Category: songs

Alfred, Lord Tennyson 1890

Rani Arbo 1998

Arbo wrote this setting after keeping vigil while her husband’s grandmother, Elizabeth May, was dying peacefully at home at age 97. During the last two days of her life, Mrs. May was still and quiet, but in an unexpected lucid moment she – a lifelong poetry lover – opened her eyes and clearly said, “Sunset and evening star.” which then were the last words she spoke. Rani and her husband Scott looked up the verse, which Tennyson wrote 3 years before he died.

Rani Arbo: https://raniarboanddaisymayhem.bandcamp.com/track/crossing-the-bar

https://raniarboanddaisymayhem.bandcamp.com/track/crossing-the-bar

Sunset and evening star, and one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar, when I put out to sea, Chorus When I put out to sea, When I put out to sea, And may there be no moaning of the bar, When I put out to sea. Twilight and evening bell, and after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell; when I embark; But such a tide as moving seems asleep, too full for sound or foam, When that which drew from out the boundless deep turns again home. For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place the flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face when I have crossed the bar.

 

 

Jon Boden 2009

 

From concept album ‘Songs from the Floodplain’, which creates a vision of a post apocalyptic future when industrial architecture is decaying and people are returning to a more rural way of life. Boden draws inspiration from his home in the Loxley Valley near Sheffield and its post-industrial decay.

Jon Boden: Jon Boden & The Remnant Kings – Dancing in the Factory – Cheltenham 11.2.11 1/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MqJectXSO0

The news was on the church house door and all over the valley A storm cloud brewing in the east and wild fire in the cities And all night long the hammers rang, and those who could were leaving And those who stayed have gone to ground, and talk is harsh and fleeting Chorus: And all that I can think about is wood smoke in the valley Kisses in the fall-out shelter, dancing in the factory That closed so long ago And no-one ever goes there now We cling to words like children and seek for hidden meaning Long after sense has ceased to be and reason is receding But words have torn this world apart, and left us stooped and pleading We shovel dust and hide our hope, and wrap ourselves in dreaming Tonight the curfew bells ring out across the shrouded valley And all the candles flicker out and shadows claim their quarry But I will take the blackthorn path across the parish boundary Where ivy and barbed wire entwine and leaves fall all around me

 

 

Merle Travis 1946

 

Travis also wrote Sixteen Tons and is known for his finger-picking guitar style. Dark as a Dungeon was actually the B-side to Sixteen Tons.

Come and listen you fellows, so young and so fine, And seek not your fortune in the dark, dreary mines.ÿ It will form as a habit and seep in your soul,ÿ ‘Till the stream of your blood is as black as the coal. Chorus It’s dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew,ÿ Where danger is double and pleasures are few,ÿ Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines It’s dark as a dungeon way down in the mine. It’s a-many a man I have seen in my day,ÿ Who lived just to labor his whole life away.ÿ Like a fiend with his dope and a drunkard his wine,ÿ A man will have lust for the lure of the mines. I hope when I’m gone and the ages shall roll,ÿ My body will blacken and turn into coal.ÿ Then I’ll look from the door of my heavenly home,ÿ And pity the miner a-diggin’ my bones.

 

 

Nancy Kerr 2015

 

About our impact, how what we do and what environment is like colors the honey. Not long after Kerr moved to Sheffield and when her kids were very small a bee colony came over the wall from Burngreave Cemetery into her garden. The bees built a new home on the garden fence and only stayed a few hours but remnants of honeycomb remained for years afterward. The whole song came to her in the bath the day before a tour started.

Simpson Cutting Kerr: Dark Honey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHGjyzqpZNM

One summer evening and the kids ran free All the bees were swarming in the cemetery And they sucked that sweetness their natures crave From the flowers that grew on every grave Chorus: And you tell your children “life finds a way” You can reap dark honey in the dying day Leave a little sweetness to soother our stings And the slightest suffering winter brings Some other children, some distant home They fear the humming of a different drone Some sugar’s flowing from every pore Some hunger’s growing on the spoils of war On the bank of England, some city bee She built a hive of slavery And her sweet survival in the midst of ban Is to make dark honey from a Cola can When Man has driven the drone of bees From all the fields and cemeteries He’ll miss that richness his nature craves For no flowers will grow upon our graves

 

 

Paul Davenport 2011

 

Melrose Quartet: “Ganseys are intricately knitted fishermen’s sweaters. Mary Cross of Flamborough told Paul in 1980 ‘There was a boy in the village when I was a girl, whom all the girls thought very good looking. To add to this, his mother was the best gansey knitter in the village…. That beautiful knitting was how they identified his body when he was lost at sea.'”

