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MAT WILLIAMS
MUSICIAN & SONGWRITER






![Throwback Thursday: Full English: John Peel
This is another song that is “authored,” in spite of being considered a folk song. John Peel was a real person who hunted his pack in Cumbria - the location given away by the repeated word “ken,” the Scottish and Border word for “know” - and the words were written by a friend of his, John Woodcock Graves, to the old tune “Bonnie Annie.” There is no doubt that Peel was a highly skilled huntsman whether mounted or on foot and this rollicking song is his memorial.
As with any group of people with a common interest, hunting has its own customs and jargon and is full of traps for the socially unwary. Hounds must be hounds, NEVER dogs and those riders allowed to wear red coats are in “hunting pink” in defiance of all common sense as the colour is patently scarlet. Different boots must be worn - “mahogany tops” with pink, plain black with a black or tweed jacket. Nobody seems to know why. It is just “done.”
The words of the song can be a little confusing - “Peel’s view holloa would wake the dead or a fox from his lair in the morning.” If “view holloa” means the fox has been sighted, he wouldn’t still be in his lair. There is a lovely litany of hound names: Ruby, Ranter, Royal, Bellman. Names do not change much down the centuries.
The word “drag” is an oddity. In the shires, hounds would “draw” a covert. Drag hunting is a completely different matter with an artificial scent laid down and no fox involved at all. Perhaps Cumbrian hunts used different terms.
[Continued in Comments]](https://scontent-iad3-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.75761-15/474912203_17891527068169159_1521988755496247540_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e35_tt6&_nc_cat=110&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=18de74&_nc_ohc=UoagTN9zmJoQ7kNvgHIwdOJ&_nc_oc=Adi8bAXLglitnCKIkDhsmHVcwKYVaF-X1cqlBVBK3ErYSggsok5RyRVGY7ZYx6WXXFw&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-1.cdninstagram.com&edm=ANo9K5cEAAAA&_nc_gid=AuFTLOILjXWRvEeFwif4i-Z&oh=00_AYAnTnGgZLJ6WObDiOdHH3i-dWPLfbTrNRs5NKq1VlHdWw&oe=67B05C21)
![Throwback Thursday: Full English: John Peel
This is another song that is “authored,” in spite of being considered a folk song. John Peel was a real person who hunted his pack in Cumbria - the location given away by the repeated word “ken,” the Scottish and Border word for “know” - and the words were written by a friend of his, John Woodcock Graves, to the old tune “Bonnie Annie.” There is no doubt that Peel was a highly skilled huntsman whether mounted or on foot and this rollicking song is his memorial.
As with any group of people with a common interest, hunting has its own customs and jargon and is full of traps for the socially unwary. Hounds must be hounds, NEVER dogs and those riders allowed to wear red coats are in “hunting pink” in defiance of all common sense as the colour is patently scarlet. Different boots must be worn - “mahogany tops” with pink, plain black with a black or tweed jacket. Nobody seems to know why. It is just “done.”
The words of the song can be a little confusing - “Peel’s view holloa would wake the dead or a fox from his lair in the morning.” If “view holloa” means the fox has been sighted, he wouldn’t still be in his lair. There is a lovely litany of hound names: Ruby, Ranter, Royal, Bellman. Names do not change much down the centuries.
The word “drag” is an oddity. In the shires, hounds would “draw” a covert. Drag hunting is a completely different matter with an artificial scent laid down and no fox involved at all. Perhaps Cumbrian hunts used different terms.
[Continued in Comments]](https://scontent-iad3-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.75761-15/474912203_17891527068169159_1521988755496247540_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e35_tt6&_nc_cat=110&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=18de74&_nc_ohc=UoagTN9zmJoQ7kNvgHIwdOJ&_nc_oc=Adi8bAXLglitnCKIkDhsmHVcwKYVaF-X1cqlBVBK3ErYSggsok5RyRVGY7ZYx6WXXFw&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-1.cdninstagram.com&edm=ANo9K5cEAAAA&_nc_gid=AuFTLOILjXWRvEeFwif4i-Z&oh=00_AYAnTnGgZLJ6WObDiOdHH3i-dWPLfbTrNRs5NKq1VlHdWw&oe=67B05C21)








![Throwback Thursday: Full English: John Barleycorn
This is one of folksongs’ many “riddles.” Dreadful things are done to Poor John Barleycorn but clues are supplied as we go along.
