SLS: The Ugliest Witch

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This week’s Song Lyric Sunday task is to play a song with a great intro, as Jim tells us in his post, Attention Grabbers. I have used intros as a theme for Tuesday Tunes – just the ten times – which means that I have already played around fifty songs for this. And it was also a theme for SLS in late 2022, not long after I started joining in. On that occasion I went for the obvious – The Boss and Born to Run – which I also played in my Tuesday Tunes sets. That gave me a great many from which to choose for today, and I spent a fair bit of time reviewing those older posts and trying to decide what to play. In the end, I did the only thing I could: play none of them!

I always like to try avoiding duplicating what others might play, as it is only fair on Jim that he doesn’t have to keep hearing the same song when he reads our posts. Instead, I’m using this as an excuse to play you some English folk rock. This week’s Tuesday Tunes post included a song by Steeleye Span, from the DVD of their 50th anniversary concert tour, and as that tune was well-received I thought I’d go with another couple from that show. Both have intros which lead you into the song, which for me is the mark of a good intro, though anyone wanting Sweet Child Of Mine might have to look elsewhere.

This is my first tune for today:

As the top image might have suggested to you, Alison Gross was a track on Steeleye Span’s fifth album, Parcel Of Rogues. As it is a traditional song there is as such no songwriter to credit, but you can find the lyrics on genius.com if you want to see them. The album was released in April 1973 and peaked at #26 in the UK – it was very much a part of my uni soundtrack, and somehow after they played a show there one of their promo boards ended up in my girlfriend’s room. It was quite a large board, clearly intended to accompany a display in a record shop, but it was a nice decoration for her room!

The song is a traditional ballad which was collected by both Steve Roud (#3212) and Francis James Child (#35), and tells the story of a hideous witch, who tries to bribe the narrator to be her lover. She combed his hair, first. When a scarlet mantle, a silk shirt with pearls, and a golden cup all fail, she blows on a horn three times, making an oath to make him regret it; she then strikes him with a silver wand, turning him into a wyrm (dragon) bound to a tree. His sister Maisry comes to him to comb his hair. One day the Seelie Court comes by, and a queen strokes him three times, turning him back into his proper form. Steeleye’s version ends before that redemption, though, so the poor guy is left in his altered form! Co-lead male vocal here is by Benji Kirkpatrick (acoustic guitar), formerly (and now again) of Bellowhead, during a three year spell he had with Steeleye. And I think an honourable mention should also be made of Violeta Barrena, who was covering regular violinist Jessie May Smart’s maternity leave in 2019 when this performance took place, and did a wonderful job.

 

 

My second tune for today, from the same concert, is from a later Steeleye album (see above):

This is another traditional song, but again genius.com has the lyrics. In its original guise, this was a track on Steeleye Span’s 1977 album Stormforce Ten, which it probably won’t surprise you to hear was their tenth album. The song is clearly written from a male perspective, so the late Tim Hart (who passed away on Christmas Eve 2009) took the lead. As with many traditional songs it has several variants and is also known as As I Roved Out, which was arranged by Percy Grainger for choir and brass accompaniment in 1912 and used in the first movement of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ English Folk Song Suite in 1923. The words were first published between 1838 and 1845, though some claim provenance going back to a Robert Burns poem of the late eighteenth century. I’ve seen the Vaughan Williams piece live in concert, as well as seeing Steeleye play it, and can recommend both. The lead male vocal here is again by Benji Kirkpatrick, showing how well he blended into the band during the Bellowhead hiatus. And in one of those lovely coincidences that sometimes happen, Benji’s father, John, played accordion on the original album.

This was anther song to feature in Steve Roud’s collection (#277). He has been quoted as saying

“This was a widely known song in England, and was also popular in Ireland and Scotland. It is one of those which earlier editors, such as Sabine Baring-Gould and Cecil Sharp, felt obliged to soften or rewrite for publication. It was also common on broadsides throughout the nineteenth century”

An earlier version was first printed on a broadside of around 1810 with the title Maid and the Soldier. Early broadside versions were sad songs focused on the abandonment of the girl by the young man. Later broadside and traditional folk versions celebrate a sexual encounter, though a censored version published by Baring-Gould and Sharp substituted a proposal of marriage for the encounter. I think I prefer the song like this – a dastardly deed so that he can take his pleasure and then depart is a common theme of folk songs!

That’s me done for today, and if anyone else plays either of these I’ll eat my proverbial hat! Thanks as always to Jim for hosting, and I’ll see you again for Tuesday Tunes – starting a new theme this week. Take care 😊

48 thoughts on “SLS: The Ugliest Witch”

  2. like everyone else, both songs new to me. I thought they were wonderful, I like this kind of music. The opening lyrics of Seventeen Come Sunday had me thinking it might be a folk version of New York Girls. I guess it was your earlier mention of Bellowhead that planted that seed in my mind!

    So did you have eat your proverbial hat?

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    • I have it on a CD somewhere. They ran a Folk Proms day back in, I think, 2008 or 2009. A paid concert in the evening and a free one in the afternoon. That was part of the afternoon show, and it was lovely.

      Folk singer versions tend to be a bit different from the orchestral one!

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  9. Very good intros on these, and I do like a storytelling kind of song, too. I enjoyed watching them and especially the violin player, because that’s the instrument I played for many years. 🙂

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  11. Fabolous choices, Clive. The Ugliest Witch is a traditional Scottish folk ballad that tells the story of “the ugliest witch in the north country”. She lives in a tower, and in the ballad, she turns the narrator into an elf or a worm because he refuses to become her lover, though he is later rescued by the Queen of Elves. She tries to woo a man, and upon his refusal, uses her witchcraft to curse him. Thanks for sharing your English folk rock music.

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    • It’s a great story, isn’t it! In older versions ‘worm’ is actually ‘wyrm,’ which means a dragon. Glad you enjoyed these, Jim. I wanted to do something a little different with this theme.

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  12. Absolutely no big surprise that I was unfamiliar with these songs, but that doesn’t mean I enjoyed them any less. You’ve played Steeleye Span in the past and I’ve always enjoyed them; today was no exception. Excellent song choices, Clive. Thanks for something new and different.

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    • No surprise at all. I played another track from this concert on Tuesday and it felt like a plan to go with some more, as people seemed to like it. Glad you enjoyed these, Nancy, as I wanted to do something less obvious than the usual suspects 😊

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    • I’m pleased you enjoyed these. They have been a favourite band of mine for more than fifty years, and were at the forefront of folk rock in this country along with Fairport Convention.

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