Category Archives: Peter Bellamy

Let me put it on record here and now: I have no opinion on the virtues (personal, nautical, martial, political or literary) of Francis Drake. It’s not my period; I don’t know a lot about the man, and if I did I’m not sure I’d be a fan.

Kipling, however, was an admirer – or at least, he found it quite easy to put admiration of Drake into poetic form. Shanty form, even. Bellamy for his part had no particular objection to English patriotism, and he knew a good lyric when one stared him in the face.

And so we have this – and what a song it is. Every time I sing it I end up more than half persuaded that Drake was a great English hero, or at the very least that he was a very good sailor. Which may even be true. It’ll certainly seem true if you listen to the end.

Accompaniment: none. Arrangement: based on Bellamy’s simple but effective arrangement on Oak, Ash and Thorn, although I take it a bit quick.

This is another of Bellamy’s settings of Kipling. Unusually, this one isn’t from either of the Puck books or the Barrack-Room Ballads; it’s one of the poems interspersed through the Just-So Stories. There’s nothing really to it – it says one thing and then shuts up – but it has a simple eloquence which is very appealing. The last line probably relates to the age of the poem’s audience rather than its author; all the same, for me there’s a bit of poignancy in the realisation that I’m already older than Kipling when he wrote it, or Bellamy when he came up with the tune. Never been to Rio, either.

Accompaniment is English concertina, in a key that (I regret to say) suited my fingers better than my voice; I’ll do better (and go lower) another time. What with Bellamy’s brisk Anglo and Jon Boden’s beautifully wistful Maccann Duet accompaniment, this little song has now been recorded with all three of the main concertina systems. Anyone fancy setting it to a tango rhythm with bandoneon?

This is another of Kipling’s “romance of England” songs, the romance in this case taking an unusually literal – and sexual – form.

Anyone committed to a really long view of English history has to contend with a lot of discontinuities, particularly in the earlier parts of the story – population movements, changes of ruler, invasions. In 1066, England had to deal with “a French bastard landing with an armed Banditti and establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives”, in Thomas Payne’s blunt formulation; within a couple of hundred years, the descendants of those same bandits were high-ranking landed gentry, none more English.

What had happened? One answer would be that the new ruling class had remoulded what it meant to be English in their own image, just as they had changed the language. Another answer – Kipling’s – is that the invaders had become English. Sir Richard’s song is about the moment when this starts to happen: when a Norman baron realises that he is no longer taking from England; instead, England has taken him. The phrase, obsessively repeated, has definite sexual overtones, which are entirely in keeping with the rest of the poem: what has taken Sir Richard is not the charm of the English countryside but the love of an English (Anglo-Saxon) woman. He’s helplessly besotted with her, and by extension with the country itself: a vividly appropriate image for the passion Kipling seems to have felt for England, or his idea of England.

Howe’er so great man’s strength be reckoned,
There are two things he cannot flee.
Love is the first, and Death is the second –
And Love in England has taken me!

The zither accompaniment is based loosely on Bellamy’s guitar accompaniment on Oak, Ash and Thorn (although it’s not played live, as you can tell). The flutes were inspired by Peter Gabriel’s “Here comes the flood”.

I’ve sung a few of Peter Bellamy’s settings of Rudyard Kipling already. The plan for the next few weeks is to get a few more done, and where possible to make links with traditional songs.

And where better to start than with this, Puck’s introduction – both of himself and of the deep history of England. There’s something cosy and reactionary about Kipling’s endless celebration of England, but also something enduringly strange. It’s not simply a matter of digging into the national history to demonstrate, Arthur Mee-ishly, that everything’s for the best in the best of all possible countries. There’s also a sense of being helplessly in love with everything about the country, past and present – all the way back to “the lines the Flint Men made to guard their wondrous towns”. The sense of history as something that’s left its traces on the landscape – something that’s still here – has never been conveyed more powerfully.

Accompaniment: C whistle and a concertina I’m still getting to grips with. There are also bees.

This song is a setting by Peter Bellamy (who else) of a poem by Rudyard Kipling (who else). The reason why the diction is so archaic is that it’s a fake Chaucer poem (actual title “Gertrude’s Prayer”), which was printed alongside a story in which it plays a prominent part. The plot of the story (Dayspring Mishandled) is too complex to summarise here; suffice to say that the forbidding moral of the poem (That which is marred at birth, time shall not mend) seems to apply to one of the main characters, but ends up applying to several of them – including the most sympathetic. Perhaps not one to read last thing at night.

I worked out the parts from Peter Bellamy’s recording, on which his voice was accompanied by the voices of Anthea Bellamy and Chris Birch. I sang the lead and Chris Birch’s low harmony; this marks the first appearance of vocal harmony in 52fs. Anthea Bellamy’s part is pitched an octave above Peter’s; this was beyond me, so I played it on recorder (recorded in the bathroom for the harmonics).