The Melrose Quartet: https://melrosequartet.bandcamp.com/track/davy-cross

https://melrosequartet.bandcamp.com/track/davy-cross

The Widow Cross had but one son and indeed he was his mother’s pride and joy So she knitted him a gansey, Cable stitched both fine and fancy And it looked like royal robes upon the boy Chorus: How we knew his bright blue eyes How we knew his golden hair And that gansey that his mother made was fine beyond compare Tall and bright was Davy Cross, with a shining face that never bore a frown How the lasses smiled and sighed at his strong and manly stride On a Friday when the fishing fleet left town At the dance on Saturday the lasses fairly swooned to dance with him As he held them in his arms, how they fluttered at his charms, And their hearts beat faster at his boyish grin Then one dark October day there came a storm which drove us hard to lea And our fishing fleet was tossed, yet just one single craft was lost Leaving Widow Cross a-gazing out to sea When just ten weeks were passed and gone, they finally brought us news about the loss Seemed a body had been found of a sailor lost and drowned And in our hearts we knew ’twas Davy Cross But it wasn’t eyes of blue, nor that hair as pale as foam It was the gansey that his mother made that brought young Davy home

 

 

Leslie Barker 2006?

 

To the tune of Irish song Raglan Road. Recorded by Martin Simpson & Roy Bailey in 2006; published by Barker in a poetry book called Rover the Rainbow. Barker is best known for his comic poetry, parodies, and monologues, including “Cosmo the Fairly Accurate Knife-Thrower”.

Roy Bailey & Martin Simpson: The Dawning Of The Day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t6hT99oujE

I took the road on a winter’s day My soul knew naught but care The wind blew cold and I grew old In search of god knows where I left the bombed out city streets Where orphan children play Yesterday’s sons came bearing guns At the dawning of the day I took my heels to the farms and fields The land was dead and dry The poor were poor as they were before Just poor enough to die And the rich don’t care, the rich aren’t there Unfair, well fair don’t pay And how it is is how it was At the dawning of the day I laid my soul by an old stone wall And all the world’s despair Kept me from sleep and made me weep God was god knows where The world has turned with nothing learned It’s still the old old way A new sunrise, the same old lies At the dawning of the day I slept, I dreamed of an end to war An end to poverty But morning’s hand was on the land Sweet sleep deserted me Beyond the wall, greed standing tall Drove all those dreams away For he don’t care and he’ll be there At the dawning of the day

 

 

Brian Pearson 

 

Recorded by Ian Robb 2021. Rewritten by Alex Ellis to be a little less enthusiastic about death.

Ian Robb: https://ianrobb1.bandcamp.com/track/dead-funny

https://ianrobb1.bandcamp.com/track/dead-funny

There’s a lot that’s been said about ending up dead There’s many that fear what they’re in for But one thing’s for sure, your woes will be yore, Courtesy of the grim reaper. No more customer service, no spills from your thermos No sitting in traffic long-distance For you won’t be there, or indeed anywhere, Unaware of your own non-existence Chorus: So rattle your bones, and join in the chorus, Death’s round the corner and he’s coming for us. Eat drink and be merry, while you’re alive, ‘cos we’ve all got a date with the guy with the scythe. You’ll just vanish your way through organic decay; There’s really no reason to cry a tear; It’s all part of the game; you go back whence you came, Your remains reabsorbed by the biosphere. So new life can rely on your carbon and iron, Your calcium and sulphur and phosphorus; You’ll be part of the trees, and the birds, and the bees, From the high Arctic seas to the Bosphorus. It’s true, I once read that an elder once said, “Relax folks, for everything passes”, And that’s sure to be true, for me and for you, So cheer up and fill up your glasses. For we come and we go, with the ebb and the flow Of the tides of the earth and her story; Bright creatures of chance, briefly part of the dance, And there’s still time to share in life’s glory.

