Week 24 – The Wind across the Wild Moor

With the current wintry conditions, it seems like an appropriate time to post this song from the Copper Family’s repertoire. My friend Mike and I learned it, circa 1977, from the single LP selection from A Song for Every Season. When, a few years later, I heard the full 4 LP set for the first time, I was initially rather taken aback by Bob’s spoken comments:

Old Uncle Tom, that’s my great uncle, and Grandfather’s brother, he used to sing this with a great deal of feeling. And it just shows you how things have changed, because when Dad used to sing it he couldn’t help putting in a little bit of, you know, funny, he used to laugh a little bit at it. And we have a job to keep a straight face. That’s the way things change.

It hadn’t occurred to me, I suppose, that late twentieth century traditional singers might find some of the songs in their repertoire a bit old fashioned. Of course the Coppers still sing the song, because it’s part of their family tradition. But what’s my excuse? you might ask. To be honest, I’m not sure – I just like singing the song, and actually have no problem singing it with a straight face. And melodramatic though it is, the subject matter – hard-hearted father turns away his daughter and illegitimate grandchild, to his subsequent regret – is a timeless theme.

From the number of records on Steve Roud’s index it would appear that at one time this song was widespread in print and in oral tradition, in both Britain and North America.

The Wind across the Wild Moor

 

Week 14 – The Shepherd’s Song

An inconsequential but charming piece of pastoral romance – in which the shepherd, as usual, gets his girl – from the repertoire of the Copper Family. Surprisingly, the Copper Family seem to be the only source for this song, apart from one other version, collected along the Sussex coast at Arundel in 1911 (from an apparently unnamed singer), by the archaeologist Cecil Curwen.

The Shepherd’ Song

Andy Turner: vocal, G/D anglo-concertina

Week 2 – A Shepherd of the Downs

The largest single source of songs in my repertoire is almost certainly the Copper Family of Rottingdean in Sussex. So this is just the first of many.

Like a lot of the Coppers’ repertoire, this started life in the 18th century as a rather flowery romantic pastoral ballad, ‘The Contented Lovers: or A Courtship, between a SHEPHERD and a NYMPH’ – see the Bodleian Library’s Broadside Ballad collection. The oral tradition has introduced a number of changes – not least the opening line “Shepherd Adonis being weary of his sport” has been changed to something likely to resonate more with a Sussex shepherd. And all mentions of nymphs have disappeared, along with around a dozen verses. The finished article, as the Coppers sing it, is still pastoral and romantic, but it’s no longer twee – it benefits from a fine tune, and the words have a quiet dignity. I find much to admire in the shepherd’s outlook on life:

“No pride nor ambition, he valued no care”

I think that the first time I heard this song was on the LP No Relation by Royston Wood and Heather Wood, and I suspect that I learned the song from Bob Copper’s book A Song for Every Season some time before I’d actually heard Bob and John sing it on the 4 LP set of the same name. That set was of course on Leader Records so, like the rest of the albums on that label has, for reasons which are well-known (but none the less unfathomable and quite frankly unforgiveable), never been released on CD. You can however hear Bob and Ron sing the song on the excellent Topic CD Come Write Me Down.

You can find the Copper Family words at www.thecopperfamily.com/songs/coppersongs/shepherd.html

A Shepherd of the Downs