Category Archives: folk song

16 September 2011 · 4:36 pm

FS03: The Unfortunate Lass

Two cautionary tales this week.

This song is one of many, many variants – its cousins include Maid Struck Down In Her Prime, The Unfortunate Rake, Pills of White Mercury, Streets of Laredo, When I Was On Horseback and the St James Infirmary Blues. The plot, if that’s the word, is always the same: the song is the deathbed speech of someone who’s dying of VD. To modern ears the song seems curiously bald in the way the story is told: we hear that a young man (or woman) is suffering horribly and about to die, we hear what’s killing him or her, but all the obvious conclusions – how sad it is and what a dreadful warning – are left to us to draw. To my mind this lack of either sentiment or censoriousness is one of the key distinguishing factors of traditional songs: they may show us what to think, but they don’t tell. It can make for some incredibly powerful lines – in this song, think of the awful, casual bleakness of

Send for the doctor although it’s too late

In my experience, the contemporary songs that can stand comparison with traditional songs often have this quality, too – see today’s Richard Thompson number.

Although I’ve known When I Was On Horseback for years, I’d never heard this song until Jon Boden did it on A Folk Song A Day. As soon as I heard it I knew I was going to have to learn it. I may have slowed it down a bit, in an effort to give the 6/8 time some of the plodding grimness of the St James Infirmary Blues, but essentially this arrangement is after Jon’s.

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Filed under folk song, Jon Boden, traditional

9 September 2011 · 10:36 pm

FS02: The death of Bill Brown

“The death of Bill Brown” is an eighteenth-century song about an encounter between a gamekeeper and two poachers. The gamekeeper, Tom Green, shot and killed one of the poachers; his friend, who is supposed to be singing this song, went back the next night and shot Tom Green.

I learned the song from Peter Bellamy’s version; you can see him performing it here. Bellamy (or his source) doctored the song fairly extensively, particularly the melody: as collected it had quite a jolly upbeat tune, complete with a fol-de-rol refrain. I think Bellamy’s minor-key tune and his aggressive, declamatory reading fit the song much better, so I followed him.

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Filed under folk song, O my name is, Peter Bellamy, traditional

7 September 2011 · 7:25 am

FS01: Lord Bateman

The second or third time I heard this song, I completely lost track of time. When silence fell, Bateman having finally married his Sophia and vowed never again to range the ocean, I shook my head like a dog waking up; I’d heard every note, but it felt as if I’d been sitting there for hours. (It was Nic Jones’s version, which comes in at a little under seven minutes, but even so.) Something about the steady forward motion of the story coupled with the swinging repetitions and returns of the melody… I’m drifting off now just thinking about it. Using repetition is something folk music teaches you, I think. James Yorkston once said the two bands he’d most like to play in were Planxty and Can, and in many ways they’re not that far apart.

The song is my version of Nic Jones’s version of one of the many versions of Child 52 (most of which aren’t about anyone called Bateman), with the tune borrowed from Joseph Taylor’s version, some lyrics borrowed from Jim Moray’s version and the musical influence of Dave Bishop. (I think that’s everyone.) It’s unusual among the old ballads in having a happy ending; really, the narrative doesn’t have much drama in it at all, or not by modern standards – I guess at the time it was composed the idea of Sophia packing up all of her gay gay clothing and making it all the way from Turkey to Northumberland was a marvel in itself.

Anyway, here it is; see what you think. (I can’t promise to induce a trance state.)

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Filed under Child ballad, folk song, Nic Jones, O my name is, traditional

6 September 2011 · 7:14 pm

Why fifty-two folk songs?

Welcome all, and – since you ask – why am I doing this? Four reasons.

Firstly, like many people, I was knocked out by Jon Boden’s A Folk Song A Day project (currently running through the year for a second time); when it ended I thought it would be good to do something along the same lines. Only not updating daily, obviously. (Also, I don’t play the concertina.)

Secondly, I like singing songs, getting better at it & learning more of them, and I like giving people the chance to hear me singing. (If they like it too, so much the better!)

Thirdly, I turned 51 recently, and it struck me that I’m now (hopefully) living through the 52 weeks of my 52nd year. Spooky. Well, not very spooky, but still. If I was ever going to publish a folk song a week (say) for a year (say), this seemed like a pretty good time to start.

Fourthly – and most importantly – why not?

And with that we’re off. It’s a simple setup: I sing, record and upload one folk song a week, every week until this time next year. I’ll say a bit about the songs as we go along. I’ll put some other songs up too along the way; some of them will be folk songs too but some won’t. Either way, I hope you like them.

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Filed under folk song, not a folk song