Firstly, he’s buried, then resurrected in the spring. Then he grows a beard to show his maturity - the seed head of barley has many long spikes on it when it is ripe. This is known as the “beard.” Having reached adulthood, the poor man is cut down, (scythed) and tied into a bundle ready to be placed in the field in “stooks.”. He is then beaten with sticks to separate grain from straw (threshed) then ground by the miller. The long-suffering John is then drowned in the brewing vat.
The song could not be written now. Mechanisation has meant that most of these processes are done by one giant machine - the combine harvester.
In the end he triumphs, as all good heroes should, and becomes the all-important ingredient in beer. Home brewed ale was very important to farms and their workers. Low alcohol beer was safe to drink (even children had it in small quantities) which the water from local streams and springs may not have been. Harvesting was thirsty work and ale was brought out to the field workers when now there might be a tea-break. No doubt a stronger brew was made for harvest supper. Mechanisation has meant that there is no longer a need for huge crews of extra labour. Water from the tap and a visit to the supermarket will provide for the celebrations of harvest home.
[Continued in Comments]](https://scontent-iad3-2.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.71878-15/473188186_951888169783278_6458135716810851114_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e35_tt6&_nc_cat=111&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=18de74&_nc_ohc=dYezXOqPKjEQ7kNvgHWtg00&_nc_oc=AdiZFmbyED6AGP6ex4f0E8hd--5vzFUlpolSjVCKgsKz1W9nhsqVl2OlbE3bHuU8uA8&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-2.cdninstagram.com&edm=ANo9K5cEAAAA&_nc_gid=AuFTLOILjXWRvEeFwif4i-Z&oh=00_AYCfDPdAt8Ju-CxoWCpytRycUCrcvUUIdWDN1S-mvRjqNw&oe=67B044BA)
![Throwback Thursday: Full English: John Barleycorn
This is one of folksongs’ many “riddles.” Dreadful things are done to Poor John Barleycorn but clues are supplied as we go along.
Firstly, he’s buried, then resurrected in the spring. Then he grows a beard to show his maturity - the seed head of barley has many long spikes on it when it is ripe. This is known as the “beard.” Having reached adulthood, the poor man is cut down, (scythed) and tied into a bundle ready to be placed in the field in “stooks.”. He is then beaten with sticks to separate grain from straw (threshed) then ground by the miller. The long-suffering John is then drowned in the brewing vat.
The song could not be written now. Mechanisation has meant that most of these processes are done by one giant machine - the combine harvester.
In the end he triumphs, as all good heroes should, and becomes the all-important ingredient in beer. Home brewed ale was very important to farms and their workers. Low alcohol beer was safe to drink (even children had it in small quantities) which the water from local streams and springs may not have been. Harvesting was thirsty work and ale was brought out to the field workers when now there might be a tea-break. No doubt a stronger brew was made for harvest supper. Mechanisation has meant that there is no longer a need for huge crews of extra labour. Water from the tap and a visit to the supermarket will provide for the celebrations of harvest home.
[Continued in Comments]](https://scontent-iad3-2.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.71878-15/473188186_951888169783278_6458135716810851114_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e35_tt6&_nc_cat=111&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=18de74&_nc_ohc=dYezXOqPKjEQ7kNvgHWtg00&_nc_oc=AdiZFmbyED6AGP6ex4f0E8hd--5vzFUlpolSjVCKgsKz1W9nhsqVl2OlbE3bHuU8uA8&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-2.cdninstagram.com&edm=ANo9K5cEAAAA&_nc_gid=AuFTLOILjXWRvEeFwif4i-Z&oh=00_AYCfDPdAt8Ju-CxoWCpytRycUCrcvUUIdWDN1S-mvRjqNw&oe=67B044BA)


![Throwback Thursday: Full English: Dashing Away with the Smoothing Iron
The days of the week are a useful pattern to use to make a song or a poem - think of “Monday’s child is fair of face.” In this case it has the added virtue of being fairly accurate as a time-table. A modern listener might well conclude that the laundress was bone idle - a whole week to get the washing done? Alas, old-style wash days were hard labour: no washing machines, no hot water, no tap and no easy-care fabrics. It’s ironic that the more primitive the tools available, the more extravagant were the frills and flounces.
