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Let The Wind Blow high Or Low
2014
Gaol Song
Chemical Workers Song
The L & N Don't Stop Here Anymore
Paddy West
Hold The Lantern High
Let The Wind Blow High Or Low
The White Dove
The Gardener
Keep Your Hand On The Plough
The Bonnie Ship The Diamond
What You Do With What You've Got
The Cottagers Reply
Night Hours
2016
Night Hours
Harvest Gypsies
Bonny Bunch Of Roses
The Ballad Of Yorkley Court
Shallow Brown
Mary And The Soldier
Willie O' The Winsbury
Moved On
The Grazier Tribe
Along The Castlereagh
Something Good
Many A Thousand
2018
Hope And Glory
Working Chap
Turning Of The Year
Reedcutters Daughter
The Last Ploughshare
Hawks Call
A Monument To The Times
Via Exstasia
Poachers Fate
The Tide
The Seasons
A response to the rise of nationalism in England and the use of a romanticised idea of what the country once was in order to stoke fear of change. It's a defiant song that says that the country must not allow it's history to be misused in this way.
HOPE & GLORY
They speak of hope and glory
And generations past
The bugle’s call on the wind
And poppies in the grass
The red deer in the valley
And merlin’s overhead
They recall a time, a golden time,
A land of lost content
CHORUS
Their tales of old merry England
Ring with a hollow sound
They seek to sow the seeds of hate
All on our common ground
They tell of ancient victories
And lines of marching men
Thin red streaks tipped with steel
They’d do it all again
They talk of faith, of one belief
And the peel of familiar bells
Spires climbing high above
A land that never was
CHORUS
They say they see a river
The banks are creaking now
Wider still, and wider
‘Til they burst across the field
But in the towns and in the valleys
They’ve heard it all before
And the memory of this people
Will be abused no more
CHORUS
Aldridge/Goldsmith
A bothy ballad from Scotland that timelessly depicts the struggles of poverty and working to make ends meet. There is an additional verse written by Martin Carthy who first recorded the song in 1990.
WORKING CHAP Roud 5591
I’m a working chap as you may see
You’ll find an honest lad in me
I’m neither haughty mean nor proud
Nor ever take to things too rude
I never go above my means
Or seek assistance from my friends
But day and night through thick and thin
I’m working life out to keep life in
CHORUS
No matter friends what ere befalls
The poor folk must work away
Through frost and snow rain and wind
They’re working life out to keep life in
The poor needlewoman that we saw
In reality and on the wall
A picture sorrowful to see
I’m sure with me you’ll all agree
Her pay’s scarce able to feed a mouse
Far less to keep herself a house
She’s naked hungry pale and thin
Working life out to keep life in
CHORUS
Don’t call a man a drunken sot
Because he wears a ragged coat
It’s better far, mind don’t forget,
To run in rags than run in debt
He may look beaten very true
But still his creditors are few
And he trudges on devoid of sin
Working life out to keep life in
CHORUS
Oh mischief mine where do you roam
When reason called you weren’t at home
If you take cheese off the rat
Is he then free to hunt the cat?
If free from unions, free from dues
Are you free of choice or free to choose
Or free as birds blown by the wind
Working life out to keep life in
CHORUS
A song that tells of the unique ability of the elements to heal and restore us. Following a difficult period in their lives Jimmy and his partner were caught in a huge storm on the Cornish cliffs one New Years Day and returned alarmed but completely renewed.
TURNING OF THE YEAR
At the turning of the year
We walk through icy air
To where the sea meets the land
And rolls it’s temper across the sands
And the winds that beat the western shore
Welcome us, alone once more
In a rolling storm that clears a year away
A rolling storm that clears our year away
At the turning of the year
As the sunlight cuts the longest night
An early dawn, a waking light
On cliffs that meet Atlantic tides
We wait in the grass
For a storm to break and pass
In a rolling storm that clears a year away
A rolling storm that clears our year away
At the turning of the year
The curlew’s call is on the air
Woodland in winter’s sleep
Leans against the frosty breeze
It is only here on that western shore
That we can be alone once more
In a rolling storm that clears a year away
A rolling storm that clears our year away
At the turning of the clouds above
We climb to the cliffs and watch
The battle of a rolling storm
Playing out the pain we’ve worn
It leaves behind a new years sky
A new beginning for you and I
In a rolling storm that clears a year away
A rolling storm that clears our year away
Aldridge/Goldsmith
A traditional song about a traveller who falls in love with a girl from Hoveton - a village very close to where we both grew up. He has to decide whether to settle down with her or to follow the call of the road. The song was adapted by Jeff Wesley of Whittlesbury, Northamptonshire and sung to John Howson in 1988. Our version is sung over the stunning organ in St. Helens, Hoveton.
