again and also this link, but there it seems to end as  unless I’m doing something daft even Mudcat draws a blank with this one. Still it’s a jolly little song with something of the Music Hall about it. Given my recent ornothological lessons, I’m just slightly nervous of taking it at face value.

Jon admits “I had forgotten about this song, but I finally managed to get back to FSC last month and was reminded of it there. It’s fascinating to see how some songs had evolved since I’d last camped (six years ago or so). This is a distant cousin of the The Prentice Boy, Cruel Knife, Worcester City, etc.”

It immediately made me think of Neil Young’s Down By The River, which I guess is part Neil, part Hey Joe and part this, but then I suppose it belongs in the long tradition of murder ballads. I was also somewhat amused to see a quest to link this to some historical event as surely Jon has this one right as an Americanised version of the title he mentions above to which I’ll add Banks Of red Roses. A worthy entrant into the murder ballad canon it is, however, with an intriguing couple of female variant also surfacing, albeit recent rewrites as you’ll see on this Mudcat thread.

Jon acknowledges that “This will always be associated with Robin and Barry Dransfield, although Graham Metcalf also does a fine version. It sort of feels like it’s going to be a sad song but then it just gets happier and happier, which makes it very unusual – it’s normally the other way around…”

I must say this one confused me a little to start with (It’s not hard let’s face it!) with the word ‘rout’ and my instant thought of disaster. Thankfully Mudcat was at hand with this most useful post explaining that the word used has another meaning of muster or bring out of hiding. It’s also interesting to see that it derives from Old English rather than Old French via Middle English. I’m also grateful for the regimental detail and if there are any military historians looking in who know more about the regiment I’d like to know. Anyway, the song makes sense now, with the young lasses presumably lamenting the imminent deployment of the gallant young soldiers and everyone else swept up with the glory of it. Marvellous!