Sunday 24 June 2012

Milk White Dove


I've just been at Leigh Folk Festival for the weekend and got to hear and meet the excellent Kate Denny. Kate has recently released a new solo album entitled 'Closer to Home' (just this week in fact!) which is already being described as "a gently poignant and increasingly haunting musical delight” (fRoots magazine) and I told her about this little project that I've been putting together and if she would like to record a special song just for our time in Leigh. To my great delight she agreed and along with Rosemary Lippard and the excellent musician Robin Grey we sat down to put down a couple of tracks in the living room of a little fishing cottage near the harbour (listen out for Robin's next week). Of the song, Kate says "I found this tale in a Scottish Book of Fairy tales - and was really struck with all the various folk themes contained in it - and thought it would be perfect to turn into a folk song."



Hope you enjoy and check out the pages below for more information on the musicians

http://katedenny.com/
http://www.robingrey.com/

Tim

There once was a man had two children dear
But his wife was dead and gone
On an ill day he married in haste
And a new wife he brought home
It was an ill day for she was not kind
The children she despised
She plotted plotted and planned to be rid of them
And took the young boy's life
She put his body in the cooking pot
To pretend it was rabbit stew
But the daughter guessed at her evil game
And knew what she must do

Ch: Pew pew what a dreadful fate
Mother murdered me and my father me ate
My sister gathered my bones
And buried them beneath two milk white stones
Until they grew and grew
Into a milk white dove
And flew forever in the sky above
A beautiful milk white dove

Two women they were washing clothes
And heard the dove's sad song
"If you'll sing your song for us again
This dress to you will belong"
The dove alighted on a window sill
Where a man was counting his store
"The song you sang has bewitched me so
That a bag of gold is yours"
He finally flew to a brown, brown mill
Where two millers were grinding corn
And such was his song that the miller's son
Handed him a grey mill stone

ch:

The dove was heavy with burden
As he flew back to his home
He gave a call as he landed on the roof
For to see his family again
His sister was the first to come out
And his father was the next
So he flung the gold to his daddy'o
And his sister got the dress
The stepmother was slow and stout
And so appeared at last
He threw the millstone upon her head
And cracked her head in half

ch:

Sunday 17 June 2012

Hanging Johnny


A nice little song this week from John Ruddock who dropped into the session a little while back. John is mainly based in Oxford but comes by this way every now and again. He will be performing at the Bath Folk Festival which is being held from the 13th - 19th August 2012:

"I learned this song off a feller called Adrian in the Cross Guns at Avoncliff. I don't actually know a lot about it, it just makes a nice change to sing one from the hangman's perspective, having done lots of Prickle-Eyed Bush, Sam Hall and the like."

Well, to flesh it out rather, there's a lovely bit of information from the book Windjammers: Songs of the Great Lakes Sailors by Ivan H. Walton and Joe Grimm, in which Carl Joys remembers the song thus:

"Hanging Johnny" did not refer to a sheriff's hangman, but instead to nimble young sailors who, when a topsail was to be hoisted, would climb to the masthead and "swing out" on the proper halyard. They would then ride to the deck as the men at the foot of the mast brought them down by their successive pulls. Joys recalled one chanteyman who would always tell the boys when to swing out by shouting up to them, "Hang, you bastards, hang!" Then, while the boys were hanging on the halyard fifty feet or more above the deck, he'd start his song and the crew would make two pulls on each chorus. When the boys hit the deck, they would tail on behind the other men and pull with them until the work was finished. Joys added that the word "hang" was "the best goddamn pullin' word in the language, especially on a down haul."

John & Tim

Oh they calls me hanging Johnny
Away boys away
They says I hang for money
And it's hang boys hang

Well first I hanged my Granny
I hanged her up so canny
Well then I hanged my mother
Then me sister then me Brother
Oh they calls me hanging Johnny
They says I hang for money

Oh they says I hang for money
But I do it cos it's funny

Oh the next I hanged a copper
I gave him a right long dropper

Oh they calls me hanging Johnny
They says I hang for money

Saturday 9 June 2012

The Parrot and the Maiden


I was singing and chatting with friends in the Star one Sunday evening when
something triggered a half memory of a song involving a false knight\lover, and
oddly enough, a parrot. No-one knew what I was talking about, possibly because of
an excess of Doombar, but later I realised that I had been thinking of the Outlandish
Knight by Nic Jones.

After going back to the primary source, Child Ballad #4, Lady Isobel and the False
Knight, I found myself putting together a version of my own. Admittedly, I have
drawn heavily on one of Jones' two versions (on Ballads & Songs) and on Child #4(E)
for the lyrics; the tune went through several mutations before settling down much as
you hear it here.

