Sovay Sovay

In some respects I'm surprised that we've gone this long without a cross-dressing song! This lover's test (Roud number 5) is a popular one for singers having been done in its various guises by Martin Carthy , Anne Briggs, Bert Jansch and Chris Sarjeant to name a few.

The name Sovay appears in various forms such as Silvy, Shilo, Sally etc and is most likely a corruption of Sophie or Sylvie. The time signature is, to quote Martin Carthy quoting Bert Lloyd, "a beautiful illustration of (the) notion that all English folk music is cast in the time signature of one beat in a bar". If you look at the way that the song was originally performed to collectors such as is recorded in the Butterworth and Hammond notes, you can see the different ways they dealt with the irregularities of the singers and in Martin Carty's notes on the song, he purposefully wrote the tune without bar lines to give the stronger emphasis on a free flowing tune.

 This week John Wilson provides vocals and guitar:

"Lovers test each others commitment in numerous ways. None perhaps as graphic as a woman dressing as a highwayman, pointing a gun at her boyfriend and demanding a gold ring, given as a token of true love. The song's presumed happy conclusion is that even under the threat of death, the man does not give up the ring, and in so doing demonstrates that he will not give up his love either. Convinced of her boyfriend's depth of feeling the disguised woman spares his life. In this version of the traditional song the woman's explains why she has devised this test. As the song ends here, we assume all is well. What might be illuminating however is a final verse which would indicate the man's true reaction to his humiliating ordeal.

"Sovay sovay I should just like to say
That it was all very well to test me that way
If only you'd trusted our depth of romance
I wouldn't be standing, standing in a pair of soiled pants."

This, of course, is not a serious suggestion.

As it stands, it works as a complete story set out in economic terms with some perfectly compressed prose. In this, and the fact that it is taken from the point of view of a strong female lead, it is modern in tone. It is therefore a perfect candidate for a model of performance which requires an uncluttered and quick style of presentation. My version owes a debt to Martin Carthy, and in particular the version recorded with Brass Monkey."

John

Sovay, Sovay all on a day
She dressed herself in man's array
With a sword and a pistol all by her side
To meet her true love to meet her true love away did ride.

And as she was a-riding over the plain
She met her true love and bid him stand
Your gold and silver kind sir she said
Or else this moment or else this moment your life I'll have.

And when she'd robbed him of his store
She says kind sir there is one thing more
A golden ring which I know you have
Deliver it deliver it your sweet life to save.

Oh that golden ring a token is
My life I'll lose the ring I'll save.
Being tender-hearted just like a dove
She rode away she rode away from her true love.

Oh next morning in the garden green
Just like true lovers they were seen
Oh he spied his watch hanging by her clothes
And it made him blush made him blush like any rose.

Oh what makes you blush at so silly a thing
I thought to have had your golden ring
It was I that robbed you all on the plain
So here's your watch here's your watch and your gold again.

I did intend and it was to know
If that you were me true love or no
For if you'd have give me that ring she said
I'd have pulled the trigger I'd have pulled the trigger and shot you dead.