Songs Outdoors
So many of the old songs we sing have a strong connection to nature, and we’ve found they take a completely different form when we tell these stories in the outside world. This year we’re making a small series of live videos in outdoor locations. We’ll also detail where we sourced these old songs and the journey we went through to re-imagine them. Feel free to join our mailing list for updates.
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Thanks to the English Folk Dance and Song Society for helping us fund the microphone for this project.
Bonny Woodhall
It was a windy day in Gloucestershire so we retreated off the hills and did some light trespassing in a woodland just outside Blockley. We walked until we found a calm enough spot near a very chatty woodpecker and a couple of talkative wrens. We drew our inspiration for this song from an old recording Hamish Henderson made of Katie Rowley. She mentions that she learned it from her mother when she was about 12. It’s a timeless song that would be totally relevant to any conflict in any place or time. We find the words are written with such sincerity that it’s truly heartbreaking. We decided against the miracle-recovery that Katie gives her protagonist in the final verse, instead we borrow a verse from a version in A.L. Lloyd’s ‘Come All Ye Bold Miners’ where we leave him crying on the battlefield as he fondly remembers his homeland.
The Old Churchyard
We’d waited a long time for a still enough day to film this video in the North Pennines. Jon had discovered this church on one of his walks and was keen to return and sing in the churchyard. Upon entering, we were excited to hear the distinctive call of a Willow Ptarmigan but had no time to search through the heather as the last of the light was disappearing behind the hill.
The song we chose for this setting comes from an old hymn that at some point in its life, entered into the oral folk song tradition in America. Our main source for the melody came from a wonderful singer named Almeda Riddle from Heber Springs, Arkansas, who recorded it in 1972 on her album ‘Ballads and Hymns From the Ozarks’. We also took a small amount of melodic inspiration from Waterson:Carthy, as it’s hard to ignore such a great interpretation of the song.
In folksong, we’re often faced with the concept of death being a threat or even an escape from pain. We love the way this story tackles death and grieving, and what might happen after we’re gone. We’ve all lost friends who are close to us, spent time in these places, and wandered down the road of remembrance. This is one of many songs in the American folk song canon that explores the human desire to be united with the dead once more, but does so in a way that isn’t too melancholic.
The Seasons
It’s been a dry summer and the North Yorkshire Moors hadn’t seen a drop of rain in nearly two weeks. The heather was barely in bloom, until finally the heavens opened while we were playing at Whitby Folk Week. We seized the opportunity, and although tired from the week of playing, we were rejuvenated by the hills.
The song itself isn’t technically traditional. We learned it from a recording of Lizzie Higgins, who sang it beautifully, however its origins are speculative. We’ve been informed that in the early 1900s it was a poem submitted to the children’s section of a newspaper by a 10 year old girl.