Green Shirt

The song was written by the poet Elvis Costello and appeared on his corruscating third album "Armed Forces".

There's a smart young woman on a light blue screen
Who comes into my house every night
She takes all the red, yellow, orange and green
And she turns them into black and white

[Chorus]
But you tease, you flirt
And you shine all the buttons on your green shirt
You can please yourself, but somebody's gonna get it

[Post-Chorus]
Better cut off all identifying labels
Before they put you on the torture table

[Verse 2]
'Cause somewhere in the Quisling Clinic
There's a shorthand typist taking seconds over minutes
She's listening in to the Venus line
She's picking out names, I hope none of them are mine

[Chorus]
But you tease, you flirt
And you shine all the buttons on your green shirt
You can please yourself, but somebody's gonna get it

[Bridge]
Never said I was a stool pigeon
I never said I was a diplomat
Everybody is under suspicion
But you don't wanna hear about that

[Chorus]
'Cause you tease, you flirt
And you shine all the buttons on your green shirt
You can please yourself, but somebody's gonna get it

[Post-Chorus]
Better send a begging letter to the big investigation
Who put these fingerprints on my imagination?

[Chorus]
You tease, and you flirt
And you shine all the buttons on your green shirt
You can please yourself, but somebody's gonna get it
You can please yourself, but somebody's gonna get it
You can please yourself, but somebody's gonna get it.

It's a brilliant lyric. Describing a female newsreader distilling all the impossible conflicts of the world (red, yellow, orange and greens- note the Irish reference of the last two colours) into an acceptable BBC 'black and white'. Then the green shirt which is both the British army and the Irish Republican one. But it's also seething with sexual energy; the news a kind of flirtation with a gagging public. Plus he puts this poem - which I prefer to almost any actual contemporary 'proper' poem - to blistering sound-poem music. That classic Buddy Holly channeling Costello combination of a ravishingly melody with an infuriatingly teeth-clenched delivery.

duplicitous vocals, bullet bodhran and punk harp - Gaz

The Keeper

https://youtu.be/z7ToRgsL8RU

‪@PeacocksTaleMusic‬ for all our videos We performed this at our recent summer solstice party expecting our pagan friends to know it and join in. They didn't and didn't, citing a Christian-indoctrinated primary schooling. My class in Milk St Primary School Frome (the one before the 11 plus year) used to sing this with hip, miniskirted Miss Millington who possibly got it from the Pete Seeger version and worldview. Seeger was deeply involved in the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King and no doubt enjoyed the progressive implications of the song, the keeper freeing the doe into the woods (among the leaves so green-o) rather than killing her or holding her captive. In the early 70s, as the English folk rock band Steeleye Span took Irish Republican folk songs like "All Around My Hat" ("I will wear a green willow) and McCartney singing "Give Ireland Back To The Irish" up the charts, I assumed "The Keeper" was a similarly progressive song about the changing relationship between England and Ireland. It could be though I'm not sure it started out like that. Apparently, it's just one of those eternal hunter/hind songs about sex, "under his cloak he carried a bow for to shoot a merry little doe." I prefer the green 1965 version with miniskirted Miss Millington where, despite our incipient pubescence and a propensity for innuendo, Class 7 thought it was about a keeper hunting and then releasing an elfin doe among the trees into a semi-magical wood, like the ones we knew in Somerset. (It was a progressive school but also marked by the limitations of its time : when the whole year group sang together, the 'remove' class was always and only given the percussion instruments. Pic of me as the Keeper by Bhas Allan.