With both the Outlandish Knight and many of the Child variations, I was not quite
comfortable with the role played by the lady's parrot. Her father awakes on her return
and wants to know what all the noise is about, and instead of telling him that she's
just narrowly escaped kidnap and being murdered, she goes along with the parrot's
explanation that he (the parrot that is) is causing all the fuss, being alarmed by a cat
entering the bedroom. The Lady even goes so far to reward the parrot with a golden
cage "with a door of the finest ivory" for such excellent dissembling. I think that
dramatically, the song works best ending with her 'escape', so I have cut out her return
home. However I didn't want to ditch the parrot altogether, so I have kept him in by
making him the source of the song, and he more or less 'bookends' the narrative.

Although I have since sung The Parrot & The Maiden as one in a set of songs I
call "Smart Women, Stupid Men" - it is hard to find a more apt example of male
asininity than here - this slightly rough recording was made in the Star some weeks
after the original conversation. Thanks to Sue and others for their support on the
refrains!

Rob

The parrot he sat in the window so high,
He sang me this maiden's song
How she escaped with her life and her honour intact
From a knight who would do her much wrong, much wrong,
From a knight who would do her much wrong.

This outlandish knight from the north lands did come,
And he's come a-courting she;
He's promised to take her unto the north lands,
Where they would a-married be, would be,
Where they would a-married be.

'Come, fetch me some of your father's gold,
And some of your mother's fee,
And the two finest nags from out of the stable,
Wherein there stand thirty and three, and three,
Wherein there stand thirty and three.'

She's fetched him some of her father's gold,
And some of her mother's fee,
And the two finest horses from out of the stable,
Wherein there stand thirty and three, and three,
Wherein there stand thirty and three.'

She's mounted on her milk-white steed,
And he on the dapple grey;
They've ridden all night to a far rocky shore,
By the sea so cold and grey, so grey,
By the sea so cold and grey.

'Light off, light off your milk-white steed,
Deliver it unto me;
For six pretty maidens have I drowned here,
And the seventh thou surely shalt be, shalt be,
And the seventh thou surely shalt be.

'And take off, take off your silken gown,
Deliver it unto me;
Methinks that it is too fine and too gay
For to rot all in the salt sea, salt sea,
For to rot all in the salt sea.

'Take off, take off your silken stays,
Deliver them unto me;
Methinks that they are too fine and too fair
For to rot all in the salt sea, salt sea,
For to rot all in the salt sea.

'Now take you off your Holland smock,
Deliver it unto me;
Methinks that it is too fine and too rare
For to rot all in the salt sea, salt sea,
For to rot all in the salt sea.

'Well if I'm to take off my Holland smock,
Then turn your back unto me;
For it is not fitting a rogue such as you
My naked body should see, should see,
My naked body should see.'

So he's turned around his back to the maid
To view the leaves so green;
And she's taken him by his slender waist,
And she's tumbled him into the sea, the sea,
she's tumbled him into the sea.

Well he bobbed high and he bobbed low,
And he's come unto the side;
'Pray give me your hand, my fair pretty maid,
And I will make you my bride, my bride,
Yes I will make you my bride.'

'Lie there, lie there, you false-hearted man,
Lie there instead of me;
For six pretty maidens have you drowned here,
But the seventh has surely drowned thee, drowned thee,
Oh the seventh has surely drowned thee.'

The parrot he sang me this maiden's tale
This song I have sung to thee
His cage it is made of the glittering gold,
And the door of the finest ivory, ivory,
And the door of the finest ivory.

Sunday 3 June 2012

The Sheep Shearing Song


The first weekend in June, it's officially Summer and we're greeted with sunshine and showers and an old lady on a chair... lovely!

This weeks song must well be familiar in one version or another to many of the listeners, this set of lyrics were collected in Wooton Fitzpaine, Dorset by the Hammond brothers in 1906. Being familiar with previous versions of the song, this one touched me as it comes from closer to my family home and includes a lovely rise in the chorus that adds a beautiful little touch carrying with it a sense of the summer coming.

The song was originally entitled 'The sheep shearing ballad' and was part of the play 'The Country Lasses; or, The Custom of the Manor' first staged in 1714. On it's many runs the song obviously slipped off the stage and into the public conciousness in the Southern counties where the few versions of this song appear

Tim

Here's a rosebud in June, the sweet violets in full bloom
And the birds singing gaily on every green bough
Here's the pink and the lily and the daffy-down dilly
To adorn and perfume the sweet meadows in full bloom

Whilst out at plough the fat oxen go slow
And the lads and the lasses do sheep shearing go

Here's the cleanly milk pail, it is full of brown ale
Our table, our table, our table we'll spread
We'll eat and we'll drink, we'll laugh joke and sing
As each lad takes his lass all on the green grass

Ch.

And when we have sheared all our jolly, jolly sheep
What joy can be greater than to talk of the increase
Here's the ewes and the lambs, here's the hogs and the rams
And the fat wethers too, they will make a fine show

Ch