REEDCUTTERS DAUGHTER - Roud 5397
Come all you young fellows who mean to start roaming,
Pray pay attention and listen to me.
For I once loved a girl and I would have married
But I belonged to the road and I had to be free.
For I was a tinker a-fixing and mending
Camped by a village and earning my pay,
While she had a house and a father to care for,
The reed cutter's daughter from Hoveton way.
For the times they are hard when a girl loves a rover,
When really she shouldn't and knows that it's so.
Each night as the sun set to me she would wander,
Each morn as it rose to the house she would go.
I knew that some day we'd be sad for the parting
Each morn I would wish and each night I’d pray,
So happy together with this blue-eyed maiden,
The reed cutter's daughter from Hoveton way.
When I think of the short time that we spent together
Often a frown passes over my brow.
She told me that some day I'd grow to forget her
But many's the time that I think of her now.
I was cruel to be kind when the time came for parting
With a kiss and a smile and “I'll see you again”.
But just as I found her I left her a-standing
The reed cutter's daughter from Hoveton way.
Yes, I thought it was cruel, now I see it was kindness.
For she could not leave there and I could not stay.
But oft times I wonder if I'm still remembered
By the reed cutter's daughter from Hoveton way,
By a reed cutter's daughter from Hoveton way.
This was written by John Conolly in response to a call from the World Wildlife Fund for Nature for songs about our (mis)treatment of the natural world
THE LAST PLOUGHSHARE
When first we roved out in glory
On the earth's broad and gentle plain
Turned the first pages of the story
Took the wide world as our domain
There were no promises to break then
As the earth's morning swelled with light
Calling humankind to rise and wake then
From the dark mantle of the night
We are thinker, we are maker
Gaining strength as the years unfold
Mountain mover and heaven shaker
Weaving bright dreams from threads of gold
There are none now can overthrow us
As we strive for the victor's crown
Losing sight of the earth below us
Where the seed-corn is trampled down
For the world's treasures grow with sharing
There is bounty for every need
Only we count the cost of caring
Only we live by guile and greed
There is no room for simple kindness
As the weakest go to the wall
In the proud prison of our blindness
We have conquered and we must fall
When the sun strikes the flint and tinder
Of the earth's fierce and final dawn
Who will plough then the ash and cinder
Of the lands war has stripped and torn
Who will green all the battlefields then
As the earth's blind and bloody Lords
Grimly gathering the final yield then
Turn the last ploughshare into swords
John Connoly
Our rewrite of the slave spiritual No More Auction Block imagines a world without military conflict.
HAWKS CALL
No more desert blood for me x2
Many a thousand gone
No more reaping wings for me x2
Many a thousand gone
No more death bells toll for me x2
Many a thousand gone
No more Hawks call for me x2
Many a thousand gone
Aldridge/Goldsmith
A song about Shirebrook in Derbyshire which for years was the home of a unionised colliery and now, on the very same ground, houses several Sports Direct warehouses employing people on zero hours contracts and paying less than minimum wage. We ask whether these warehouses represent a troubling monument to our times. The stepped ford was written by Sid on the English Acoustic Collective summer school last year.
A MONUMENT TO THE TIMES/THE STEPPED FORD
On ground that gave a million tonnes
And honest work for Derbyshire’s sons
Who stood together in union
Here stands a monument to the times
Freedom for the pike is death to the minnow
Where miners once worked now workers slave
In a warehouse, a workhouse day after day
No voice, no power, no decent wage
Here stands a monument to the times
Freedom for the pike is death to the minnow
This warehouse deals in plastic dreams
To line the pockets of men unseen
Exploiting those with mouths to feed
Here stands a monument to the times
Freedom for the pike is death to the minnow
The many in Shirebrook feed the few
To the north and south the same is true
This brave new world is serving who?
Here stands a monument to the times
Freedom for the pike is death to the minnow
But in Shirebrook and the country round
Something deep is stirring now
Many a thousand stand unbowed
They stand a monument to the times x2
Aldridge/Goldsmith
This beautiful song of love was written by Liam Weldon and recorded in 1976. Love reflected in nature is something of a holy grail in the folk tradition and this song manages it so well.
VIA EXSTASIA
If you were the restless sea and I the steadfast stone,
You the waving kelp above, I the bleaching bones,
Your little waves to lap my feet,
Advance and kiss, encroach, retreat;
Surround, submerge, at last complete,
Oh, you and I truly one.
