She Moved Through the Fair

Owen, a recent edition to the group, sings the classic tale for us this week;

"This was the first song I ever sang, nearly 2 years back! I never consciously learnt it -- it just osmosed into my head at the right time and place.
Pure chance had brought me to an Irish session one night and impure substances had got me into the mindset that I'd sing. I had never sung in public before and had no idea what to sing, just a definite desire to do so. I had stepped outside to think, and 'She Moves Through The Fair' was the first complete song to enter my mind. I had known it a long time from Sandy Denny and John Martyn's recordings, but neither treated the song well (John Martyn even omitted the twist about her being dead, that's 1968 for you).

So I asked Mai Hernon for permission to join in and gave I suppose a note-for-note rendition of Anne Briggs' perfectly spooky recording -- I'm sure you all know it. It was her version that showed me the beauty of the melody and the importance of the story - she sang She Moves egolessly, or rather with her whole self.

For me that experience was epiphanic. The greatest songs grow on you like barnacles on saltwood, or it's as if the song carries itself, and you the singer are temporarily a void through which the light travels. In my experience this sensation is purest when singing a capella - I feel very privileged to have met so many singers here."

Owen

Owen is also a fantastic artist in his own right, have a look at his work here

My young love said to me, “My mother won't mind,
And my father won't slight you for your lack of kind.”
Then she laid her hand on me and this she did say,
“Oh, it will not be long, love, till our wedding day.”

She went away from me and moved through the fair,
And fondly I watched her move here and move there.
Then she went away homeward not one star awake
Like a swan in the evening moves over the lake

Last night she came to me, my dead love came in,
And so softly she came, her feet made no din.
Then she laid her hand on me and this she did say,
“It will not be long, love, till our wedding day.”