The continuing interest by the mailbase in this topic
reminded me that the Foreword to Peter Bellamy's
collection of songs from the "Puck" stories, "Oak, Ash
& Thorn" (published 1971), which begins:
"These musical settings for poems .....were conceived
when it dawned on me (after many, many readings) that
the verses had been composed as conscious (and
successful) imitations of traditional song forms. From
that realisation to the pairing of the poems with
trad. or near-trad. tunes was a short and obvious
step."
In his Notes to the Songs, Peter Bellamy gives the
following associations that he has used:
Oak, Ash & Thorn (A Tree Song) - various old wassail
and ritual songs
King Henry VII and the Shipwrights - The Gallant
Frigate Amphitrite
Sir Richard's Song - The Gardner Child
Our Fathers of Old - The Limerick Rake
A Three-Part Song - Jockey to the Fair
Cold Iron - various
Frankie's Trade - Go Down ye Red Roses
The Ballad of Minepit Shaw - Appalachian variants of
British Ballads
Poor Honest Men - Spanish Ladies
Philadelphia - no association
The Brookland Road - The Little Black Horse
The Looking Glass - Just as the Tide was A'Flowing
Of the tunes that are familiar to me, I can't make
Spanish Ladies (4 verse lines, 4 chorus) fit at all
with Poor Honest Men (six line verse), but the Gardner
Child seems to be reasonable as does Jockey to the
Fair.
With best regards
David Page
Harrow, UK
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Everything you'll ever need on one web page
from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts
http://uk.my.yahoo.com
|