Cruel

@PeacocksTaleMusic for all our videos. Our take on Kate Rusby's "Cruel". Traditional folk but also a deconstruction of it, as is Rusby's thoroughly contemporary way; the 'female' side of all those 'heave away, haul away' shanties, revealing a tender human story of cruelly divided lovers. Nowadays, they'd probably stay and build a home together... Cruel were my parents, to tear my love from me Cruel was the pressgang that took him to the sea Cruel was the little boat that rowed him off the strand And cruel was the big ship, that took him from the land Haul away, boys, haul away Haul away, boys, haul away Cruel was the water, that ship it sailed upon Cruel was the fair wind, for now my loves he's gone Had you blown a roaring gale they'd have left him on dry land Where he would walk besides me and I would hold his hand Haul away boys, haul away Haul away boys, haul away The ring beneath my pillow, is the ring he gave to me I'll wear it on my finger, for all the world to see But cruel was the captain, the bo'sun, and the men For they didn't give a farthing if I saw my love again Haul away, boys, haul away Haul away boys, haul away Cruel were my parents, to tear my love from me Cruel was the pressgang that took him to the sea Cruel was the little boat that rowed him off the strand And cruel was the big ship, that took him from the land Haul away, boys, haul away Haul away, boys, haul away from Poachers on the Common (LP), released September 8, 2022 https://peacocks-tale.bandcamp.com/album/poachers-on-the-common-lp Song by Kate Rusby

In An English Country Garden (Peacocks' Photoshoot with Bhas Allan)

  https://www.tiktok.com/@peacocktale/video/7511661056788303126 for Bhas's film of the performance

“I tried to save The Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me.” (Frodo in LOTR) Tolkien wrote that during World War Two (and with his own front line memories of friends lost in World War One) and it probably sums up how many survivors felt; as well as summing up the plight of those who didn't survive. Recording this in an English country garden in Lancelot's own Norfolk parish - the bee loud glades, the tidal wave of birdsong - it really did feel like this was what Flight Sergeant Pilot Lancelot Percival Wiliamson fought 5 years, aged 19-25, to save. What he HAD helped to save in July 1945, on home leave from a year in the Burma campaign (after 4 years in the skies above Europe winning two mentions in despatches and not getting shot down, winning those existential battles) But not, alas, for him. A fatal training flight on the early morning of Friday 13 July above Little Eaton in Derbyshire meant he never got the chance to enjoy the 'Shire' we are sitting in here. This is our thank you. We'll be playing this homage (with our neighbour and musical friend harpist Vanessa Wood-Davies on harp) at the church in which Percy is buried on his 80th anniversary, Sunday July 13 2025 as part of a special memorial service starting at 9.30 am. Three generations of his family will be present. I landed a crocked plane, when still just a fitter, 5 years derring-done, never shot down in flames, In a cloud of unknowing, I flew for the sunrise And came down to Earth but lived up to my names. Six knights of Logres to carry my coffin, Six Logres ladies to walk by my side, Through hellfire and slaughter to a wheatfield of poppies And a home hedge on Friday the 13th of July. Beat the drum slowly and play the pipes only, Play up the dead march as we go along And bring me to Fring All Saints and lay me down easy, I lived in the free air that breathes through this song. Instrumental break Repeat first verse. Lyric © Gareth Calway 2023

Skirting Heresy (The Story of Margery Kempe of Lynn) with Vanessa Wood-...

"Skirting Heresy" is the title of an epic play by New York author Elizabeth MacDonald which I edited for a production in Lynn Minster in 2018, mainly adding several existing songs from a previous play of my own which which you'll find on the Peacock's album  peacocks-tale.bandcamp.com/album/a-mas…for-margery and - in different versions - on the album the Penland Phezants ( Andy Wall, Vanessa, Melanie and me) created for the Skirting Heresy show. Andy and Vanessa wrote the folk tunes; I wrote the lyrics and the beat-based rap and chant bits. The "Skirting Heresy" score is collected on thepenlandphezants.bandcamp.com/album/son…ery-kempe
This track "Skirting Heresy" using the title of the play as a refrain was written by Andy and I to cover a lengthy curtain call for the epic cast of 70 and to tell the whole story of the Book in a summary form. We both rather extended ourselves and we were all still performing it about 4 minutes after the epic curtain call ended! I recall pointedly singing "You're a menace to churchman but a mystic to me" to possibly the least facilitating churchman ever to host a play about one of his most famous ancestral parishioners.
This is the abridged Peacock version. The full Peacock version is here-  soundcloud.com/gareth-calway/skirting-heresy-in-full
The lovely upbeat Andy-led folk performance is on the Phezants album link above. This version features the three other performers on that track (adding Vanessa's beautifully measured harp to our usual Peacock duo) taking it somewhere more mediaeval.

