Young Men Are False

 
This week we have a lovely song to finish the fourth month of the year sung by Beth Cutter:

"I felt as though this song was written from the perspective of a young girl, out walking one morning who hears the birds singing and instead of finding it romantic, as one might expect, hears a denouncement of men. The second verse reveals why; because she has had her heart stolen by one of the false young men she sings of in the chorus. In the final verse she reveals her determination not to be won over by other suitor. What is not clear is if she will not be seduced because she is now too cynical or if it is because she is still hopeful that her young man might still 'prove true' to her. I feel it's quite an ambiguous song - Tim has an entirely different interpretation that includes a narrator. I hope my interpretation doesn't fall too far from the mark though!

There are many versions of the song but this particular one I heard on Pilgrims' Way's album Wayside Courtesies"

Beth

It was on one April morning, just as the sun was rising,
It was one April morning, I heard the small birds sing.
They were singing Lovely Nancy,
For love it is a fancy,
And sweet were the notes that I heard the small birds sing.


ch: Young men are false, young men they are deceitful;
Young men are false and seldom can prove true.
With their rambling and their ranging
And their minds they're always changing
And they're always looking out for some other girl new.

O if I had but my own heart in keeping,
O if I had my own heart back again:
Safe in my bosom
I would lock it up forever
And it would wander never so far from me again.

ch:

Why do you spend all your long time in courting?
Why do you spend all your long time in vain?
For I don't intend to marry,
I'd rather longer tarry.
So young men don't you spend all your long time in vain.

ch:

A Bright and Rosy Morning

A Bright and Rosy Morning by A Sunday Song

I racked my brains over which song to start with, for some reason every song connected to January that I know is miserable! In the end I went for 'On a bright and rosy morning' which I found whilst flicking through 'The Foggy Dew': the third book of songs collected in Dorset and Hampshire by Gardiner and the Hammond Brothers edited by the late Frank Purslow. Though not strictly January based, I was reminded of it after reading about the New Year hunts; I love songs that celebrate the countryside and, notwithstanding my views
on hunting today or those of others, this is one of those songs, with its final refrain, that inspires the sort of joy of the new day that folk songs seem to hold so simply and give so gracefully.

This is a song that appears around and about in various guises, such is the case of any good song in the folk canon!

On a bright and rosy morning the sun shone o'er the hills
Just as the day was dawning across the meadows and fields
   [Whilst the merry, merry, merry horn cries 'come, come away'
    It's awake from your slumbers and behold some new day.] x2

The fox rose from his cover, he seem'd for to fly,
Our horses at full speed. my boys, our hounds in full cry

He led us a chase, my boys, for fifty long miles,
Over hedges and ditches, over gates and over stiles

Our day's sport being over, our horses at their ease,
We will call for a bowl, my boys, to drink when we please

Tim