I cannot get o'er

I've only just heard this song in the past few weeks, but it was making itself known just as the world was slamming down in the first wave of the pandemic. 

Down in the valley, the first of May

Gatherin' flowers, both fresh and gay 

Gatherin' flowers, both red and blue 

How little thought of what, what love could do 

Don't you break my heart 

I put my hand in, into the bush 

Finding the sweetest, sweetest rose 

I pricked my finger deep to the line 

And left the sweetest rose, sweetest rose behind 

Saw a ship sailin' on the big blue sea 

She sailed as deep as, deep as she could be 

But not so deep in, in love as I am 

I cannot whether I, I sink or swim 

Don't you break my heart 

Thousands and thousands all on this Earth

Pretty well all good art is achieved by stealing. The third verse definitely is; it's from the old Scottish ballad "Waly Waly", which is so beautiful that it turns up everywhere. 

I first heard it when I was housesitting for a couple who had ended up in Victoria to escape the draft during the Vietnam War, and decided to stay. Their house was a Sixties experience: a water bed, which I can't recommend, and pot plants in the garage which I innocently watered, until Double Leo Sister enlightened me. I continued to water them. They also had a huge vinyl record collection, which included a concert album by Peter, Paul, and Mary and this song.  As with my ignorance of pot plants, I didn't know this song is known as "Waly Waly".

Here's one of the many incarnations of The King Singers performing it in 1987:

The water is wide. Time to go wait for the ship that will carry me through to morning.

A month of nights

 In a strange way, the mourning over the Queen has supplied a welcome distraction from other "stuff" happening in the world.  You can supply your own list, but I realized, with a sickening lurch, that the new head of the Conservative Party in Canada is a populist, who supported the truckers' convoy that occupied Hades for nearly a month last winter.

I felt the same way when Trump won the Republican Party nomination in 2016.  This could get messy.

Rather than distracting myself with footage of the royal hearse passing the villages on the Carse of Gowrie, where my Scottish ancestors lived for centuries, I am mindfully turning to music.

Long before he became the musical genius behind the Peanuts cartoon specials, Vince Guaraldi came up with a gorgeous instrumental, which eventually was given the title "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" .  

Some time later, Carel Werber wrote lyrics for it, and some vocal groups recorded it, including We Five (who had a hit with "You Were on My Mind" on the same album). 

(The drummer in this recording, incidentally was Jerry Granelli, who died in Halifax, Nova Scotia last year, and for some time, was Vince Guaraldi's drummer.)

But last week, Spotify sent me this relatively recent interpretation by jazz/folk instrumentalist George Winston.

Listen, is it sacreligious to admit that I think I prefer this to the other recordings (which I love, I hastily add)?

I loved the original for its humming continuo bass line, achieved by the bassist bowing his instrument.  Winston achieves by -- how -- the pedal?  He also illustrates that the piano is indeed a percussive instrument; I keep thinking I hear a drum set joining in, only to realise that this is all in how he strikes the keys. 

Goodness knows, I'm no sailor, but I'll gladly float away from the craziness on this boat.