Brave Unselfish Loving (VE Remembrance)

https://soundcloud.com/gareth-calway/1aafa1f7-32e8-40a7-9cf3-b8f93b0c5e51

A new recording for the 80th anniversary of VE Day of this remembrance anthem for a "brave, loving and unselfish" youth late of this parish.

Flight Sergeant Pilot Lancelot Percival Williamson, 1920-1945, died on Friday July 13 1945 after five years service in the RAF fighting Fascism on two major fronts of the Second World War, aged 25. He joined the RAF in 1939, aged 19. He was agonisingly close to surviving the entire war when he died in a plane crash on a solo training flight above Little Eaton in Derbyshire just after his last home leave in Norfolk.

Lancelot 'Percy' Williamson is the last name on the unbelievably long roll call of Sedgeford war dead from two world wars called out (across the village green where we live) every Remembrance Sunday. My ear was struck by the Arthurian resonances, not just Sir Lancelot the greatest knight but Percival the purest (and finder of the Holy Grail). Maz and I have the honour in absentia familias of tending his grave at Fring and also of occasionally remembering him at the church with this song or the poem.

He hailed from Eaton Farm Sedgeford, North West Norfolk. went to school in Fring, sang in Heacham church choir, played cricket for Sedgeford a week before his death and is buried next to the small grave of his 'older' (10 year old) brother at Fring All Saints.

The tune is a traditional folk song about a good young man cut down in his prime. The aircraft you hear at the end of this film was flying over as we finished recording so we left the mikes open. The same thing happened when I was recording the poem in the graveyard.

I landed a crocked plane, when still just a fitter,

5 years derring-done, never shot down in flames,

In a cloud of unknowing, I flew for the sunrise

And came down to Earth but lived up to my names.

Six knights of Logres to carry my coffin,

Six Logres ladies to walk by my side,

Through hellfire and slaughter to a wheatfield of poppies

And a home hedge on Friday the 13th of July.

Beat the drum slowly and play the pipes only,

Play up the dead march as we go along

And bring me to Fring All Saints and lay me down easy,

I lived in the free air that breathes through this song.

Instrumental break

Repeat first verse.

Lyric © Gareth Calway 2023

from PEACOCK'S TALES (The Sapphire Wedding Album) peacocks-tale.bandcamp.com/album/peaco…dding-album
Percy's gravestone has recently been cleaned and made much more legible, as you will see in the final frame of the film (see link below). Our thanks to Carol Townsend of the Commonwealth Graves Commission who carried out that excellent work as well as to Tim Snelling Sedgeford village historian whose diligent research gave us many of the images and press cuttings you see on the film and which gave us the material for our song. You can also watch the music video on YouTube. youtu.be/j3LRhwEYIsA That film gives you a bit of the poem as well.

Beltane (The Rise of an April Leaf)

The rise of the subtitle ("Rise of an April Leaf") implies the fall and in this poem the leaf at its unfurling nervously considers its mortality and all the things that can go wrong. The second voice representing all the things urging it on - sun, spring etc - riffs on the old moral 'he who saves himself loses himself'

Puckered,
Helpless,
Grizzly,
Clenched
Ugly as a newborn face;
Scared to let myself go:
And where can I go
Except towards death?
And what if I grow
In the wrong directions,
Abnormal or twisted,
And how do you do it anyway?
Thoughts crumpled,
Feelings crushed.
Perhaps I’m not even a leaf?
Just scared to stand out
From the crowded branches?
So what am I? – yellow?
Or just painfully shy
Soft virgin green
Closed against the urging sun?
Do I have to do anything?
Will I just become – me?
Or do I have to force myself out?
Safer to sit tight;
But then I get scared
The rest of the branch
Which had seemed so wooden
Is unfolding faster;
Best to let go then;
But what if my flower
Hardly out of bud
Gets pollinated?

