Category: Song of the Month

Introduced by William Pint and Felicia Dale

Annan Water is a superb example of the folk process in action.

In the late 1960’s English singer Nic Jones encountered lyrics in Child’s English and Scottish Popular Ballads, that had been taken from yet another book, Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Borders. Jones modified the words, turned the final stanza into a chorus, borrowed a melody from another traditional English song, and processed it all into a brand new ‘traditional’ song. Annan Water describes the tragedy of a man’s struggle to reach his true love, riding his horse to exhaustion at a swollen river’s banks and finally attempting and failing to swim the raging water. The singer, admonishing the treacherous river, vows to build a bridge guaranteeing that never again will it divide true lovers.

Listen to a great version sung by the Irish vocal trio, The Voice Squad:

Lyrics:

Oh Annan Water’s wondrous deep, and my love Annie is wondrous bonny
I loath that she should wet her feet, because I love her best of any
Go saddle for me the bonny grey mare, go saddle her soon and make her ready,
For I must cross that stream tonight or never more I’ll see my lady.
And woe betide you Annan water, by night you are a gloomy river,
And over you I’ll build a bridge, that never more true love may sever.

And he has ridden o’er field and fen, o’er moor and moss and many a mire
His spurs of steel were sore to bite, sparks from the mare’s hooves flew like fire
The mare flew on o’er moor and moss and when she reached the Annan Water
She couldn’t have ridden a furlong more, had a thousand whips been laid upon her.
And woe betide you Annan water, by night you are a gloomy river,
And over you I’ll build a bridge, that never more true love may sever.

Oh, boatman come, put-off your boat; put-off your boat for gold and money,
For I must cross that stream tonight, or never more I’ll see my lady.
The sides are steep, the waters deep, from bank to brae the water’s pouring
And the bonny grey mare she sweats for fear, she stands to hear the waters roaring.
And woe betide you Annan water, by night you are a gloomy river,
And over you I’ll build a bridge, that never more true love may sever.

And he has tried to swim that stream, and he swam on both strong and steady
But the river was wide and strength did fail, and never more he’ll see his lady.
Oh woe betide the willow wand, and woe betide the bush and briar,
For they broke beneath her true love’s hand, when strength did fail and limbs did tire.
And woe betide you Annan water, by night you are a gloomy river,
And over you I’ll build a bridge, that never more true love may sever.

William Pint and partner Felicia Dale share a love for all traditional music, but specialize in nautically themed songs. They adapt traditional maritime songs from the Age of Sail, modifying and arranging them with guitar, hurdy-gurdy, octave mandolin, fiddle and whistles to create a modern sound with a traditional maritime spirit.

Introduced by Ed Miller

It’s an old song, probably 19th century, from the song-rich northeast lowlands of Scotland; one of many songs relating to the harvest time of late summer. Harvest time in the old agricultural system of Lowland Scotland was one of the few times when men and women worked together out-of-doors. They would form “gangs” where the men would do the shearing (cutting by scythe or “heuk”) and the women the picking-up and “stookin” before the crop was taken off for threshing. The 2nd verse may be romantic; but the other 3 are not.

In the first verse, the young man says “don’t even come to the harvest, you’re so pregnant you can’t bend over to pick it up,” and the 3rd and 4th verses tell her to forget dressing nicely and making herself look good as life from now on will be one of drudgery at home with the children…typical Scottish fare!

There are many versions of this song… some have verses where the girl complains of being taken advantage of and then abandoned by the young man; but this is a more benign version.

Listen to Ed Miller sing the tune:

Listen to Scots Women sing the tune:

Lyrics:

Oh the shearin’s no for you ma bonnie lassie O
Oh the shearin’s no for you ma bonnie lassie O
Oh the shearin’s no for you
For yer back it winna bow
And yer belly’s growin fu’ ma bonnie lassie O

Dae ye mind the banks o’ Ayr ma bonnie lassie O
Dae ye mind the banks o’ Ayr ma bonnie lassie O
Dae ye mind the banks o’ Ayr
Where my heart ye did ensnare
And yer love ye did declare ma bonnie lassie O.