In most houses, the amount of clothing was limited but the labour in washing them enormous. Work clothes were worn Monday to Saturday with a change into “good” clothes for Sunday, then into the other set of work clothes on Monday morning so that the dirty work clothes could be washed and, more importantly, dried within the next week. A rainy wash day could fill a house with gloom, not to say steam, as drying clothes blocked any heat from the fire. Maybe Monday was fine - hoorah! The washing could be pegged out onto a line in the garden to dry. (Incidentally, in some parts of the sunny U.S.A. it is forbidden to hang washing out. It makes the place look untidy and lowers property values, apparently).
The next stage was starching - dipping skirts and shirt-fronts into a mixture of starch-powder and water and drying them all over again. Then the ironing, done when the clothes were still slightly damp to get a crease-free finish. And there were no electric irons, of course. The “flat iron” was heated in front of the fire or on top of the stove and very carefully judged - too cool and it wouldn’t be effective, too hot and it would scorch the frilled collar. Many and various were the potions and powders needed to remove scorch marks. As you can imagine, a good hot day for drying outside was murderously hot inside next to a roaring fire: full marks for managing to look “neat and nimble” at the same time.
[Continued in Comments]](https://scontent-iad3-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.75761-15/472006748_17889105675169159_6922162009923383435_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e35_tt6&_nc_cat=104&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=18de74&_nc_ohc=KuqTFs4qSo4Q7kNvgGtR9Rl&_nc_oc=AdgkCOIhT0W1OrNRXdkQThTHtm8zlctK0gptLRB41sNBp2VJc6zOexd6rLnRiEUXKJ0&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-1.cdninstagram.com&edm=ANo9K5cEAAAA&_nc_gid=AuFTLOILjXWRvEeFwif4i-Z&oh=00_AYArcUlL4drFSstQW47Czmaov1UJ-StEBYaBnjvzXAuRlg&oe=67B058FC)
![Throwback Thursday: Full English: Dashing Away with the Smoothing Iron
The days of the week are a useful pattern to use to make a song or a poem - think of “Monday’s child is fair of face.” In this case it has the added virtue of being fairly accurate as a time-table. A modern listener might well conclude that the laundress was bone idle - a whole week to get the washing done? Alas, old-style wash days were hard labour: no washing machines, no hot water, no tap and no easy-care fabrics. It’s ironic that the more primitive the tools available, the more extravagant were the frills and flounces.
In most houses, the amount of clothing was limited but the labour in washing them enormous. Work clothes were worn Monday to Saturday with a change into “good” clothes for Sunday, then into the other set of work clothes on Monday morning so that the dirty work clothes could be washed and, more importantly, dried within the next week. A rainy wash day could fill a house with gloom, not to say steam, as drying clothes blocked any heat from the fire. Maybe Monday was fine - hoorah! The washing could be pegged out onto a line in the garden to dry. (Incidentally, in some parts of the sunny U.S.A. it is forbidden to hang washing out. It makes the place look untidy and lowers property values, apparently).
The next stage was starching - dipping skirts and shirt-fronts into a mixture of starch-powder and water and drying them all over again. Then the ironing, done when the clothes were still slightly damp to get a crease-free finish. And there were no electric irons, of course. The “flat iron” was heated in front of the fire or on top of the stove and very carefully judged - too cool and it wouldn’t be effective, too hot and it would scorch the frilled collar. Many and various were the potions and powders needed to remove scorch marks. As you can imagine, a good hot day for drying outside was murderously hot inside next to a roaring fire: full marks for managing to look “neat and nimble” at the same time.
[Continued in Comments]](https://scontent-iad3-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.75761-15/472006748_17889105675169159_6922162009923383435_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e35_tt6&_nc_cat=104&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=18de74&_nc_ohc=KuqTFs4qSo4Q7kNvgGtR9Rl&_nc_oc=AdgkCOIhT0W1OrNRXdkQThTHtm8zlctK0gptLRB41sNBp2VJc6zOexd6rLnRiEUXKJ0&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-1.cdninstagram.com&edm=ANo9K5cEAAAA&_nc_gid=AuFTLOILjXWRvEeFwif4i-Z&oh=00_AYArcUlL4drFSstQW47Czmaov1UJ-StEBYaBnjvzXAuRlg&oe=67B058FC)








![Throwback Thursday: Full English: The Oak and the Ash
This rendition explores particularly apposite sentiments for Mat’s daughter, Briony, who features on vocals. Now based in London, their collaboration continues across the counties through new works and the upcoming re-release of Briony’s album ‘Solstice’.
