We close the third quarter of the year – and the Yellow album – with a “broken token” ballad. It’s quite a literary piece of work (William and Phoebe?), although perhaps less so than this week’s other song. As always, you do wonder quite how much difference the years had made to the true love’s appearance, which in this case seems to have been particularly distinctive. Still, willing suspension of disbelief and all that.
Musically speaking, my approach to this song started with Tony Rose’s version, although as ever the metre is a bit more regular here; it makes quite an interesting 3/4 tune. The accompaniment is one of my more ‘knitted’ efforts, with a single melody line but a lot of textural variation.
Fifty-Two Folk Songs 