Tak the ribbons frae yer hair ma bonnie lassie O
Tak the ribbons frae yer hair ma bonnie lassie O
Tak the ribbons frae yer hair
And let doon yer ringlets fair
For ye’ve nocht noo but dool an care ma bonnie lassie O

Tak the buckles frae yer shoon ma bonnie lassie O
Tak the buckles frae yer shoon ma bonnie lassie O
Tak the buckles frae yer shoon
For ye’ve wed an unco loon
An yer dancin days are done ma bonnie lassie O

Repeat Verse 1

Glossary:

shearin’ – harvest
growin’ fu’ – swelling full
winna – won’t
frae – from
nocht noo – nothing now
dool – sadness
shoon – shoes
unco loon – weird young man

Originally from Edinburgh, Ed Miller has made his home in Austin, TX, for over 40 years. He is a singer, folklorist, geographer, teacher, tour guide (Folksong Tours of Scotland), and radio host (“Across the Pond” on sunradio.com). He performs at festivals, house concerts, Highland Games and other events all over the United States and teaches each year at The Swannanoa Gathering in NC and Spanish Peaks Festival in CO. He has recorded 10 CDs of both traditional and contemporary Scots songs.

Introduced by Sparky and Rhonda Rucker

“Shady Grove” is a traditional Southern Appalachian song. Like many mountain songs that blend Celtic and African influences, it is most often played in a modal tuning. Its origins are murky. The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, Volume III, credits it as a “Negro song.” In the Journal of American Folklore, the song was collected in both Kentucky and Tennessee. In one of her books, Jean Ritchie reminisced about hearing it as a fiddle tune when she was growing up in eastern Kentucky. We have recorded this song twice — once on our CD, Treasures & Tears, and again on Dear Jean, the Jean Richie tribute album.

See video from our live performance for a Jean Ritchie tribute at KY Music Weekend on July 25, 2015:

Rhonda says, “Doing the transcription was a challenge because Sparky tends to improvise so much, so each verse and chorus is a little different. Therefore, I went with the melody he used for the first verse and chorus.”

Lyrics:

(guitar is tuned to “D” Model [D A D G B D] capo at 2nd fret making it “E” Model)

Cheeks as red as the blooming rose
Eyes of the deepest brown
You are the darling of my heart
Stay ‘till the sun goes down

Refrain:
Shady Grove my little love
Shady Grove my darling
Shady Grove my little love
I’m going back to Harlan

When I was a little boy
I used to want a knife
Now I am a big strong man
All I want is a wife

Refrain:
Shady Grove, my true love
Shady Grove I know
Shady Grove, my true love
I’m bound for the Shady Grove

The last time I saw Shady Grove
She was standing in the door
Shoes and stockings in her hand
And her little bare feet on the floor

Wish I had a horse so fine
Corn to feed him on
Wish I had little Shady Grove
To feed him when I’m gone

Refrain:
Shady Grove, my true love
Shady grove I know
Shady Grove, my true love
I’m bound for the Shady Grove

Refrain:
Shady Grove my little love
Shady Grove my darling
Shady Grove my little love
I’m going back to Harlan

Wish I had little Shady Grove
I’d put her on the shelf
And every time she smiled at me
I’d climb up there myself

Eleven miles of mountain road
Fifteen miles of sand
If ever you see me back again
Gonna be a married man

Refrain:
Shady Grove, my true love
Shady Grove my darling
Shady Grove, my true love
I’m going back to Harlan

Refrain:
Shady Grove, my true love
Shady grove I know
Shady Grove, my true love
I’m bound for the Shady Grove

Refrain:
Shady Grove, my true love
Shady Grove I say
Gonna marry you someday

Refrain:
Shady Grove, my true love
Shady Grove I say
Shady Grove, my true love
Hey, don’t you wait ‘till the Judgment Day!

