Sweet Lover of Mine

This week's song is an upbeat version of a song that you may well know, over to you Rob (sans Garfunkel):

"I love the fact that there are so many versions and arrangements of different
traditional songs that perhaps there is one song you could sing all the time, and no-one
would ever get bored. Maybe. I don't know how many versions there are of the Two
Sisters, or the Prickly Bush for example but I'd love to have the time to find out.

Most people are familiar with "Scarborough Fair" as recorded back in the day by
Simon & Garfunkel, and many 'folkies' also know that this is Martin Carthy's version
of Child Ballad #2, The Elfin Knight. Child lists over a dozen variants and other
collectors have found over 50 different texts. The Coppers have "My Father He Had
an Acre of Land in their song basket, and I once heard Sandra Kerr at a Singers Group
here in Bath sing a smashing Northumbrian version called Whittingham Fair.

Last year Emily Smith released "Traiveller's Joy", a great album which I heartily
recommend, and on it I found this song, "Sweet Lover of Mine". She says that the
version she started with was collected in Coleraine, Ulster. It has been running around
in my head for some months now, and a few Sunday's ago at The Star it just sort of
came out, though I have to say it is infinitely better sung with Emily's Scottish accent.
I didn't know Tim was recording at the time, but he was, and here it is...."

Sweet Lover of Mine by Emily Smith (Anglicised by Rob Winder)

As I came over by Bonny Moor Hill
Every rose grows bonny in time
I met a sweet lass, and they called her Nell
Longing to be a sweet lover of mine

It’s questions three I will ask of thee
Every rose grows bonny in time
And it’s questions three you must answer me
Before you are a sweet lover of mine

You must make me a cambric shirt
Every rose grows bonny in time
Without one stitch of your needlework
Before you are a sweet lover of mine

You must wash it in yonder well
Every rose grows bonny in time
Where never water ran and rain never fell
Before you are a sweet lover of mine

Then dry it out on yonder thorn
Every rose grows bonny in time
Where blossom never bloomed since Adam was born
Before you are a sweet lover of mine

That’s questions three you have asked of me
Every rose grows bonny in time
And it’s questions three you’ll now answer me
Before you are a sweet lover of mine

You must get me an acre of land
Every rose grows bonny in time
Between the salt sea and the sea water strand
Before you are a sweet lover of mine

You must plough it with an old ram’s horn
Every rose grows bonny in time
And then sow it o’er with a single grain of corn
Before you are a sweet lover of mine

You must sheer it with a sickle of leather
Every rose grows bonny in time
And bind it all with a peacock’s feather
Before you are a sweet lover of mine

Then stook it o’er on yonder sea
Every rose grows bonny in time
And bring the shell sheaf dry back unto me
Before you are a sweet lover of mine

And when you’ve done and finished your work
Every rose grows bonny in time
You may call unto me for your cambric shirt
And you'll be a sweet lover of mine

Then I'll be a sweet lover of thine