BY CHANCE IT WAS

The first CD

recorded at The Eden Project , Cornwall

accompanied by John Kirkpatrick

"You were in such good voice and certainly did justice to the songs" - Shirley Collins

"Lovely, mysterious song, with magical words and beautiful melodies" - John Kirkpatrick

This CD is a mixture of songs from The Rev Sabine Baring-Gould collection. Most of the songs are from Songs of the West (S.O.T.W.) and other sources associated with Sabine. Some of the songs I have been singing since the 1960's, the rest are quite recent additions to my repertoire. Over the last couple of years I have spent many hours researching the songs and stories that Sabine recorded in the late 19th and early 20th century, from singers in Devon and Cornwall.
In all, Sabine collected over 800 of these songs, which are part of our musical heritage and if he had not undertaken the task at the suggestion of his friend Mr. Daniel Radford over dinner one night in 1888, they may have been lost forever. When these songs were sung at the many events that celebrated the agricultural year, or the miners' pay day in the local pub, in most cases they would have been sung unaccompanied.

Singers such as James Parsons with his vast repertoire are accredited to four songs on this C.D. and clearly was Sabine's greatest contributor to his collecting. The store of songs James had in his head is incredible when you consider that he was illiterate; so he would have learned then by listening to someone else sing them to him. Many of his songs came from the singing of his father who was known as the 'Singing Machine.' The passing of songs from father to son was perhaps just like handing over a trade that was within a family, what we term as the oral tradition in folk music. But the important thing here is that we are not talking about 20 or 30 songs but maybe 80 or more, with no musician to strike-up a note to start. This I personally find incredible and James and his fellow singers were referred to as peasants! Here were singers capable of performing for entertainment, songs that were in musical modes that trained singers would have had problems following on a music score, which they could read as well as the lyrics.

Although I too am an unaccompanied singer, my learning of these songs comes much easier. I tape the music, learn the tune and then learn the lyrics at my own pace. When I was learning the songs for 'By Chance It Was' I got the feel for which songs, in my opinion, needed some musical accompaniment. This accompaniment had to emphasis the tunes to make them stand out. So that the music can be recognised for what it is, beautiful arrangements preserved by the mouths of the people.
Who better to ask than John Kirkpatrick, maestro of the Accordian, Melodian and Concertina. Working with John was a sheer delight for me and he interpreted the tunes with the feeling that I imagined there should be. The concertina on the title track is for me the whole point of instrumental accompaniment to folk songs, although it is a haunting sound, it adds to the song, but doesn't take over or impose upon it. The Drunken Maidens, with the dance-like melodian in the background, moving the tempo up but again not taking over in any way and the goodnight ballad, The Highway Man, with the easy on the ear accordian keeping pace as the verses unfold. Sabine collected a version of this with a rousing chorus, which as yet I have not found, but I feel this is one song that benefits from musical accompaniment. The Emigrants song I felt, since I first learned it, had a country feel to it. When I mentioned this to John when rehearsing it, he just upped the tempo, a little bit of swing and I followed on. It sounds nothing like my unaccompanied version but then we need to experiment with our folk music. On all of the accompanied tracks John interpreted the music precisely to fit the songs, just as I has imagined they should sound. The arrangements he worked out did justice to both the music and the lyrics.

Copies of the C.D. are available at £11.00, which includes Postage and Packing from:

green ltd ,
11, Torr Crescent,
Hartley,
PLYMOUTH,
PL3 5TW

Please make cheques payable to green ltd. (Sorry no credit card facilities)

The sales of this C.D. will help fund my next project, which are songs from Bodmin Moor, The Fowey River and the town of Fowey. Once again John Kirkpatrick will be involved with his musical expertise, encouragement and wit. So if you are stuck for a present for Christmas or otherwise, there are no restrictions on how many you can purchase.

CLICK ON THE TITLES TO HEAR THE SONGS

Track 1 By Chance It Was. Ref. S.O.T.W. #1.

This is the first song in Songs of the West, and is the title of this, my first C.D. The tune and words come from James Parsons, the hedger of Lewdown ( between Okehampton and Lifton in Devon) who had learnt the song from his father 'The Singing Machine'. In his notes Sabine is inclined to think that the song dates from the time of James I or Charles I. He found the song in the British Museum in ballad books entitled 'The Court of Apollo' and he notes that of the six verses there, three are almost word for word as that collected from James Parsons.
Bruce Tydall, Esq. of Exmouth gave another version with a variation of the melody, he had learnt this from a Devonshire nurse in 1839 or 1840.
The story line is similar to 'Searching for Lambs', which Cecil Sharp collected from Mrs. Sweet (aged 62) of Somerton, Somerset in 1907. Sharp described 'Searching for Lambs' as the most perfect folk song.