The May blossom light
Of the still warm evening;
The birdsong high
Above distant traffic:
The Sun become mild
And expansive, beaming:
The breathless wind:
All give their answer:
He who saves his dances

Will never be a dancer.

© Gareth Calway and first published in 'Encounter' Magazine in April 1987.
Watch the video on YouTube youtu.be/0K8LiK9rFlA

Marie Mouri

‪@PeacocksTaleMusic‬ for all our 250 plus videos A very sad song but a joy to play    • Marie Mouri by Peacock's Tale Musical...   Same recording technique and target sound as Pallet On Your Floor. lyrics Chère 'tit zozo quoi t'apré fé? T'apré sauter, t'apré chanter To pas connais n'a p'us Marie Marie mouri, Marie mouri 'Tits herbe tout vert, 'tits herbe tout moux Faut p'us to fais un lit pou nous To pas connais n'a p'us Marie Marie mouri, Marie mouri Quand jou fini n'a p'you soleil Quand nuit fini n'a pas sommeil Quand monde content mo p'us ca ri Marie mouri, Marie mouri credits from Untied States of Americana (LP), track released January 24, 2022 peacocks-tale.bandcamp.com/album/untie…mericana-lp Maz - guitar, vocal; Gaz - drum & bass. A David L. Greely song which we learned in the version by Linda Ronstadt/ Anna Savoy.

Septuacentenary of a Parish Church

scenes from the Passion 
in an Easterly procession
line a Norfolk lane
and heavens above

turn heaven-lent snowdrops
through an orientation
to daffodils of fire…
through death
we remember 
with bread
poppies
wine
music
good 
words
thoughts
deeds
to 
LOVE

A real communion with infinite repercussions
Bringing all Faiths together like beads on one string
(Though whether preventing, or after, a Flood, God knows.)
I am Not. You and I are not We but One.

Let there be:

Light broad-churched in through
angel wing mirror-rainbowed
clean glass, open door

ONE
heaven-blue earth-green blood-stained 
eastern window;

An orientation; a turn to the East.

This Early English new build that went up all in one go
(The Tower taking a tad longer) as English emerged
From Norman French as the national language. And
Structurally stable for seven hundred years.
Unusual. Amid a green and pleasant, wooded farmland
(Non-Satanic mills!) well pastored, well wardened,
Well furnished with flowers, cheerful, friendly,
On a well-lit, airy hill and reached by idyllic lanes. A
Congregation with an ear for a Book of Common Prayer,
An uncommon hymn and a warm word of welcome. This
Is the heart of the matter. This has lasted. This is eternal.

Genesis of a Church (Fring All Saints AD 1330)

Genesis of A Church, Fring, 1330 AD

 

 

On this higher ground

Let us house an altar

Where the Word may resound

Through time, prayer and psalter.

 

On this heavenly spur

Let us grow a tower

Where the great stir of Easter

May bud, leaf and flower.

 

He cam also stille

Ther his moder was

As dew in Aprylle

That fallyt on the gras.[1]

 

Defeats, factions, debts,

A weak tyrant king’s

Gone the way of all flesh

Burns for higher things[2].

 

In these emerald trees

Lifting monks’ eyes above

Earthy labour, dis-ease,

Let us sing divine love.

 

He cam also stille

To his modres bowr

As dew in Aprylle

That fallyt on the flowr.

 

In these sandcastle days,

A boy on the throne[3],

Let us hold fast and raise

Firm foundations of stone.

 

Let here be Light

To summer the heart

Through spring, heyday, fall, blight,

Candling the dark.

 

He cam also stille

Ther his moder lay

As dew in Aprylle

That fallyt on the spray.

