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Author	Topic: Add: Green Bushes


Ed	Posted - 03 Jan 03 - 10:32 pm
	Green Bushes As I was a walking one morning in May To hear the sweet birds sing aloud from the spray I heard a young damsel, so sweetly sang she 'Down by the Green Bushes he thinks to meet me' 'I'll buy you fine beavers and a fine silken gown I'll buy you fine petticoats with the flounced to the ground, If you'll but prove loyal and constant to me And forsake you own true love, and marry with me' 'I want none of your beavers nor fine silken hose For I never was so poor as to marry for clothes But if you will prove loyal and constant to me I'll forsake my own true Love and get married to thee' 'Come let us be going, kind sir, if you please Come let us be going from under these trees For yonder he's coming, my true love I see Down by the green bushes where he thinks to meet me' Oh, when he came there and he found she was gone He stood like some lambkin, that was quite forlorn 'She is gone with another and forsaken me So adieu the green bushes for ever', said he 'Now I'll be like a schoolboy and spend my time in play For I never was so foolishly deluded away There is ne'er a false woman shall serve me more so So adieu the green bushes, 'tis time to give o'er' Source: Palmer, R (1979) Everymans's Book of English Country Songs. London, Dent Notes: Sung by Mr. and Mrs. Ratford, Ingrave, Essex; collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams, 15.4.1904 (MS II 43). A young man 'a-walking', as in so many English folk songs, 'one morning in May', overhears a woman singing of her true love. He immediately offers her rich clothing if she will marry him instead, but she rejects the offer. Almost immediately, however, she changes her mind, on condition that he will be 'loyal and constant'. The erstwhile true love is naturally disappointed as he sees the pair disappearing into the distance. The green bushes are both part of the landscape and a symbol of virginity. The song dates from the 1760s, though it remained popular until the early years of this century. The fine striding tune is often associated with 'The Cutty Wren'; Vaughan Williams collected it in Essex in 1904 with only a fragment of the text, for which I have substituted words from a ballad sheet, printed by Wright of Birmingham c. 1820-7, under the title of 'The False Lovers' (Birmingham Reference Library). Database entry is here

masato sakurai	Posted - 04 Jan 03 - 01:56 pm
	Broadside versions at the Bodleian Library are: Green bushes ("As I was a walking one morning in May ...") Subject: Clothing; Rejected suitor Firth c.18(146) Printer: [s.n.] ([s.l.]) Date: [s.a.] Green bushes ("Down by the green bushes, where he thinks to meet me ...") Harding B 20(64) Printer: Harkness, J. (Preston) Date: between 1840 and 1866 The green bushes ("As I was walking one morning in May ...") Johnson Ballads 512 Printer: Hodges, E.M.A. (London) Date: between 1846 and 1854 Imprint: Hodges' (from Pitts's,) No. 31, Dudley-st Seven Dials A new song called The green bushes ("As I went out walking one morn'g in spring ...") 2806 c.8(194) Printer: s.n. (s.l.) Date: [s.a.] The green bushes ("I'll buy you new beavers, and fine silken gowns ...") 2806 d.31(71) Harding B 11(3903) Printer: [s.n.] ([s.l.]) Date: [s.a.] The green bushes ("When I was a walking one morning in May ...") 2806 c.17(157) Printer: Kiernan, J. (Manchester) Date: [s.a.] Imprint: Kierna[n] Printer Garden-street, Manchester Note: Slip. Originally a sheet with 2806 c.17(456) Green bushes ("Early one morning in the month of May ...") Harding B 11(1416) Printer: McCall, W. (Liverpool) Date: between 1857 and 1877 Imprint: W. M'Call, Printer, Cartwright Place, Byrom S. Liverpool. Printer's Series: (83). Note: The second illustration appears to be from an alphabet: Ox, Pear, Queen. The green bushes ("As I was walking one morning in May ...") Copies: Firth b.28(41a) [link is not given] Sheet Title: New Oxford Garland [and] Sea and other Songs Printer: King, W. (Oxford) Date: [c.1835] Imprint: Printed and Sold by W. King, St. Peter's-le-Bailey, Oxford ... Sold also by J. Simons, 123, London-street, Reading Illus. Ballads on sheet: 25 Note: Two titles attached. From the collection of F. Madan, Brasenose College. Large format The green bushes ("As I walked thro' the meadows one morning in May ...") Harding B 11(1889) Printer: Disley, H. (London) Date: between 1860 and 1883 Imprint: H. Disley, Printer, 57, High-street, St. Giles The green bushes ("I'll buy you new bavers and fine silken gowns ...") Harding B 18(220) Printer: Andrews, J. (New York, N.Y.) Date: c.1860 Imprint: Andrews, Printer, 38 Chatham Street, N.Y.