———
This song is pure homesick lament. Unusually, it doesn’t blame. The singer never claims that London is a bad influence or dangerous - just that it is not home. She cannot feel rooted there. The general mood is “it’s all right for some people but it doesn’t do for me.”
Most laments for home concern a specific person - “The Girl I left Behind Me” for instance, or a warning list of the dreadful things that can happen to an innocent country girl caught in the wicked snares of the “big city.” This lament is for place as much as people.
The use of the word “country” is interesting. It has come to mean nationality and official boundaries but not so long ago it was less hard-edged. It wasn’t even as specific as “county” or “parish”. It meant “the place where I have my home and family and where I am known and where I belong.” Here “country” is used in both senses. At first “A north country maid” it is general: north as opposed to south. The north country was then regarded by southerners as a rather alarming place of sparsely populated hillsides and a complete lack of sophistication - no change there, then. The feel of the word in the chorus is different, not vague at all, but very specific - “my own country”.
[Continued in Comments]](https://scontent-iad3-2.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.75761-15/470938459_17887101387169159_4968005793725511855_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e35_tt6&_nc_cat=105&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=18de74&_nc_ohc=0Dcf6XpdBQUQ7kNvgEHVAuH&_nc_oc=Adi2aPDtX300-8xx81aumXxJTZaayZeNOMU6PXflBHk63PJ26vcHwkn4V9Fkbq9jfV8&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-2.cdninstagram.com&edm=ANo9K5cEAAAA&_nc_gid=AuFTLOILjXWRvEeFwif4i-Z&oh=00_AYAkRLKQAl04o0iZT2JdmIp_uGQ18gI9sxtG8vse12vliQ&oe=67B03CA3)
![Throwback Thursday: Full English: The Oak and the Ash
This rendition explores particularly apposite sentiments for Mat’s daughter, Briony, who features on vocals. Now based in London, their collaboration continues across the counties through new works and the upcoming re-release of Briony’s album ‘Solstice’.
———
This song is pure homesick lament. Unusually, it doesn’t blame. The singer never claims that London is a bad influence or dangerous - just that it is not home. She cannot feel rooted there. The general mood is “it’s all right for some people but it doesn’t do for me.”
Most laments for home concern a specific person - “The Girl I left Behind Me” for instance, or a warning list of the dreadful things that can happen to an innocent country girl caught in the wicked snares of the “big city.” This lament is for place as much as people.
The use of the word “country” is interesting. It has come to mean nationality and official boundaries but not so long ago it was less hard-edged. It wasn’t even as specific as “county” or “parish”. It meant “the place where I have my home and family and where I am known and where I belong.” Here “country” is used in both senses. At first “A north country maid” it is general: north as opposed to south. The north country was then regarded by southerners as a rather alarming place of sparsely populated hillsides and a complete lack of sophistication - no change there, then. The feel of the word in the chorus is different, not vague at all, but very specific - “my own country”.
[Continued in Comments]](https://scontent-iad3-2.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.75761-15/470938459_17887101387169159_4968005793725511855_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e35_tt6&_nc_cat=105&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=18de74&_nc_ohc=0Dcf6XpdBQUQ7kNvgEHVAuH&_nc_oc=Adi2aPDtX300-8xx81aumXxJTZaayZeNOMU6PXflBHk63PJ26vcHwkn4V9Fkbq9jfV8&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-2.cdninstagram.com&edm=ANo9K5cEAAAA&_nc_gid=AuFTLOILjXWRvEeFwif4i-Z&oh=00_AYAkRLKQAl04o0iZT2JdmIp_uGQ18gI9sxtG8vse12vliQ&oe=67B03CA3)






![Throwback Thursday: Full English: Wild Rover
Well, this song certainly lives up to its name - at least, the “rover” bit. The first printed version appears in broadsheets in the middle of the 1800s. It then spread by print or orally until it was found in Scotland, Ireland, America, even as far as Australia and all alehouses between.