 

Let here be stillness

On strips, hill, vale, farm,

Green pastures and waters

That flow like a Psalm.

 

Frea’s[4] folk, we are grass, bone,

We come to pass;

But soul-fashioned stone,

We build to last.

 

 

 

 

---

[1] The refrains in italics are from an anonymous mediaeval lyric about the Annunciation.

[2] Edward II, murdered at Berkeley Castle in 1327, his reign defined by usurping nobles and humiliating defeats in Scotland.

[3] Edward III, heir at 14, 18 when he assumed direct control in 1330. 

[4] The place name Fring is according to the ONC “probably ‘ingas’ (the settlement of) the family or followers of a Saxon named Frea.” That his name may be a nod to the Norse goddess Freya (from whence ‘Friday’ ‘Freya’s day) is a poetic reminder that churches were typically built on sites sacred to earlier faiths. The beautiful natural setting on a low hill overlooking a timeless rural England is strikingly numinous.

Jackson

Hello we're Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash...

We got married in a fever
Hotter than a pepper sprout
We've been talkin' 'bout Jackson
Ever since the fire went out

I'm goin' to Jackson
I'm gonna mess around
Yeah, I'm goin' to Jackson
Look out Jackson town

Well, go on down to Jackson
Go ahead and wreck your health
Go play your hand you big-talkin' man, make a big fool of yourself
Yeah, go to Jackson
Go comb your hair
Honey, I'm gonna snowball Jackson
See if I care

When I breeze into that city
People gonna stoop and bow, (hah)
All them women gonna make me
Teach 'em what they don't know how

I'm goin' to Jackson
You turn-a loose-a my coat
'Cause I'm goin' to Jackson
"Goodbye, " that's all she wrote

But they'll laugh at you in Jackson
And I'll be dancin' on a Pony Keg
They'll lead you 'round town like a scalded hound
With your tail tucked between your legs

Yeah, go to Jackson
You big-talkin' man
And I'll be waitin' in Jackson
Behind my Jaypan Fan

Well now, we got married in a fever
Hotter than a pepper Sprout
We've been talkin' 'bout Jackson
Ever since the fire went out

I'm goin' to Jackson
And that's a fact
Yeah, we're goin' to Jackson
Ain't never comin' back

We got married in a fever
Hotter than a pepper sprout'
And we've been talkin' 'bout Jackson
Ever since the fire went...

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Jerry Leiber / Billy Edd Wheeler

Jackson lyrics © Sony/atv Tunes Llc, Sony/atv Songs Llc, Bexhill Music Corp., Bexhill Music Co., Gimbel Music Group, Inc., Leiber Music/stoller Music

She's Leaving Home

Our cover of the song in which the She of She Loves You grows up and Leaves Home, the ultimate generation gap song by the band whose music defined that time. For a band that with their upbeat update of fifties rock n roll ("roll over Beethoven, tell Tchaikovsky the news") basically composed the soundtrack of the generation gap ("anything that you want... we can do" "there's a place where I can go...and it's my mind" "money can't buy me love" "it's getting better all the time" and see track 1) they could also be surprisingly un-partisan and generous about it. Compare this song with the Who's proto-punk "My Generation" for instance. I would contend, however, that their very ability to transcend the conflict and empathise achingly with both sides in songs like this was why they largely won the argument for their own side. (Cat Stevens' "Father and Son" follows this lead in this a few years later.) It would have been a cheap trick to sing a hippy credo like "Love is the one thing that money can't buy"( A band that embraced Lennon's brilliant angry young man cover of "Money" and McCartney's manna-querying "Did you think that money was heaven sent?" weren't going to fall or expect us to for that. It's not that the mortified parents in this song don't love their daughter (or more accurately the 'baby' they remember. They just don't know who she is. We precede the song with an extract from my (work in progress) Beatles novel "All About The Girl": June 18, 1967. Absent Father’s Day: because real men didn’t have their own day then. President Johnson may have proclaimed a Day honouring fathers in America that President Nixon would make law and a permanent national holiday in 1972 but in Swinging London the Pepper-hot BBC Beatles, currently rehearsing All You Need Is Love for the world’s first live satellite broadcast, were voicing the daughters and sons beyond their command. She’s Leaving Home and, essentially, I’m Leaving with her. She sheds our Parents a musical Note about living alone for so many years which leaves Wicked Stepmother Mary nose-cold and dry-eyed on the top of the world and Absent Dad, when he finally gets home, feeling even more sorry for himself than usual. In a minimalist, open-heart grief-lyric (taut heart-strings tuned on those understated short stories Paperback Writer and Eleanor Rigby) Mother Mary picks up the letter that’s lying there; is standing alone at the top of the stair, before she, and the held musical Note, and the audience hanging on it, break... down… and cry to her husband, 'DADDY, OUR BABY'S GONE!'