Track 2 The Saucy Sailor. Ref. S.O.T.W. #21

Another song taken down from James Parsons, Sabine gives references to broadsides that have different endings, and notes that the Devon tune is of a much earlier character. The song is meant to be sung by a male/female duo and it appears in Barrett's English Folk Songs #32 to a different tune.

Track 3 Go From My Window. (Notes from S.O.T.W. #41)

This song, with a story, is in Sabine's notes on songs in Songs of the West. In several instances the notes of one song, in this case 'Come to My Window' lead into another, 'Go from my Window'. This cante fable (song & story) I found interesting as a not so common form of folk song. Sabine writes in the notes for Come To My Window, that it is a very early song and that the melody is the same as from the time of Elizabeth I. He goes on to give references and snatches of that song, which differ to the one, printed in full (number 41 in Songs Of The West). It would be fair to assume that Come To My Window is a night visiting song. But is Go From My Window from an earlier time? Sabine writes the following in the notes about Go From My Window:
We obtained ours from John Woodrich; he heard it in an ale-house near Bideford in 1864, from an old man, who recited a tale, in which the song comes in snatches. He had been soaked by the rain, and he told the tale as he dried himself by the kitchen fire. This is almost certainly the original framework to which these snatches of song belong. But there was another version of the story in a ballad entitled 'The Secret Lover' or the 'Jealous Father beguil'd to a West Country tune, or Alack! For my love and I must dye', printed by P. Brooksby, between 1672 and 1682, given by Mr. Ebsworth in the 'Roxburgh Ballads,' vi. P.205

Track 4 The Simple Ploughboy. Ref. S.O.T.W. # 59

These are Sabine's notes on what he describes as a charming ballad:

This charming ballad was taken down, words and music, from J. Masters of Bradstone. The Broadside versions that were published by Fortey, Hodges, Taylor of Spitalfields, Ringham of Lincoln, and Pratt of Birmingham, are all very corrupt. The version of old Masters is given exactly as he sang it, and it is but one instance out of many of the superiority of the ballads handed down traditionally in the country by unlettered men to those picked up from the ballad-mongers employed by the Broadside publishers. A version of the song, 'It's of a Pretty Ploughboy,' is given in the Folk-Song Journal, vol. I. P.132, as taken down in Sussex. The words are very corrupt, and they closely resemble those on Broadsides.

Track 5 Drunken Maidens. Ref. S.O.T.W. # 94

F.W. Bussell took this down from Edmund Fry of Lydford. SBG notes that the last verse had to be modified.

O' where are your maiden heads
Ye maidens brisk and gay
We left them in the public bar
We drank them clean away

modified to

O' where be your characters
Ye maidens brisk and gay
O they be a swallowed
We've drunk them clean away

Some of Sabine's children had learnt the song (perhaps before it had been 'modified') and sung it to an audience of locals who numbered several gentlefolk who must have been greatly shocked by such coarse words from the beautiful Baring-Gould girls.

Track 6 Death and the Lady. Ref. S.O.T.W. #99

Sabine was fortunate to have people who would collect songs on his behalf, this song was sent to him by Captain Hall Munro of Ingesdon House, Newton Abbott, sung to him by an old man there. In the notes on the songs in SOTW there is no mention of the source singer or the year collected, but we do find reference to a differing version in Bells 'Songs of the English Peasantry' p. 32, and that in Carey's 'Musical Century' 1738 the air of Death and the Lady is regarded as an old tune. The song was also collected from Roger Hannaford.

Track 7 I Rode My Little Horse. Ref. S.O.T.W. #101

F.W. Bussell took the words and music from Edmund Fry of Lydford, and from John Bennett of Chagford, and shepherd John Hunt of Postbridge. Sabine suggests a comparison with 'Jolly Roger Twangdillo' a ballad in d'Urfeys 'Pills to Purge Melancholy,' 1719 and a broadside version printed by Jennings of Water Lane London circ 1790, the Pepysion collection and the Roxburgh Ballads have entries with the same theme.