Malcolm Douglas	Posted - 04 Jan 03 - 03:43 pm
	Roud 1040 "The song was sung by Mrs Fitzwilliam in Buckstone's play The Green Bushes (1845) and it was published in Dunscombe's Musical Casket and other collections at the time. Since then the words have often been credited to J.B. Buckstone, with the music composed by E.F. Fitzwilliam, but we can presume that it was traditional long before it was used by Buckstone." -Peter Kennedy, Folksongs of Britain and Ireland, 1975, p.378. The play was popular, and toured throughout the country, spreading the song with it. Vaughan Williams apparently (and ill-advisedly, it would seem) used it as an illustration of his theories on oral transmission and the nature of folk music, rather to Dave Harker's later glee (Fakesong, Open University Press 1985, p.209). Ewan MacColl (Travellers' Songs from England and Ireland, 1977, p.221) states that two stanzas only of the song were sung in Buckstone's play; the full text being later published with the subtitle "A Popular Irish Ballad sung by Mrs Fitzwilliams". It was still quite the fashion to sell even songs newly-written in London as "Irish" and "Scotch" at that time, and that would seem to be the beginning of the occasional claim that this is an Irish song. Green Bushes is found in Irish tradition, of course (and, indeed, almost everywhere else where English is spoken) but Rod Stradling (notes to Walter Pardon, Put a Bit of Powder on it, Father, MT CD 305-6, 2000) is inclined to ascribe that largely to the influence of a popular 78 rpm commercial recording. Further broadside editions can be seen at the Bodleian under the title of The False Lover. Edited By Malcolm Douglas - 1/4/2003 3:55:44 PM

Guest Account	Posted - 25 Jun 03 - 02:14 pm
	From: Brian Peters Is there any evidence that "The Cutty Wren" was ever sung traditionally to this tune, or did Bert Lloyd just borrow the melody from "Green Bushes"? He is characteristically coy about it in his writing, but I could never find a traditional source for "Cutty Wren" to this tune. Nor any evidence for Lloyd's idea that "Cutty Wren" is remnant of a 13th century protest song - but that's another matter.

Ed	Posted - 25 Jun 03 - 06:56 pm
	It would appear that Lloyd borrowed it. From this page: "This song is said to have been sung by the insurgents during the Peasants Revolt of 1381, although the words refer to a much earlier ritual of Pre-Christian origin. We can only guess at the tune that was used at the time. Green Bushes, the eminently suitable one given her, was put to the song by A. L. Lloyd." (Notes Ian Campbell Folk Group, 'Something To Sing About') Slight thread drift, but while searching for some infomation on your query, I stumbled across an article on Bert Lloyd in The Canadian Journal for Traditional Music: A. L. Lloyd and the English Folk Song Revival, 1934-44. I've not had a chance to read it yet, but it looks quite interesting on first glance. Ed

Malcolm Douglas	Posted - 25 Jun 03 - 07:39 pm
	Lloyd seems to have been largely responsible for the unproven assertion that The Cutty Wren belongs to the time of the Peasants' Revolt. He originally made the assertion in The Singing Englishman, but had back-tracked a bit by the time he wrote Folk Song in England (1967), where he said: "...we know that the wren-hunting song was attached to a pagan midwinter ritual of the kind that Church and authority fulminated vainly against - particularly in the rebellious period at the end of the Middle Ages when adherence to forms of the Old Religion was taken to be evidence of subversion, and its partisans were violently persecuted in consequence". You'll notice that he doesn't actually say that the ritual dates from that period; just that it is like some (unnamed and unidentified) that, in his opinion, did. He adduced no evidence of any kind. There seem to be no references at all to the custom before the later 17th century, and no mention of the song until quite some time after that. There is useful information (together with a certain amount of fantasy) in this thread at the Mudcat: DTStudy: Cutty Wren

Cathy Forbes (guest)	Posted - 09 Jun 10 - 08:43 pm
	Was very pleased to find 'The Green Bushes' on your site, I was searching for the music for my brother who is learning to play tin whistle as it is an old family favourite. Thought u might be interested in some alternative (Irish) lyrics:- As I went a walking one morning in May To hear the birds whistle and see the lambs play I spied a youg maiden so sweetly sang she Down by the green bushes were she chanced to meet me And where are you going to my pretty maid To meet my own true love kind sir she replied To meet your own true love, and will you agree To leave the green bushes and tarry with me? I have gold in my pockets and silver as well I can buy you fine beavers and fine silken hose I can buy you fine petticoats down to your toes If you'll leave the green bushes and tarry with me I want none of your beavers or fine silken hoes As I'm not so mean as to marry for gold But if you will be constant and true on to me Then I'll leave the green bushes and tarry with thee Come let us be going from under these trees For yonder is comming my true love I see And he's whistling and singing for he hopes to meet me And when he arrived there and found she had gone He lifted his voice and he cried out forlorn Shes gone with another and forsaken me Adieu the green bushes where she vowed she'd be true

Mr Happy	Posted - 11 Mar 11 - 11:53 am

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