A rover indeed. Ironically, although it is now known very much as a drinking song, it originated in the Temperance Movement as an awful warning against the demon drink and how all good boys should repent and go home to their parents.
Actually, it is all too easy to sneer at Temperance workers as over-earnest kill-joys. The movement was sorely needed at the time when industrialised England resulted in appalling slums where men spent their wages on gin to make their lives bearable. This resulted in their families’ lives being worse than ever. A mother was considered lucky if she managed to keep a child alive until it was five. It was the Temperance Movement which started the tradition of inner city allotment gardens: maybe if the poor workers could grow some of their own food it would keep them out of the public houses.
These origins may explain the slightly bland feeling of the words. It’s as if they have been firmly edited. Nothing that the black sheep does is very dreadful, or if it is, no details are given. Where he got the money to spend on whiskey and beer is never explained nor are we told how he got the “gold in great store” with which he came home. Honest labour might earn pennies but not gold. Highway robbery? Piracy? Smuggling? The Slave-Trade? Nothing is explained. It may be detailed with great gory relish in some of the wilder versions that are bound to exist, but not in the usual pub words that we have here which are oddly polite.
[Continued in Comments]](https://scontent-iad3-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.75761-15/469738587_17886205257169159_1844738110324456080_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e35_tt6&_nc_cat=102&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=18de74&_nc_ohc=BafqhzOI5vMQ7kNvgGHgb_R&_nc_oc=AdjNyso4cWih9xXBtMzjSQS-g-f6T3Tu1XAr8TRx14yWXZkEG5QOff898mFB84Mxtvw&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-1.cdninstagram.com&edm=ANo9K5cEAAAA&_nc_gid=AuFTLOILjXWRvEeFwif4i-Z&oh=00_AYDYdrMvznWjNpEk23kFA-JUs4P5HXzZ-wlrwfK7joafaA&oe=67B049CB)
![Throwback Thursday: Full English: Wild Rover
Well, this song certainly lives up to its name - at least, the “rover” bit. The first printed version appears in broadsheets in the middle of the 1800s. It then spread by print or orally until it was found in Scotland, Ireland, America, even as far as Australia and all alehouses between.
A rover indeed. Ironically, although it is now known very much as a drinking song, it originated in the Temperance Movement as an awful warning against the demon drink and how all good boys should repent and go home to their parents.
Actually, it is all too easy to sneer at Temperance workers as over-earnest kill-joys. The movement was sorely needed at the time when industrialised England resulted in appalling slums where men spent their wages on gin to make their lives bearable. This resulted in their families’ lives being worse than ever. A mother was considered lucky if she managed to keep a child alive until it was five. It was the Temperance Movement which started the tradition of inner city allotment gardens: maybe if the poor workers could grow some of their own food it would keep them out of the public houses.
These origins may explain the slightly bland feeling of the words. It’s as if they have been firmly edited. Nothing that the black sheep does is very dreadful, or if it is, no details are given. Where he got the money to spend on whiskey and beer is never explained nor are we told how he got the “gold in great store” with which he came home. Honest labour might earn pennies but not gold. Highway robbery? Piracy? Smuggling? The Slave-Trade? Nothing is explained. It may be detailed with great gory relish in some of the wilder versions that are bound to exist, but not in the usual pub words that we have here which are oddly polite.
[Continued in Comments]](https://scontent-iad3-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.75761-15/469738587_17886205257169159_1844738110324456080_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e35_tt6&_nc_cat=102&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=18de74&_nc_ohc=BafqhzOI5vMQ7kNvgGHgb_R&_nc_oc=AdjNyso4cWih9xXBtMzjSQS-g-f6T3Tu1XAr8TRx14yWXZkEG5QOff898mFB84Mxtvw&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-1.cdninstagram.com&edm=ANo9K5cEAAAA&_nc_gid=AuFTLOILjXWRvEeFwif4i-Z&oh=00_AYDYdrMvznWjNpEk23kFA-JUs4P5HXzZ-wlrwfK7joafaA&oe=67B049CB)
















![Throwback Thursday: The Lincolnshire Poacher
We’re taking a look back at Mat’s previous work, starting with his successful Traditional Folk Album: Full English. Today’s TBT: The Lincolnshire Poacher
This is an old song, first published in 1775 but much older than this in the oral tradition. The words are remarkably consistent throughout their geographical wanderings - Cecil Sharp collected it in Shropshire - but I think songs with a specific place-name tend to stay constant, as if the repetition of the name anchors them and gives them validity.