E Bm F#m C#m F#7
Wednesday morning at five o'clock as the day begins 
F#m7/B B9
Silently closing her bedroom door
F#m7/B B9
Leaving the note that she hoped would say more

E Bm F#m C#m F#7
She goes downstairs to the kitchen clutching a handkerchief
F#m7/B B9
Quietly turning the backdoor key
F#m7/B B9
Stepping outside she is free


[Chorus]
E
She (We gave her most of our lives.)
E
Is leaving (Sacrificed most of our lives.)
E Bm6
Home (We gave her everything money could ^ ^ ^ 
C#m F#7 C#m F#7
She's leaving home after living alone for so many years
buy

[Verse]
E Bm F#m C#m F#7
Father snores as his wife gets into her dressing gown,
F#m7/B B9
Picks up the letter that's lying there.
F#m7/B B9
Standing alone at the top of the stairs,

E Bm F#m C#m F#7
She breaks down and cries to her husband "Daddy our baby's gone!"
F#m7/B B9
Why would she treat us so thoughtlessly?
F#m7/B B9
How could she do this to me?


[Chorus]
E
She (We never thought of ourselves.)
E
Is leaving (Never a thought for ourselves.)
E Bm6
Home (We struggled hard all our lives to get ^ ^ ^ 
C#m F#7 C#m F#7
She's leaving home after living alone for so many years
by

[Verse]
E Bm F#m C#m F#7
Friday morning at nine o'clock she is far away
F#m7/B B9
Waiting to keep the appointment she made
F#m7/B B9
Meeting a man from the motor trade


[Chorus]
E
She (What did we do that was wrong?)
E
Is having (We didn't know it was wrong.)
E Bm6
Fun (Fun is the one thing that money can't 
C#m F#7 C#m F#7
Something inside that was always denied for so many years
buy

CODA
C#m7 F# A E
She's leaving home (bye bye)

credits

from It Was 60 Years Ago Today (LP), released February 4, 2023

license

When I Was On Horseback

We first heard this Irish folksong on Steeleye Span's Ashley Hutchings drenched "Ten Man Mop" album in the 70s and this is the version we follow here. For me its brooding atmospheric electric droning fiddle and thunder bass was like a folk track had strayed onto the first Velvet Underground album and I could never get enough of their version (Still can't.) Being a folk ballad, it speaks volumes by leaving a lot of the narrative unsaid and the suggestions of doom and betrayal amid the hybris of youth can be applied to many situations about the potential shortness of life and love. In our arrangement, we've veered toward the military suggestion rather than disease. (The obscure Steeleye cover notes about 'Another young man cut down in his prime... tasted and wasted.. sickness and disease pull you down" always baffled me but now I know what they might mean I wish I didn't.)

The Avatar ( the full mix)

Our musical evocation of hope in dark times.