Track 8 Arthur McBride. Ref. S.O.T.W. # 112

This version I learned from the singing of the late Burt Lloyd. Sabine collected a version from Sam Fone of Mary Tavy titled Arthur Le Bride, with words almost identical to that of Arthur McBride. Sabine was, in my opinion, gifted in getting information as well as songs from his singers as I here reproduce from his notes on Arthur Le Bride:

Taken down from Sam Fone, Mary Tavy, by Mr. Bussell, in 1892. Sam told us that this was his father's favourite song. He had learned it from his father when he was quite a child, for the elder Fone deserted his family, and was never heard of again. But one day Sam, when aged eighteen, saw a workman standing at a cottage door, talking to someone within and he had his hand against the doorpost, clutching it as he leaned forward. Same exclaimed: "That's my father's hand!" The man turned about, and without showing his face, walked away. When Sam came from his work in the evening he made enquiries, and ascertained that a stranger had been lodging in the cottage for a few nights, but was gone. He asked the woman of the house about her lodger. "Well," said she, "I don't know his name, nor nothing about him. But he asked me for a tallow candle, and melted it up into his boots." "That was my father. It was a trick of his," said Sam, promptly. And that was the last ever seen of the man.

There was one more verse in the original, omitted to reduce the lengthy ballad to singable proportions.

Track 9 Jolly Wagonner

I remember the Watersons version of this song and I had great difficulty getting the tune in my head to this version. Sabine collected this version from James Olver, a tanner from Launceston. James came from strict Methodist parents and he and his sister were forbidden to sing anything but hymns. But young James and his sister would leave their house by their bedroom window, and sneak away to listen to the men singing in a near-by pub.

Track 10 The Sprig of Thyme. Ref. S.O.T.W. # 7

Once again a better version to a song is found in Sabine's Notes, although here he does state that he rewrote the words that we find printed in S.O.T.W. His notes read as follows:

Taken down from James Parsons. After the second verse he broke away into 'The Seeds of Love.' Joseph Dyer, of Mawgan in Pyder, sang the same ballad or song to the same tune, and in what I believe to be the complete form of words.

I added the first verse of Sabine's rewritten version to become the last verse, to extend the song time-wise.

Track 11 Egloshayle Ringers

This was the first of Sabine's songs I learnt back in the 1960's. Bell ringing was perhaps one of the national sports of Cornwall, before the boys found rugby. The ringers mentioned in the song now lie in Egloshayle Churchyard, where their gravestones can be found. Egloshayle lies on the east bank of the Camel, facing the town of Wadebridge on the west bank, just a short distance up river from the estuary at Padstow.

Track 12 The Bold Highwayman

Collected from James Townsend of Holne, who learned it from his grandfather, William Ford who died at about seventy in 1887. This song is in several collections with varying titles e.g. Newlyn Town and The Robber.

The reference to Fieldings crew! Henry Fielding was appointed chief magistrate of Westminster in 1748. After Henry's death in 1754, his blind half-brother, Sir John Fielding, who died in 1780, carried on his work of fighting crime.

Track 13 Rosemary Lane. Ref. S.O.T.W. #67

Sabine's Notes from S.O.T.W.:

Melody was taken down by W. Crossing, from an old moor man, to 'Rosemary Lane.' Roger Luxton and James Parsons also sang 'Rosemary Lane' to the same air. The words are objectionable. Moreover, in other parts of England, this Broadside song is always sung to one particular air. We therefore thought it well to put to our melody entirely fresh words.

Here we see Sabine the songwriter at work. Because he found the words objectionable we end up with a totally different song to the tune of Rosemary Lane. Here we also find Sabine's vast knowledge on Folk Lore as Rosemary Lane becomes The Blue Flame.

His Notes continue:

It was a common belief in the West of England that a soul after death appeared as a blue flame; and that a flame came from the churchyard to the house of one doomed to die, and hovered on the doorstep till the death-doomed expired, when the soul of the deceased was seen returning with the other flame, also as a flame, to the churchyard.

Track 14 The Dark Eyed Sailor.

This version of The Broken Token Story I have sung for many years and once again the words are so similar to that collected from Robert Hard, it is a case of change through the oral tradition.

Track 15 Bold Gambling Boy.

Once again a song I have sung for many years! Just like The Broken Token, this song, again from the singing of Robert Hard, changes its title to The Hearty Goodfellow, with almost identical words.

Track 16 The Emigrant's Song.

F. W. (Freddie) Bussell collected this song from Mary Trease of Menheniot in South East Cornwall. The song is dated prior to the American War of Independence. A Silver Mine started working in Menheniot in the 1880's and it is a possibility that a Cornish miner returning from abroad, maybe seeking a wife, brought this song with him.

Here is proof that some songs came back across the Atlantic so it was not always an outward flow. Because of the American connection I had always imagined this as a country music song being sung by Willie Nelson. While we were rehearsing this song, I mentioned this to John Kirkpatrick and this is what I imagined it would sound like coming from Willie.