Jon says, “This is also from Anne Briggs, although Eliza used to sing this a lot solo at Ratcatchers gigs and we’d listen from the wings. Apparently the original was from a male perspective but I think it works better with a girl narrator so I’m sticking with that.”
I can add that this is definitely Briggs and for a while it was even incorrectly attributed as her composition, although that was as a result of Chinese whispers rather than any attempt to take the credit on her part. You can read the full Mudcat thread here should you so wish. A.L. Lloyd’s notes on A Collection CD make it plain that it was collected and published in Blackwood’s Magazine early as 1821 by a Thomas Doubleday. He in turn got it from a Newcastle street singer. The melody is given as My Love Is Newly Listed. The Mudcat thread above also offers the possibility that Doubleday wrote the words himself and somewhere in there is a reprint of a section of the tune, which I am not clever enough to tell you anything about – it’s all dots and squiggles to me. I did include this in my Alternative Advent Calendar, however, being much taken with it. Given the apparent gender transfer it’s interesting that Jon hasn’t swapped it back again. Although I agree with him that it somehow suits a female perspective.
You can buy the January digital album now from all good download stores:
That was lovely thanks Jon and a Happy new year to you and Fay and littluns!
Regarding the male or female perspective, it is intersting to read Tom Gilfellon’s note on his 1976 album “In the Middle of the Tune”:
“I still tend to the view that it might just be Male Chauvinist Pig Song of the Year… I recognise the arrogance of the words, and there I’ll let it be. It has a most beautiful tune, however, which was collected by the Newcastle radical Thomas Doubleday from a street singer (It’s not clear who wrote the words). I apologise to my female friends and to my wife Maggie in advance. The leopard cannot change his spots nor I my grunt but we can cunningly camouflage them if we’re lucky!”
The tune My Love Is Newly Listed used here is also known as The White Cocckade which Jon sang way back on June 29.
Lovely, and definitely another for my ever-growing “to learn” list.
Lovely, and definitely another for my ever-growing “to learn” list.
Always associated with Bert Jansch and Pentangle for me, its been a favourite for years. The Horslips version is interesting.
Also I thought it was of Scottish origin on account of the line “between the nicht and morn” but perhaps that was just Jansch’s take on it.
Oh, that’s nice…
For a definitive male narrated version, check out “The Snows they melt the soonest” on “A Handful of Earth” by Dick Gaughan: for me, the definitive version…
As I said when I introduced Blackwaterside once, “This is a tune that Bert Jansch borrowed from Jimmy Page; Bert played it to Anne Briggs, she turned it into a song, Bert Lloyd heard her singing it one day, and the rest is history.” Something similar may have happened with this one.
(Then again, it may not.)
I’ve loved this song since I heard the Anne Briggs version. Good to hear it on aFSaD. I like the resonance of Jon’s voice here.
Really liked this one, though I can be funny about cross-gendering songs sometimes! This works very well, and very well-sung, Jon. Thanks for info about all the other versions, folks, and Oink Reinhard for pointing out about The White Cockade, as I sensed a similarity somewhere along the AFSAD line.
Found this rather melancholy but interesting all the same.
There seems to be some missing persons, one appears to have gone to ground, one is perhaps shopping in Sainsbugs or working hard in Bolton, and the other is still coming to grips with a lovely shiny laptop. Not as easy with a flattened keyboard, and being mouse-less less manoeuvrable I found.
When I first came to this beautiful song last year we had snow up to the windows here, and temperatures of -18 C. and it really caught the mood. This year it is STILL just as lovely, and just as appropriate on this mild sunny morning with the snowdrops well out and a hint of spring in the air. ( Ah, but they do say tis going to get colder ! )
Beautifully sung by Jon, and just the right tempo I thought. (Me, Stirring ? The very idea !)
Sunny John, you don’t know how lucky you are – have forgotten what the sun looks like, just infernal rain day after day at some time or other. Same again today with thick mist and no sight of the hills at all. Have got fields nearby with ponds complete with flocks of seagulls, where there were no ponds before. Still there are signs of the daffies coming up. What a good topic the weather is – always something to say. I think there was a touch of sarcasm in that last remark.
Twas ever thus Diana. Have you noticed how many of these old songs either mention the weather in passing, (It was on a bright sunshiny morning) or positively wallow in it, like this one. I doubt that many songs from the Australian outback start off , Twas on a bright sunshiny etc, etc.
It is part of the joy of living in a country with an unpredictable climate. I am waiting for a contemporary song to start off with, ‘Twas on the day of a Severe Weather Warning’, or has Les Barker already done that ?
Happy New Year everyone! Sorry I’m a dozen days late…
Well sung Jon but I’m with Nick Passmore on the definitive male perspective version; Dick Gaughan really nails it on Handful Of Earth. As for the female definitive, just has to be AB, n’est-ce pas? Always assumed she’d written it. Wrong again!
My snowdrops have not appeared yet John. I can usually look out on a January morning and see a healthy line of them. I wonder if Perky is not using her litter tray all the time… Hahaha!
Yes Adain, I’m working hard in Bolton!
Lovely to have you both back. We do tend to moan about the weather, but at least we don’t have hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes etc. not of any magnitude anyway like so many other countries so we should be grateful. So Perky is not using her litter tray either. Ella has just come in crying cos she is soaked through and cats don’t like getting wet – the softies.
Sorry you have to be slaving away again Peter, not like us idle lot.
Thanks Diana. Have you heard this lovely song about snow melting…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MhHXAIGhQQ
Wonderful Pewter- lovely melody, I will invest in this on I Tunes to add to my collection of folk songs. Oops done it again, that dratted word keeps cropping up.
Still melancholy but it will never change will it?
Ref Pewter’s youtube link a couple of comments above……nice song but who thought of the crazy and distracting video….bloke bouncing from chair to chair…….. just showing off his collection of Christmas jumpers and then he lends them to his friends!
Thank you, Jon, for your version of this song via Anne Briggs & Eliza Carthy. I have listened to several different versions with slightly different lyrics. I am definitely in agreement with singing it from a female rather than a (somewhat chauvinistic) male perspective, even if the girl is loved and left.
I intend singing my own slightly tweaked version at my local Topic Folk Club in Bradford & again at the Jacobs Jam (in the Jacobs Well, Bradford.)
Yes, I am finally singing after all this time! I thank you and AFSAD for that, as it’s my pleasure & I hope not a torture to the audience! Lol.
Thank you also for saying at your gig with the Remnant Kings at Saltaire’s Live Room that you were happy for me to cover a couple of your own songs. Kindly appreciated.
Thanks too to Reinhard for information relating to this song on Mainly Norfolk, an invaluable & interesting folk resource.