The tune is used as the regimental quick march for the Royal Lancashire Regiment and the Royal Anglian Regiment, who are known as “The Poachers” - what else? It’s a fine tune for the purpose, with a rousing beat which is much needed. Soldiers doing a ceremonial quick march are a sight to behold - they look like a very long centipede. The fingers (and toes) of the people watching must be crossed extra hard that no-one mis-times a step: the pile-up would be considerable.
Everyone would know the words to the first line:
“When I was bound apprentice in famous Lincolnshire.”
No false modesty for this regiment.
The words are fairly conventional for any folk song about lads up to no good. Whether it’s poaching or piracy they are mostly self-congratulatory, as they are here.
[Continued in Comments]](https://scontent-iad3-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.75761-15/466935454_17882630085169159_7019455788333798184_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e35_tt6&_nc_cat=101&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=18de74&_nc_ohc=f1uneR4jeB8Q7kNvgFnh0q9&_nc_oc=AdiiAUSRJpBuGyUai7rlXzRF6Kvh34-7aC_97Fp0Q4BSkzMyMBk6hzILaHoFJVY3Mrc&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-1.cdninstagram.com&edm=ANo9K5cEAAAA&_nc_gid=AuFTLOILjXWRvEeFwif4i-Z&oh=00_AYCIEnmKv06x-_Ksk1ZYz4cntzcBi83GIa0-ViyNuOZYqg&oe=67B04FA2)
![Throwback Thursday: The Lincolnshire Poacher
We’re taking a look back at Mat’s previous work, starting with his successful Traditional Folk Album: Full English. Today’s TBT: The Lincolnshire Poacher
This is an old song, first published in 1775 but much older than this in the oral tradition. The words are remarkably consistent throughout their geographical wanderings - Cecil Sharp collected it in Shropshire - but I think songs with a specific place-name tend to stay constant, as if the repetition of the name anchors them and gives them validity.
The tune is used as the regimental quick march for the Royal Lancashire Regiment and the Royal Anglian Regiment, who are known as “The Poachers” - what else? It’s a fine tune for the purpose, with a rousing beat which is much needed. Soldiers doing a ceremonial quick march are a sight to behold - they look like a very long centipede. The fingers (and toes) of the people watching must be crossed extra hard that no-one mis-times a step: the pile-up would be considerable.
Everyone would know the words to the first line:
“When I was bound apprentice in famous Lincolnshire.”
No false modesty for this regiment.
The words are fairly conventional for any folk song about lads up to no good. Whether it’s poaching or piracy they are mostly self-congratulatory, as they are here.
[Continued in Comments]](https://scontent-iad3-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.75761-15/466935454_17882630085169159_7019455788333798184_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e35_tt6&_nc_cat=101&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=18de74&_nc_ohc=f1uneR4jeB8Q7kNvgFnh0q9&_nc_oc=AdiiAUSRJpBuGyUai7rlXzRF6Kvh34-7aC_97Fp0Q4BSkzMyMBk6hzILaHoFJVY3Mrc&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-1.cdninstagram.com&edm=ANo9K5cEAAAA&_nc_gid=AuFTLOILjXWRvEeFwif4i-Z&oh=00_AYCIEnmKv06x-_Ksk1ZYz4cntzcBi83GIa0-ViyNuOZYqg&oe=67B04FA2)
![Throwback Thursday: The Mermaid
We’re taking a look back at Mat’s previous work, starting with his successful Traditional Folk Album: Full English. Today’s TBT: The Mermaid
Many and varied are the versions of this song: some long, ballad-like and sorrowful, some like this - cheerful, short and not making a lot of sense. There is no real story to it at all. Maybe the narrative got lost in the pub where this version obviously belongs.