Sparky and Rhonda Rucker‘s music includes old-time blues, Appalachian music, slave songs, and spirituals as well as originals, and they accompany themselves with fingerstyle picking and bottleneck blues guitar, old-time banjo, blues harmonica, piano, spoons, and bones. Over fifty years of performing, Sparky and Rhonda have entertained at the Kennedy Center and the Smithsonian Folklife Festival as well as appeared on NPR’s On Point, Prairie Home Companion, and Mountain Stage. Their recording, Treasures & Tears, was nominated for a W.C. Handy Award, and their music is also included on the Grammy-nominated anthology, Singing Through the Hard Times. The duo’s most recent recording is Down by the Riverside.

Introduced by Keith Kendrick

This wonderful version of “Bedlam” was collected by Cecil Sharp from Jack Barnard in Bridgewater 1906. I found it in Book 2 of The Crystal Spring: English Folk Songs, and I’ve been singing it since the 1970s.

Having seemingly been cruelly cheated out of her loved one (who, incidentally must have been either a thoroughly nasty piece of work or simply a complete and utter prat!) by jealous or unthinking friends, this poor girl, suffering probably only from a bout of melancholy, finds herself inappropriately dumped in a mental institution mistakenly diagnosed as slightly loopy, an all too common occurrence in days gone by – and not totally unheard of in more recent times either!

Listen to Keith and Sylvia Needham sing the tune:

Lyrics:

Abroad as I was walking one morning in the spring
I met a maid in Bedlam so sweetly did a-sing.
Her chain she rattled with her hands and thus did smile and say:
“I love my love because I know he first loved me.”

“My love he was sent from me by friends who were unkind,
They sent him far beyond the sea and that torments my mind.
And though I suffer for his sake contented will I be
For I love my love because I know he first loved me.”

“My love will not come near me to hear the moan I make
And neither would he pity me if my poor heart should break
And though I suffer for his sake contented will I be
For I love my love because I know he first loved me.”

“Oh Johnny, lovely Johnny, are you my love or no?”
“Ah Nancy, dearest Nancy, I’ve proved your overthrow.”
“And though I suffered for his sake contented will I be
For I love my love because I know he first loved me.
For I love my love because I know he first loved me.”

Vocal and instrumental music, social and ceremonial dance have all played a role in Keith Kendrick’s career, which has spanned over five decades. Together with Sylvia Needham, he performs extensively all over the UK, Europe and beyond. They sing a capella or accompany themselves and play lively dance tunes on three different systems of concertina.

Introduced by Joel Mabus

For the CDSS Song of the Month, I offer “The Bonny Bunch of Roses,” as performed on Irish television in 1965 by a young Colm Walsh of County Clare. Here is the video of his performance.

I have transcribed his melody and also the lyric he uses, which is not what is posted beneath the video. I have never heard this exact version anywhere else — there are many, many variants. The song is in the “Bonaparte Canon,” as it were. In this ballad, the young out-of-favor Napoleon II is speaking with his mother, Archduchess Marie Louise, after daddy is dead and buried at St. Helena. He tells he will do what his father failed to do — give her the “bonny bunch of roses” — being England, Ireland and Scotland. And she says, “Don’t try it, kid!”

A version of this tune is sometimes called “Bonaparte’s Retreat” (one of the several) and exists as an Appalachian fiddle & banjo tune called “The Bunch of Roses.”

Lyrics:

By the borders of the ocean,
One pleasant morning in the month of June,
To hear those warlike songsters
Their cheerful notes did sweetly tune,
I o’erheard a female talkin’
Who seemed to be in grief and woe,
Conversing with Napoleon
Concerning the bonny Bunch of Roses, O.

Up stepped brave young Bonaparte,
And took his mother by the hand,
Sayin’ “Mother dear have patience,
Until I am able to command;
When I’ll raise a mighty army,
And through tremendous dangers I will go,
And in spite of all the universe,
I’ll win for you the bonny Bunch of Roses, O.”

Oh, son, don’t speak so venturesome;
For England is the heart of oak;
And Ireland, England and Scotland, ,
Their unity was never broke.
O think upon thy father,
In the Isle Saint Helena his body lies low,
And you must follow after
So beware of the bonny Bunch of Roses, O.

