This demo is an interpretation of a song I learned many years ago from Michael Cooney by way of banjo player Merrion Wood. Oddly enough, Bert Jansch also recorded a slightly similar ‘Weeping Willow Blues’, and both used 12-string for their recordings. Just to be awkward, I play it slide. :)
The ‘Sometimes I think you’re too sweet to die…’ verse is also associated with Rabbit Brown’s ‘James Alley Blues’, widely known through Judy Roderick’s rewrite ‘Born in the Country’.
This demo track is to all intents and purposes a reinterpretation of a rewrite by Judy Roderick of James Alley Blues, by Richard ‘Rabbit’ Brown. She recorded it on her 2nd album, the rather wonderful ‘Woman Blue‘, in 1965. The version here is mostly the same lyrically but adjusted slightly for a male singer. In addition, rather than repeat her first verse at the end as Judy did, I’ve used a similar but not identical verse from James Alley Blues as my last verse.
The lyrics of a version by Robin Greenstein are very similar to Judy Roderick’s, but include another verse from James Alley Blues. Oddly enough, I have a version of ‘Corinna’ that includes (more or less) the same verse.
I may well add some instruments to this version at some point. I’m also thinking about recording something closer to Rabbit Brown’s version, with a significantly different arrangement. The original has appeared on many anthologies and I also found it on YouTube here.
My setting of a poem by A.E. Housman from ‘A Shropshire Lad’. All rights reserved.
Video:
Mastered audio capture of the performance:
Backup:
Homestudio recording
Backup:
Many online sources give the first line as title, but my edition of ‘A Shropshire Lad’ doesn’t give a title to this piece, so I’ve used a variation on the second line for the song title.
<strong>A Shropshire Lad VIII </strong>
‘FAREWELL to barn and stack and tree,
Farewell to Severn shore.
Terence, look your last at me,
For I come home no more.
‘The sun burns on the half-mown hill,
By now the blood is dried;
And Maurice amongst the hay lies still
And my knife is in his side.
‘My mother thinks us long away;
’Tis time the field were mown.
She had two sons at rising day,
To-night she ’ll be alone.
‘And here ’s a bloody hand to shake,
And oh, man, here ’s good-bye;
We ’ll sweat no more on scythe and rake,
My bloody hands and I.
‘I wish you strength to bring you pride,
And a love to keep you clean,
And I wish you luck, come Lammastide,
At racing on the green.
‘Long for me the rick will wait,
And long will wait the fold,
And long will stand the empty plate,
And dinner will be cold.’
David Harley Words & Music 
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