It does have a lot of the common features of most sea songs though - the ones that aren’t about pirates or battles, that is - in that very soon up pops a mermaid. There are lots of half-and-half creatures in folklore and travellers tales on land as well as at sea. Werewolves and the eerie “selkie” legends of the Scottish islands are shape-shifters rather than permanent, as the mermaid is, but half-and-half nonetheless.
So popular was the idea of the mermaid that it appears in all sorts of unrelated places, Elizabethan needlepoint for example, where she floats in mid-air with three blue wavy lines underneath her to indicate the sea. She is a vacant-faced creature, holding a comb and a glass at unnatural angles; not very alluring.
Being alluring was the mermaid’s job really. Whether she is a siren or Lorelei, singly or in multiples, she was there to lure ships on the rocks where they were wrecked. This is one of the explanations this version leaves out. Maybe you are just meant to know.
There is supposedly a real origin for the mermaid - the dugong or manatee, which does sometimes rear itself half out of the water. It is an unlovely creature and the sailors who reported it as a beautiful maiden must have been very drunk or blinded with sea-spray.
[Continued in Comments]](https://scontent-iad3-2.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.29350-15/465684468_1634964793748783_1922615546832829451_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e35_tt6&_nc_cat=103&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=18de74&_nc_ohc=BTZ4zvB0xkoQ7kNvgFMdVjT&_nc_oc=Adj4fbxoCdY8ZZWlbcUEfPAdfVuq10SLQWWHoyRQt2D8gTzdJ98ONoUJcJxdIhoMPmk&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-2.cdninstagram.com&edm=ANo9K5cEAAAA&_nc_gid=AuFTLOILjXWRvEeFwif4i-Z&oh=00_AYDclY-FZ1qcWJNkigdocEYOsIpwRLQd9P4t2-dU_XPprQ&oe=67B03461)
![Throwback Thursday: The Mermaid
We’re taking a look back at Mat’s previous work, starting with his successful Traditional Folk Album: Full English. Today’s TBT: The Mermaid
Many and varied are the versions of this song: some long, ballad-like and sorrowful, some like this - cheerful, short and not making a lot of sense. There is no real story to it at all. Maybe the narrative got lost in the pub where this version obviously belongs.
It does have a lot of the common features of most sea songs though - the ones that aren’t about pirates or battles, that is - in that very soon up pops a mermaid. There are lots of half-and-half creatures in folklore and travellers tales on land as well as at sea. Werewolves and the eerie “selkie” legends of the Scottish islands are shape-shifters rather than permanent, as the mermaid is, but half-and-half nonetheless.
So popular was the idea of the mermaid that it appears in all sorts of unrelated places, Elizabethan needlepoint for example, where she floats in mid-air with three blue wavy lines underneath her to indicate the sea. She is a vacant-faced creature, holding a comb and a glass at unnatural angles; not very alluring.
Being alluring was the mermaid’s job really. Whether she is a siren or Lorelei, singly or in multiples, she was there to lure ships on the rocks where they were wrecked. This is one of the explanations this version leaves out. Maybe you are just meant to know.
There is supposedly a real origin for the mermaid - the dugong or manatee, which does sometimes rear itself half out of the water. It is an unlovely creature and the sailors who reported it as a beautiful maiden must have been very drunk or blinded with sea-spray.
[Continued in Comments]](https://scontent-iad3-2.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.29350-15/465684468_1634964793748783_1922615546832829451_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e35_tt6&_nc_cat=103&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=18de74&_nc_ohc=BTZ4zvB0xkoQ7kNvgFMdVjT&_nc_oc=Adj4fbxoCdY8ZZWlbcUEfPAdfVuq10SLQWWHoyRQt2D8gTzdJ98ONoUJcJxdIhoMPmk&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-2.cdninstagram.com&edm=ANo9K5cEAAAA&_nc_gid=AuFTLOILjXWRvEeFwif4i-Z&oh=00_AYDclY-FZ1qcWJNkigdocEYOsIpwRLQd9P4t2-dU_XPprQ&oe=67B03461)

LIVE RECORDING
Performing my original song 'In One Hundred Years'
Written for the First World War Centennial, it follows the soldiers of Belper, Derbyshire as they leave their hometown, having been told they will be home for Christmas

FULL ENGLISH
Full English is a compilation of early, mostly English folk songs, some as old as 500 years or more.

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