And were you then a yellow bloom, dancing in the grass,
I, the hunting honey bee pausing e’er I’d pass,
And as I’d sip your nectar sweet,
Your pollen grains cling to my feet,
In that ecstatic moment meet,
Oh, you and I truly one.
And were I, then, a single seed of all the millions in the field,
You, a gentle raindrop from the sky,
And as you fall upon my breast and
Waken me from my long rest,
In that moment, by the old gods blessed,
Oh, you and I, truly one.
And were you, then, the last wild leaf on an autumn bough,
I, the wind, a wanton thief, blow as I blow now,
And if you’d fall as fall you must,
And I to be the waiting dust,
Free from sorrow, pain, or lust,
And lie, forever, truly one.
Liam Weldon
Learned from one of our absolute favourite Norfolk singers, Harry Cox, who was recorded singing it in 1970. The act of poaching in traditional songs seems to us to be an illustration of the age old battle against land and power lying in the hands of the rich.
POACHERS FATE - Roud 793
Come all you lads of high renown
Who love to drink strong ale that's brown
And pull a lofty pheasant down
With powder, shot and gun.
I and five more a-poaching went;
To kill some game was our intent.
Our money being gone and spent,
We'd nothing else to try.
And the moon shone bright,
Not a cloud in sight,
Our money being gone and spent,
We'd nothing else to try.
But the keeper heard us fire our gun
And to the spot did quickly run.
He swore before the rising sun
That one of us must die.
Was the bravest youth of all our lot
Was his misfortune to be shot;
His memory ne'er shall be forgot
By all his friends below.
For help he cried
But was denied
His memory ne'er shall be forgot
By all his friends below.
That murderous man who did him kill
And on the ground his blood did spill,
Shall wander far against his will
And find no resting place.
He must wander through the world forlorn
And always fear the rising sun
He’s pointed out with finger scorn
To die in sad disgrace
Destructive things
His conscience stings
He’s pointed out with finger scorn
To die in sad disgrace
To prison then we all were sent,
We called for aid, but none was lent.
Our enemies were fully bent
That there we should remain.
But fickle fortune on us shined
And unto us did change her mind
With heartfelt thanks for liberty
We were soon let out again.
And the moon shone bright
Not a cloud in sight
With heartfelt thanks for liberty
We were soon let out again.
I and five more a-poaching went;
To kill some game was our intent.
Our money being gone and spent,
We'd nothing else to try.
Jimmy wrote this song for an event celebrating the history of Rotherhithe on the south bank of the Thames. It reflects on the relentless tide of the people (and the river) in and out of London every day.
THE TIDE
6 am the river runs through
A city waking anew
Ten million souls jolt to life
It’s one more day on the great Thames tide x2
8am the city roars again
Sirens sound and the traffic thunders round
A marching mass rushes past with no time to stop
It’s one more day on the great Thames tide x4
One more morning passes by
Windows exposing the bowed heads, the cowed heads
Of armies drilled with busyness
Dusk falls and lovers stroll hand in hand
They walk against a rushing tide,
Spilling through every crack, the city’s drained
It’s one more day on the great Thames tide x6
The black of night, the river lies still
Silently she waits for the tide to turn again
Aldridge/Goldsmith
Originally a poem by Joseph Campell, we learned this version from a recording of Peta Webb and Ken Hall who had included an additional verse by Jeff Wesley. It is sung over some full full throated bird song recorded at dawn in Wacton, Norfolk.
THE SEASONS
I will go with my father a-ploughing
To the green field by the sea
And the crows and the rooks and the seagulls
Will come flocking after me
I will see the patient horses
And the lark in the clear air
And my father will sing the plough song
That rejoices in the cleaving share
I will go with my father a-sowing
To the red field by the sea
And the crows and the rooks and the starlings
Will come flocking after me
I will see the striding sower
And the finch on wings so low
And my father will sing the seed song
That only the wise men know
I will go with my father a-reaping
To the gold field by the sea
And the crows and the rooks and the children
Will come flocking after me
I will see the tan-faced reaper
And the wren in the heat of the sun
And my father will sing the scythe song
That rejoices in the harvest home
I will go with my father a-threshing
To the barn set by the sea
And the crows and the rooks and the sparrows
Will come flocking after me
I will sing to the labouring thresher
As his flail swings over his head
And my father will sing the flail song
That rejoices in wheat for the bread
Joseph Campell/Jeff Wesley