A musical interpretation of "The Avatar" with added instrumentation 
a Discourse by Meher Baba (excerpts below but do read the complete thing) using harmonium, bass, drums, common flute, lyre, ocean recordings and, above all, Maz's voice singing the author's Name to His own tune. You can hear this divine tune (based in a morning raga) and the divine words He wrote for it sung by his women mandali here - trustmeher.org/meher-baba-places…/prayers-and-arti(see under Gujarati Arti)

"Avataric periods are like the springtide of creation. They bring a new release of power, a new awakening of consciousness, a new experience of life – not merely for a few, but for all. Qualities of energy and awareness, which had been used and enjoyed by only a few advanced souls, are made available for all humanity. Life, as a whole, is stepped up to a higher level of consciousness, is geared to a new rate of energy. The transition from sensation to reason was one such step; the transition from reason to intuition will be another.

The Avatar appears in different forms, under different names, at different times, in different parts of the world. As his appearance always coincides with the spiritual birth of man, so the period immediately preceding his manifestation is always one in which humanity suffers from the pangs of the approaching birth. Man seems more than ever enslaved by desire, more than ever driven by greed, held by fear, swept by anger. The strong dominate the weak; the rich oppress the poor; large masses of people are exploited for the benefit of the few who are in power. The individual, who finds no peace or rest, seeks to forget himself in excitement. Immorality increases, crime flourishes, religion is ridiculed. Corruption spreads throughout the social order. Class and national hatreds are aroused and fostered. Wars break out. Humanity grows desperate. There seems to be no possibility of stemming the tide of destruction. At this moment the Avatar appears....

Peace will come. Joy will come. Light will come."

( meherbabainformation.org/what-is-the-avatar/)

Annunciazione

In celebration of spring, equinox and Annunciation, we sing you our setting of this exquisite 14th century lyric. Magical realism from the 14C where the magical is real and the real is magical.

I sing of a maiden
That is makeles;
King of all kings
To here sone che ches.

He cam also still
There his moder was
As dew in April
That fallit on the gras.

He cam also still
To his moders bowr
As dew in April
That fallit on the flower.

He cam also still
There his moder lay,
As dew in April
That fallit on the spray.

Moder and maiden
Was never non but the;
We may switch a lady
Godes moder be.

I Sing Of A Maiden: Magical realism from the 14C

I sing of a maiden That is makeles; King of all kings To here sone che ches. He cam also still There his moder was As dew in Aprille That fallit on the gras. He cam also still To his moders bowr As dew in Aprille That fallit on the flower. He cam also still There his moder lay, As dew in Aprille That fallit on the spray. Moder and maiden Was never non but che; We may switch a lady Godes moder be. In celebration of spring, equinox and Annunciation, and with the magic of the Middle English poetry as real as the real is magical, we sing you our setting of this exquisite 14th century lyric. Like our local church, this lyric is 700 years old and still singing. We sing it in a 14th century style and recapitulate in a 20th century version marking the genesis and septuacentenary of that (and other such) church. We wrote the Early Music style tune on the harmonium it's performed on and the Modern rock tune is built on an arrangement of the famous Jack Bruce bass riff on Cream's "Sunshine of your Love". The paintings are Fra Lippo Lippi's Madonna and Child, Far Angelico's Annunciation and Gustav Klimt's Mother and Child.

All You Need Is The Pancakes You Make A Shrove Tuesday Special from Mag...

Who Knows Where The Time Goes? (Sandy Denny song)

We've been rehearsing this fireside friendship/ love song about the passing and changes of time all winter and watching the birds circling in the evening over the woods across the way. In North Norfolk you're never far from heath, holt and wild water so there are a lot of birds, including the winter geese audibly referenced at the end of the song. We both love this song. 

Across the evening sky

All the birds are leaving

Ah how can they know

It's time for them to go?

Before the winter fire

I will still be dreaming

I have no thought of time

For who knows where the time goes?

Who knows where the time goes?

Sad, deserted shore

Your fickle friends are leaving

Ah, but then you know

It's time for them to go

But I will still be here

I have no thought of leaving

I do not count the time

For who knows where the time goes?

Who knows where the time goes?

And I am not alone

While my love is near me

I know it will be so

Until it's time to go

So come the storms of winter

And then the birds in spring again

I have no fear of time

For who knows how my love grows?

