Tea at Trianon: "Scarborough Fair"

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, November 28, 2021

"Scarborough Fair"

An old English song. From Just Another Tune:

One of the most popular so-called "folk songs" today is "Scarborough Fair". At the moment around 1000 recorded versions are available. At least I found as much at amazon. It belongs to a family of songs that is more than 300 years old. Francis J. Child has subsumed this group in his English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882) under No. 2, "The Elfin Knight" (Vol. 1, pp. 6-20). Mostly responsible for the resurgence of "Scarborough Fair" was English folk singer and guitar player Martin Carthy who recorded his arrangement of this song in 1965 for his first LP (Fontana STL 5269):
Are you going to Scarborough Fair,
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme,
Remember me to one who lives there,
For once she was a true love of mine
.
Tell her to make me a cambric shirt,
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme,
Without no seam or fine needlework,
For once she was a true love of mine.

Tell her to find me an acre of land,
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme,
Between the salt water and the sea strand,
And then she'll be a true love of mine.

Tell her to plough it with a lamb's horn,
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme,
And to sow it all o'er with one peppercorn,
And then she'll be a true love of mine.

Tell her to reap it with a sickle of leather,
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme,
And to thrash it all out with a bunch of heather,
And then she'll be a true love of mine.

Paul Simon liked Carthy's version and recorded it himself in 1966 with his partner Art Garfunkel for their third LP, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme. Their recording was also used in the movie The Graduate and included on the Soundtrack-LP. Since then this song was recorded countless times by all kinds of artists. One may say that it has never been more popular than today. Carthy's version was also important for another reason. Already in the winter 1962/63 Bob Dylan heard him play this song in London Folk clubs and it became a kind of inspiration for his own "Girl From The North Country" (see also my article about this song: "...She Once Was A True Love Of Mine" - Some Notes About Bob Dylan's "Girl From The North Country").

Martin Carthy himself had learned the song most likely from The Singing Island (1960, p. 26), an influential songbook compiled by Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl. He only edited the tune and the text a little bit and dropped three of the eight verses. MacColl's recording of his version appeared in 1957 on the LP Matching Songs For The British Isles And America (Riverside RLP 12-637, also available at YouTube). According to the notes in The Singing Island he had collected this particular variant in 1947 from "Mark Anderson, retired lead.miner of Middleton-in-Teasdale, Yorkshire" (p. 109). Here are the original text and tune as sung by Ewan MacColl. (Read more.)