 

 

trad 

 

Collected in Yorkshire, can be traced back to the seventeenth century. Earliest remaining printed version from 1888, but recorded as early as 1685. Apparently the Duke of Buckingham who died in 1685 loved hunting and spent his last days in Helmsley in North Yorkshire, and numerous locations in this vicinity are mentioned in a longer version of this song. “Bendigo” is apparently a corruption of “Spandigo” which is a corruption of “Spanker”.

As I was a-walking one morning last autumn I’ve overheard some noble foxhunting, Between two noblemen and the Duke of Buckingham, Right early before the day was dawning. Chorus There was Dido, Bendigo, Gentry he was there-o, Traveller, he never looked behind him; There was Countess, Rover, Bonny Lass and Jover, These were the hounds that could find him. Now the first fox being young and his trial’s just beginning, He’s made straight away for the cover; He’s gone up yon highest hill and gone down yon lowest gill, Thinking that he’d find his freedom there for ever. Now the next fox being ould and his trial’s fast a-dawning, He’s made straight away for the river; Why the fox he has jumped in, but the hound jumped after him, It was Traveller a-striding in for ever. Now the fox went ower the plain but he soon returned again, The fox nor the hounds never failing; It’s been just twelve month today since I heard the squire say, “Hark forrard then, me brave hounds, for ever.”

 

 

trad <1780 Leon Rosselson 2019? A popular German song since the early 1800s protesting political repression and censorship, it was important to anti-Nazi resistance movements in Germany. A translation by Arthur Kevess was published in Sing Out! Magazine in 1950 and Pete Seeger recorded it in 1966 on Dangerous Songs!? Rosselson rewrote it to focus on the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Leon Rosselson: Truth Cannot Be Silenced

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym0Ef_a3O4w

Die gedanken sind frei, my thoughts freely flower It’s everyone’s right to speak truth to power Truth cannot be silenced by threats or by violence No-one can deny, die gedanken sind frei. It’s my right to agitate for Palestine’s liberation And the Zionist state is a cruel aberration And if Zionist critics cry antisemitic I say that they lie. Die gedanken sind frei. The Zionist lobby they smear and they libel Care nothing for justice, their values are tribal Concocting excuses for Israel’s abuses Free speech they decry but die gedanken sind frei. I say Israel’s crimes are not in my name It steals land, it steals water, no conscience, no shame. It murders, it tortures, yet Israel’s supporters Just turn a blind eye. Die gedanken sind frei. Die gedanken sind frei, my thoughts freely flower It’s everyone’s right to speak truth to power Truth must not be silenced by threats or by violence No-one can deny, die gedanken sind frei.

 

 

Steve Knightley 1998

 

A true story about the Fairmile Road Protests in 1997. The camps staged in the path of the highway existed as communes for two years before they were cleared.

Show of Hands: https://showofhands.bandcamp.com/track/digging-down

https://showofhands.bandcamp.com/track/digging-down

Come listen to me and I’ll sing you a song, thought it might offend you it wont take me long. It’s of the bold diggers at fairmile camp, deep underground in the cold and the damp. Chorus: Digging down down down, digging down. There’s Ian, and Animal, Pete and Welsh John, and Swampy of fame I’ll include in my song. Theres no finer diggers in Devon it’s true, and the poor under-sheriff don’t know what to do. Swampy said this new road is a terrible thing, just think of the damage and ruin you’ll bring. We’ve only one planet or have you forgot, would the cameras be here without us? I think not. So the bailifs they dug and they shored up with planks, while hundreds of policemen they stood by in ranks. They thought they had reached them but soon felt quite sick, when they found a steel door that was 5 inches thick. So here’s to the fine moles of old Fairmile copse, they’ll be there in spirit until the road stops. Lift up your voices and raise up your glass, they gave the road builders a kick up the arse!