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The Bitter Withy

from Seven Star Green by Rebsie Fairholm

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about

No album is complete without a good spanking song. This is an old English carol based on an apocryphal gospel which seeks to explain why the willow (withy) dies from the inside out. It's a controversial story because it depicts the Christ child as human and fallible.

This recording came together in only three or four days. The instrumentation and arrangement is all Dick's work. I recorded the vocal over a simple drone and sent it to him as an a cappella. He constructed the whole thing around it.

lyrics

As it fell out on a bright holiday
Small hail from the sky did fall
Our Saviour asked his mother dear
If he might play at ball

“At ball, at ball my own dear son
It's time that you were gone
And don't let me hear of any misdoing
At night when you come home"

So it's up the hill and down the hill
To play with the ball ran he
And there he asked three rich young lords
“Come play at ball with me”

Oh, we are lords and ladies sons
Born in a bower and hall
And you are nothing but a poor maid's child
Born in an ox's stall.

“If you're all lords and ladies sons
Born in your bower and hall
I'll make you believe in your latter end
For I'm an angel above you all”

So he made him a bridge of the beams of the sun
And over the water crossed he
These rich young lords followed after him
Drowned they were all three

So it's up the hill and down the hill
These rich lords' mothers run
“Oh Mary mild, fetch home your child
For ours he's drowned each one"

So Mary mild fetched home her child
And laid him across her knee
With a handful of green withy twigs
She gave him slashes three

Oh withy, oh withy, oh bitter withy
You've caused me to smart
And the withy shall be the very first tree
That shall perish at the heart

credits

from Seven Star Green, released August 1, 2009
(traditional, arranged by Rebsie Fairholm and Dick Langford)

Rebsie: voice
Dick Langford: guitar, bass, midi instruments

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about

Rebsie Fairholm image

Rebsie Fairholm Cheltenham, UK

Haunting psych-folk inspired by the English landscape and the spirits of the ancestors. I play 12-string guitar, harp, piano, cornamuse, whistle and whatever else comes to hand. Now working full time with Marvin B Naylor.

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