He took three hundred thousand men
And kings likewise to bear his train;
He was so well provided for
That he could sweep this old world for gain.
Until he came to Moscow,
He was overpower’d by the sleet and the snow;
And Moscow being a-blazing
Twas there he lost the bonny Bunch of Roses, O.

Joel Mabus is a songwriter, folksinger, instrumentalist and music teacher living in Kalamazoo, Michigan. By genealogical records he is the scion of William Brewster of Scrooby, England & Plymouth, Massachusetts. He is also the scion of thousands of anonymous potato farmers and barrel makers from the Germanic lowlands. Joel has recorded 27 albums since 1978; his latest is titled Time & Truth.

Introduced by Geoff Kaufman

There are a number of versions of this lovely song most commonly called “Home, Dearie, Home.” I first heard this one from Ed Trickett in a house concert in NYC just as I was getting serious about performing and I often give it credit for steering me toward a career built around maritime music. I love its poignant vignette of the sailor far from home and the whimsical twist of the wife neglecting to tell him if their baby is a boy or girl.

Hear the song performed by Geoff Kaufman:

Lyrics

Well now, Amble is a fine town with ships about the bay
It’s fain and very fain to be there, myself, today
I’m wishing in my heart I was far away from here
Sittin’ in my parlor a-talkin’ with my dear
And it’s home, dearie, home

And it’s home I want to be. My topsails are hoisted and I am bound to sea.
The oak and the ash and the bonnie birchen tree
Are all growin’ green in the north country
And it’s home, dearie, home.

Well, a letter came today, but somehow I cannot speak
The proud and happy tears are rollin’ down my cheek
“There’s someone here,” she said, “you’ve been waiting for to see
With your merry hazel eyes looking up from off my knee.”
And it’s home, dearie, home.

And it’s home I want to be. My topsails are hoisted and I am bound to sea.
The oak and the ash and the bonnie birchen tree
Are all growin’ green in the north country
And it’s home, dearie, home.

But that letter did not say if we had a boy or girl
It’s got me so confused, my heart is in a whirl
I’m going back to port where I’ll quickly turn around
And take the fastest ship that to Ambletown is bound
And it’s home, dearie, home.

And it’s home I want to be. My topsails are hoisted and I am bound to sea.
The oak and the ash and the bonnie birchen tree
Are all growin’ green in the north country
And it’s home, dearie, home.

Well now, if it be a girl, she shall wear a golden ring
If it be a boy, he’ll live to serve the king
With his buckles and his boots and his little jacket blue
He’ll walk the quarterdeck like his daddy used to do
And it’s home, dearie, home.

And it’s home I want to be. My topsails are hoisted and I am bound to sea.
The oak and the ash and the bonnie birchen tree
Are all growin’ green in the north country
And it’s home, dearie, home.

And it’s home I want to be. My topsails are hoisted and I am bound to sea.
The oak and the ash and the bonnie birchen tree
Are all growin’ green in the north country
And it’s home, dearie, home.

Geoff Kaufman‘s early interest in the folk music of the mid 60s rumbled along as an avocation from high school through college to graduate school. Then he took a left turn when he began performing with some fellows in Queens, NY, becoming the quartet STOUT, which sang at OpSail ’76 in NYC and at the first Sea Music Festival at Mystic Seaport Museum in CT in 1980. That led to a thirty-five year career singing and running music programs at Mystic from 1984 – present. During his NYC years, he also met the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater and became a Sloop Singer which has shaped another significant part of his repertoire – songs of the earth, heart and spirit.

Introduced by Lynn Nichols

At CDSS, we are stewards of traditional music, dance, and song, but while the songs may be traditional, the traditions are living ones. Which brings me to “Throw Open Your Shutters.” Connecticut composer Amy Fell Bernon wrote this high energy, festive choral work in the Renaissance madrigal style in 2000 as a tribute to her high school choral director in Jamesville-DeWitt, NY. The piece features a wonderful interplay between voice parts, particularly in the “Hey Ding-a-dong” section. Bernon has set it in SATB, SSA, and TBB versions, and it is performed either with piano accompaniment or a cappella.

