And for your boatman choose old John O'Dreams

[sovay]

I realized that I don't think I ever heard Bill Caddick sing any of his own songs. I learned my first one as a lullaby, as though it were the folk tune it was often mistaken for, and started paying attention to his name somewhere between Priscilla Herdman and June Tabor. I just sang "John O'Dreams" to spatch as I remember learning it from my babysitter because I just read that Caddick has died. In a week of artists dying—Rob is mourning Ricky Jay—this is the one that caught me. The song frightened me as a child even when I loved the sound of it, I think because I heard in it the same likeness that makes sleep the sibling of death: sleep is a river and there are other rivers to cross. It haunted me and I have sung it as a lullaby. There are echoes of Housman and Stevenson and Sappho in it. I wonder if it will be the song people sing for him.

Comments

[cmcmck]

The Scot knew Bill well having got to know him when he was living and performing on the London folk scene back in the day. I remember seeing him at the Hope & Anchor in Islington.

He was a local lad, originally from the Wolverhampton area and retired to Jackfield, a village just up the road from us here in Wellington.

I remember him most from his work with that innovative outfit, Home Service.

He will be sadly missed.

[isis]

I heard in it the same likeness that makes sleep the sibling of death: sleep is a river and there are other rivers to cross. It haunted me and I have sung it as a lullaby.

I agree! The version I have (by a friend's DC area folk-rock group, from back when I was in college) has that sweet, sad sound to it, both soothing and faintly macabre.

[jesse_the_k]

Oh! Thank you for putting a name to this song I've heard so many times. It is indeed sweet and creepy.

...and perfect for a memorial.

(Have we bonded over chamber folk yet? That is, early Pentangle and June Tabor and Silly Sisters and Trapezoid (before Freyda died) and such?)

[negothick]

How about a shout-out to Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony, the acknowledged origin of the haunting melody? I have always loved the song, and the way Caddick folk-processed the melody so that it has become part of the tradition (I've heard it introduced as "a traditional Celtic lullabye," but then I've heard people call Shel Silverstein's "The Unicorn" "an ancient Irish ballad," without a hint of irony).

[lauradi7dw]

Maybe it's time to rummage through the LPs for the Albion Band. Not sure that I ever owned anything by Home Service, but I vaguely remember them.

[genarti]

Clearly I need 1) more Priscilla Herdman albums and 2) more versions of "John O'Dreams"! I only have one of each.

The Priscilla Herdman is Darkness Into Light, which I bought after hearing her by chance at a Vermont folk festival and falling immediately in love with her voice; somehow I'd never thought to see out other albums, though! I guess it's because I'd never run into anyone who talked about knowing her stuff or recognized her voice when a song came on in the car, so I mentally filed her with the more obscure of the folksingers I heard at random points in the '90s or early aughts: beautiful voice, love the songs, probably has no web presence, may well have no other albums. If I'd thought to think about it for any length of time, of course, I'd have realized that googling would answer all these questions in very few seconds, but I didn't. So thank you for the tip!

And "John O'Dreams" I know from the Cherish the Ladies version. Another lovely rendition from a lovely album by a band I only have one cd of, although in this case I knew they'd done other stuff and just haven't gotten around to acquiring more. I definitely didn't realize so many others had covered that song, though. First, time to listen to this one on loop, now that it's on my mind...

(And I've never heard Bill Caddick at all. I will remedy that.)