sovay: (Cho Hakkai: intelligence)
sovay ([personal profile] sovay) wrote2010-06-08 01:56 am

And there's nothing I can't spin them into

So yesterday was a Readercon meeting (where I met [livejournal.com profile] roozle), and Tea at [livejournal.com profile] sigerson and [livejournal.com profile] sen_no_ongaku's (where [livejournal.com profile] stealthmuffin introduced me to Lovelace and Babbage, the street-music-and-poetry-fighting alternate history I didn't know I needed), and [livejournal.com profile] schreibergasse came down from Manchester and stayed the night, which is how we started the day planning to visit the Arboretum and were instead distracted by tart frozen yogurt, used book stores, and very large arthropods. There was a lot of conversation, some of which was Latin scansion. I took home Roger Grenier's Piano Music for Four Hands (trans. Alice Kaplan, 2001) and Penelope Fitzgerald's The Knox Brothers (1977). I would like to have been able to afford the 1930's field-collection of ballads and sea-songs from Newfoundland, which opened to the most awesome version of "Willie Taylor" I have ever run into; I settled for borrowing pencil and paper from the bookseller and taking it down.

Willy Taylor, a brisk young sailor,
Full of love and full of glee,
Went to church—they marched together
Dressed in light, so rich and gay.

[two lines missing]
In walked twenty brisk young sailors,
Marched young Willy off to sea.

Then his true love followed after,
Went by the name of Richard Kerr,
With her lily-white hands and her slender fingers
To embrace the pitch and tar.

When she was out on the yardam reefing,
Doing her work amongst the rest,
Then her waistcoat did blow open
And she showed her lily-white breast.

When our captain came for to hear it,
"O, what wonders brought you here?"
"I'm in search of my own true lovyer
Who was forced from me so dear."

"If you're in search of your true lovyer,
Pray tell me what his name may be."
"His name it is young Willy Taylor;
Seven long years been gone from me."

"You rise early the next morning,
All just by the break of day;
There you'll see your Willy Taylor
Walking with his lady gay."

She rose early the next morning,
All just by the break of day;
There she saw her Willy Taylor
Walking with his lady gay.

Then she called for two bright pistols,
Which were given at her command,
And she shot young Willy Taylor
Standing at his bride's right hand.

When our captain came for to hear it,
"O, what wonders you have done!"
Then he shipped her as a first leftenant
On board of a ship nine hundred tun.

Now she is out on the ocean sailing,
Long bright sword into her hand;
Every time as she gives orders,
Makes the men tremble at her command.


(Sung by Daniel Endacott, Sally's Cove, 1929.)

If anyone has a recording of this version, please let me know; I have only Déanta's and June Tabor's, both of which have substantially less badass endings. It would make a great double-feature with "Sovay." In conclusion, I need to sleep, and Newfoundland rocks.

The Versions of "Willie/William Taylor" I know

[identity profile] anderyn.livejournal.com 2010-06-08 01:35 pm (UTC)(link)
I have Cilla Fisher and Artie Tresize's version (from Foul Day and Fair), which ends "When the captain did behold her and the deed that she had done/he has made her chief commander over a ship and a hundred men", which is the first version I had ever heard. I also have Robin Williamson's version, which goes "when the captain heard of this and the deed that she had done/he made her a ship's commander of a frigate of thirty gun" (that's from A Job of Journey Work ). I have a version by Arcanadh that ends with the shooting, and one by The House Band which has the version ending with "if all young ladies did t he same, how many less young men there would be". I know I have more at home, but those are the ones I have on the ipod at the moment.

Re: The Versions of "Willie/William Taylor" I know

[identity profile] lauradi7.livejournal.com 2010-06-08 05:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks for the CF & AT confirmation. I was sure that I had heard that one, but this morning when I was looking through LPs I couldn't find it.

Re: The Versions of "Willie/William Taylor" I know

[identity profile] anderyn.livejournal.com 2010-06-08 06:02 pm (UTC)(link)
As I said, that was the very first version I ever heard, on a taped radio program from E. Lansing, with several other of the same ilk. I finally tracked down my own copy, and also one of Roy Harris' "Jackie Munroe", which is almost as cool.