Goat Notes

Return of the Kateverse folksongs! Run away! Run and hide!

Soldier song, set ten years after The Deed of Katy Elflocks and twenty before Killer-Kate and Luke Lackland. It does not depend on knowledge of the story.  It has a tune, though not a very remarkable one, and I've probably nicked the musical elements from some part of the Great Folk Cauldron or other.




When I was naught but a lad of sixteen,
Ambrosine Wills was the name of my Queen.
Freely she called to me, gaily I strode
Daily to meet her by the old river road!
The old river road, boys, the old river road -
Our babe came sailing down the old river road!

Payments grew many and pennies grew few.
Amber and I barely knew what to do
Till our lords put the young Queen from her throne.
I took her silver, and left Amber alone.
The Allwater road, boys, the Allwater road -
Off with the Green Rose down the Allwater road!

Battles we fought for her, battles we won.
Bounty she showered when her battles were done.
Now I could pay all the debts that we owed,
And farm like a franklin by the old river road!
The old river road, boys, the old river road -
Homewards to Amber up the old river road!

Back home by Siffswater, Amber was gone,
Fled with a pedlar and with Simkin our son.
All the Queen's silver she'd spent for their meat -
Fled with a pedlar so Simkin should eat.
The damned river road, boys, the damned river road -
She saved our Simkin down the damned river road!

I walked a thousand miles, bowed and bereft,
Back to the Green Rose, all the queen I had left.
Loyalty I offered her, loyalty she showed -
I send her foemen down the Black River road!
The Black River road, boys, the Black River road -
Till I meet Amber by the Black River road!

Via heleninwales:


Instructions

1. Open up your music player. Hit shuffle.
2. Record the first few lines of the first 20 songs that come up that do not give away the name of the song. [This cuts out a lot!] Skip instrumentals, but don't skip the embarrassing ones.   [I have a lot of embarrassing ones, but my player seemed too embarrassed to select any of them.]
3. Make hapless LJ* denizens guess the song names and artists. Google is cheating. For musical songs, the name of the musical is acceptable in place of the artist.
4. Least hapless LJ* denizen wins admiration.

* Or DW.  - Ed.


1. Melinda was mine, 'til the time that I found her, holding Jim, loving him.
2. I come from the moor and the mountain, from the waterfall and stream.
3. I am an ex offender.  They let me out in the summer.
4. Some sunny day, babe, when everything seems okay, babe, you'll wake up and find that you're alone.
5. When the evening sun goes down, you will find me hanging round.
6. Ten years ago on a cold dark night, someone was killed 'neath the Town Hall light.
7. You should be so happy, you should be so glad, twentieth century man.
8. If you want to play with my soul, why don't you take a look at your own first?
9. About the time that Daddy left to fight the big war, I saw my first pistol in the general store.
10.  I believe your new girl turned you down, and they say she's pushing you around.
11. Colour me your colour, baby.  Colour me your car.
12. Well my name's John Lee Pettimore, same as my daddy and his daddy before.
13. He's got his little Y-fronts and he's got his little vest. He's got his little parting in his hair.
14. Oh do you know, where to go, where to go? 
15. To cross the wide sea I deserted, from the shore I did fly.
16.  There is a woman in Somalia, scraping for $TITLE by the roadside.
17. I'd like to rush into somebody's arms and lose myself inside.
18. Had me a trick and a kick and your message. 
19 (a) is in a language which I can neither speak nor spell, so instead we'll move along to the total transparency of
     (b) Cuma westas chickadee, have a housemaid on your knee.
20. When the call of the dove can be heard across the land, you'll be there - you'll be there.

I don't believe the Clementine shuffle is as random as all that.  Also, the music library is not very random, because I'm only half-way through transferring my collection, and there is a heavy bias relating to the way CDs are presently stored upon my shelves. 

If all the time in the world was mine, I'd be tempted to try to make a story of those twenty lines, just for the ducks of it. 

My relationship with Nonny, the underrated Muse of Folksong, is generally a delightful one.  Sometimes she'll return from the slopes of Parnassus in melancholy mood, and breathe over me the breath of Carrie Grey; sometimes she will be ribald, and bring me Kyra from Kazandry; sometimes she will be both, and bring me De Ville's Toast to His Friends.  And other times she will be so completely off the wall, I haven't even any description for the result that is shorter than singing it.  Always, she will break in upon me like a wave where no sea was hitherto apparent, and not cease until I've worked her latest inspiration into safely-recorded words and music.

This is often inconvenient, but almost always worth it.

And then sometimes she will come back totally monstered on bad nectar, and afflict me with I've Got Badgers in Me Nadgers.

Killer-Kate and Luke Lackland: 910 words.  Mostly Okay Genius makes his move.  My heroes aren't the only people who can play "Let's You and Him Fight!" without saying a word or copping the blame.  Also, he is better at it than they are.

The World on Maltby Edge, I now discover, is sung to a traditional tune called Riding over Alland.  Which figures.  The highly-coloured imagery seems to be inspired by it, too.  Words of that version keep intruding on my day, but I am resisting them, because I am quite earwormed enough already without encouraging it any further, and also because I suspect the totality of those lyrics would be of small interest to anybody but some future Northdales equivalent of Cecil Sharp.

I know that Riding over Alland is itself only a slight modification of some real and stirring tune in this world - I'm a non-musician and couldn't possibly compose anything half that good offhand on my morning commute, or most likely ever - but however irritatingly familiar it is, I can't quite put my finger on where I've nicked it from.

Killer-Kate and Luke Lackland: 570 words, and the repugnant aristocrats and revolting peasants still thrashing around in what's looking ever more like a classical Prisoner's Dilemma.  Don't flunk this one, guys!

A bit of scribbling and feeling out the beginning of the next section of The Popinjay, but no words on that yet.

Last night did again access Creative Energies In My Sleep (TM).  Unfortunately, it was by way of viewing an avant-garde Dutch film called, in English, If Anything About This Made You Happy, I Will Never Make It Again.  Fortunately, I have forgotten almost everything except the title, and the fact that it conveyed the spirit of the film precisely.  Fortunately or otherwise, I've never seen an actual piece of Dutch avant-garde cinema in my life.

This ugliness left me in such a foul mood that, when I woke up, I drifted into a reverie concerning Eros and Psyche, the dream-born Gilbert and Sullivan fan-operetta on which I am in no way working, in order that I could think about something nice instead.  The third-act comedy duet between Psyche and her disciple/deputy Sacharissa still does not exist, because only through a glass darkly could I glimpse either lyrics or music; but it took an unforeseen plot-turn to the dramatic and brought a tear to my eye.  A good tear, in this case.   What thoroughly nice people they both are!  Archaizing comic opera is definitely more me than avant-garde cinema.

Also, Sacharissa is a really lovely name for somebody to have, especially if one is not that somebody.