Amy Fell Bernon is one of Connecticut’s leading composers of choral music. She’s also a talented singer, pianist, conductor. Amy’s music is accessible and unpretentious, and she has received countless commissions from choral festivals and ensembles of all levels. Her works for treble voices are especially popular among women’s choirs and youth choirs.

In fact, it is the accessibility of “Throw Open Your Shutters” that has made it a such a choral favorite over the years. Of the many renditions of the tune that are available on YouTube, I have selected three:

The first is by the Stoughton High School Madrigal Singers (Stoughton, WI) and is also embedded here.

The second is from a children’s production of “A Christmas Carol” (location unknown).

The third is from the Ocean Springs High School Madrigal Choir (Ocean Springs, MS).

The music for “Throw Open Your Shutters” is distributed by JW Pepper, so I am including a sample jpg here. You can buy the music at the JW Pepper website.

Lyrics

Throw open your shutters ye maids and lads
Sound out, ye trumpets, be glad, sound and be glad.
Celebrate this festive day! Hey!
Ring your bells and let the psaltry play!
Celebrate this festive day! Hey!
Ring your bells and let the psaltry play!

Gather ye neighbors, with candles bright
Sing out your choruses, sing, sing of delight
Celebrate this festive day! Hey!
Ring your bells and let the psaltry play!
Celebrate this festive day! Hey!
Ring your bells and let the psaltry play!

Hey ding a ding-a, ding, ding-a, ding-a, hey a-ding dong!
Hey ding a ding-a, ding, ding-a, ding-a, hey a-ding dong!
Hey ding a ding-a, ding, ding-a, ding-a, hey a-ding dong!
Hey ding a ding-a, ding, ding-a, ding-a, hey a-ding dong!
Ding! Dong! Ding! Dong! Hey! Ding! Dong! Hey! Ding! Dong!

Climb to the rooftops and shout your noise
Join us in dancing, rejoice! Dance and rejoice!
Celebrate this festive day! Hey!
Ring your bells and let the psaltery play!
Celebrate this festive day! Hey!
Ring your bells and let the psaltry play!

Sing! Ring! Dance!

Lynn Nichols worked for the Country Dance and Song Society from 2012-2019, first as Webmaster and then as Marketing and Design Manager. She is an avid choral singer, musician (mountain dulcimer), and English dancer.

Introduced by Brian Peters

The Wild Rover is one of the best-known traditional songs, but it’s not the Irish drinking anthem many people assume. It began life in the 1670s as an English broadside ballad about a hard-drinking ‘Bad Husband’ who saw the error of his ways, but was edited down over the centuries, rebranded as ‘The Wild Rover,’ and a chorus added. It was popular in England, Scotland and Australia, and the version made famous by the Dubliners contains elements from all of those places. Brian’s version was collected in Hampshire, England, in 1906, and retains the older chorus and temperance message – a similar version was written down in the same area as early as 1820.

Watch/listen to Brian perform The Wild Rover:

Lyrics

I’ve been a wild rover for many’s the long year
Spent all my money on fine girls and strong beer
But for my part I will lay down my money in store
And it’s never will I play the wild rover no more

Wild rover, wild rover, wild rover no more
And it’s never will I play the wild rover no more

I went in to an alehouse where I’d used to resort
The liquor was good, but my money ran short
I asked them to trust me, they answered me “Nay”
Such a customer as you we can get any day

So from out of my pocket I drew handfuls of gold
The landlady’s eyes opened wide to behold
“You’re welcome, kind sir, to our liquor of the best
What we told you before, it was only in jest”

“Oh no,” I replied, “that never can be
For I’ll see you all hang e’er you get one penny
For a man who’s got money, you’ve a welcome in store
But a man who’s got none will be turned from your door.”

Brian Peters is a singer from England who specializes in the traditional songs and music of his native land, and is also a virtuoso multi-instrumentalist. He’s developed projects on the Child Ballads and Cecil Sharp’s Appalachian collection, and is a regular visitor to the USA.