And who knows where the time goes?

Words and Music by Sandy Denny

Who Knows Where the Time Goes? lyrics © Fairwood Music (uk) Ltd., Winckler Musikforlag

The New Humanity (Love versus Great Forces of Destruction)

The snow-capped mountains, ice-capped seas, The rivers, forests, bees; Fjords and deserts, tropics and poles, The herds and flocks and shoals; Hear greed-is-God merchants of death At limits of all breath, Trump, “Follow Me Me to the end of the world! Come down into The Flood.” ("State of the Ark" © Gareth Calway 2024) The first tune we sing to is a medieval church scale melody in the Phrygian mode composed by Thomas Tallis, originally as a setting for Psalm 2, arr Peacock's Tale. Lead vocal, Echo Strum Acoustic guitar - Maz Lead vocal, voice, Alien Waves Bass, Drums, Harmonium, Recorder, field recordings - Gaz. The second part with the voice over is a Greensleeves rhythm section of acoustic guitar, drums, recorders, harmonium and bass The voice over is extracts from the writings of Meher Baba, a spiritual Master of of Persian ancestry born in Poona, India, a discourse he called "The New Humanity." We feel both parts of this track - the fear and foreboding for the planet and our species of "State of The Ark" and the sublime optimism of the Meher Baba discourse. As he puts it "Great forces of destruction ARE afoot and SEEM to be dominate at the moment." (our emphasis). The image is Hokusai's "In the Well of the Great Wave of Kanagawa" which seems to illustrate both the impending doom and the ultimate faith in humanity to overcome it.

New Lang Syne

This is the same live soundtrack filmed in    • Auld Lang Syne Live at Burns Night 20...   only with all the other instruments (harmonium, snare, bass drum, hi hat) I couldn't throw in the mix at the time as I had my hands and feet full. Surely the most popular parting song sung in the world with words written by Scotland's national (and international) poet Robert Burns, his canon bestriding both the 18C Enlightenment and Romanticism. It seems "Auld Lang Syne" (literally 'old long ago') replaced 'A Parting Glass' as Scotland's favourite end of evening farewell and that one takes some beating. We always sing it with the Ecclefechan Tarts Orchestra and Choir at the winding down midnight close of our annual Burns Night banquet of haggis, poetry and song by which time I am revealing far more inner thigh than is strictly necessary and one of us seems to think it's already the end of the year! Auld Lang Syne Words by Robert Burns [Verse 1] G D Should auld acquaintance be forgot, Em C And never brought to mind? G D Should auld acquaintance be forgot, Em C G And auld lang syne! [Chorus] G D For auld lang syne, my dear, G C For auld lang syne. G D We'll take a cup o' kindness yet, Em C G For auld lang syne. [Verse 2] G D And surely you’ll buy your pint cup! Em C And surely I’ll buy mine! G D And we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet, Em C G for auld lang syne. [Chorus] G D For auld lang syne, my dear, G C For auld lang syne. G D We'll take a cup o' kindness yet, Em C G For auld lang syne. [Verse 3] G D We two have run about the slopes, Em C And picked the daisies fine; G D But we’ve wandered many a weary foot, Em C G Since auld lang syne. [Chorus] G D For auld lang syne, my dear, G C For auld lang syne. G D We'll take a cup o' kindness yet, Em C G For auld lang syne. [Verse 4] G D We two have paddled in the stream, Em C From morning sun till dine; G D But seas between us broad have roared Em C G Since auld lang syne. [Chorus] G D For auld lang syne, my dear, G C For auld lang syne. G D We'll take a cup o' kindness yet, Em C G For auld lang syne. [Verse 5] G D And there’s a hand my trusty friend! Em C And give me a hand o’ thine! G D And we’ll take a right good-will draught, Em C G For auld lang syne. [Chorus] G D For auld lang syne, my dear, G C For auld lang syne. G D We'll take a cup o' kindness yet, Em C G For auld lang syne.