1. |
Path Into The Woods
04:02
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There's a path into the woods
That I have walked many times,
I creep to seek my lover in the dark,
And silently we meet
Underneath the pale moonlight,
I creep to seek some solace in his arms...
And though the storms are raging,
My heart needs no guide,
Though my vow I'm breaking,
My love I cannot deny.
And I cannot undo
That which done by God,
So for this life unto him I am bound,
But from his bed I'll slip
Slip out into the cold
For you, my love, I cannot be without...
And though the storms are raging,
My heart needs no guide,
Though my vow I'm breaking,
My love I cannot deny.
Diana turn your head,
Shine not upon these darkest hours,
So softly all upon the cold earth tread,
To go and lay me down
All within these starry bowers
And stronger grows my longing every step.
And you'll cry, "Sweet Isolde,
How can you live in the lie?
For you have broken my resolve
And my love I cannot deny."
Well last night I dreamed
Of a kingdom upon its knees
And you and I, my love, will bear the blame,
But let the kingdom fall
Let the walls crumble around me,
And my sweet sinner, give me my sin again.
But you'll cry, "Sweet Isolde,
How can you live in the lie?
For you have broken my resolve
And my love I cannot deny."
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2. |
Bee-Boy's Song
02:34
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Bees! Bees! Hark to your bees!
Hide from your neighbours as much as you please,
But all that has happened, to us you must tell,
Or else we will give you no honey to sell!
A maiden in her glory,
Upon her wedding-day,
Must tell the bees a story,
Or else they'll fly away.
Fly away - die away -
Dwindle down and leave you!
But if you never grieve your bees,
Your bees will never grieve you...
Bees! Bees! Hark to your bees!
Hide from your neighbours as much as you please,
But all that has happened, to us you must tell,
Or else we will give you no honey to sell!
Marriage, birth and buryin',
News across the sea,
All you're sad or merry in,
You must tell the bees.
Tell 'em going in an' out,
Where the Fanners fan,
'Cause the bees are just about
As curious as a man...
Bees! Bees! Hark to your bees!
Hide from your neighbours as much as you please,
But all that has happened, to us you must tell,
Or else we will give you no honey to sell!
Don't you hide where the trees are,
When the lightnings play,
Nor don't you hate where bees are,
Or else they'll pine away.
Pine away - dwine away -
Anything to leave you!
But if you don't deceive your bees,
Your bees'll not deceive you...
Bees! Bees! Hark to your bees!
Hide from your neighbours as much as you please,
But all that has happened, to us you must tell,
Or else we will give you no honey to sell!
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3. |
Rise Aurora
04:17
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I have no love but my lover,
I have eyes for none but he,
He's gone fishing on the water,
Keep him safe while he's at sea...
Rise Aurora, Aurora rise,
Cast around your golden rays,
So I may to the harbour fly
For to feel his warm embrace.
Pray the storms won't plague the ocean,
Pray the moon is in the sky,
And the shoals of fish are plenty,
On the decks are heaping high...
Rise Aurora, Aurora rise,
Cast around your golden rays,
So I may to the harbour fly
For to feel his warm embrace.
But hush, my pretty babe is crying,
Woken by the wind and rain,
And I hear that ocean roaring,
Beats the sandy shore with spray.
What to do but wait for morning,
Rock my baby, child in arms,
And to pray for God's great mercy
My man may return unharmed...
Rise Aurora, Aurora rise,
Cast around your golden rays,
So I may to the harbour fly
For to feel his warm embrace.
At the dawn, go to the harbour
For to watch the boats come home,
Warmly my love will embrace me,
Though he's frozen to the bone.
Rise Aurora, Aurora rise,
Cast around your golden rays,
So I may to the harbour fly
For to feel his warm embrace.
When our son is grown and married,
He will boldly go to sea,
And his wife, she'll sit and worry,
Sing "Rise Aurora, rise for me..."
Sing, rise Aurora, Aurora rise,
Cast around your golden rays,
So I may to the harbour fly
For to feel his warm embrace.
Rise Aurora, won't you rise,
Cast around your golden rays,
So I may to the harbour fly
For to feel his warm embrace...
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4. |
Woman Of The Woods
04:13
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Many a time I've been woken to find
A frantic man upon my door knocking,
He begs me to hurry and tend to his wife,
For the child won't be too long in coming.
Weary I follow him up to the farm,
And there I find his young wife is labouring,
I pray to the Lord for one easy birth –
For the child in it's mothers arms laying...
There's many who'd shun a woman like me,
Though many I have had hand in helping,
When times are hardest or hope nearly lost,
It's into the the woods they come calling.
Many a time I've returned home to find,
A young girl on my doorstep crying,
Her face it is drawn and her belly is tight,
For a child won't be too long in coming.
Some girls I've had they've been barely fifteen,
Their bodies still too slight to carry,
The lads take their pleasure and next day move on,
Take with them their promise to marry....
There's many who'd shun a woman like me,
Though many I have had hand in helping,
When times are hardest or hope nearly lost,
It's into the the woods they come calling.
These days I'm often called into the town,
To tend to the needs of the dying,
When they cross over it's me lays them out,
And pray I have eased their passing...
There's many who'd shun a woman like me,
Though many I have had hand in helping,
When times are hardest or hope nearly lost,
It's into the the woods you come calling.
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5. |
The Cuckoo
03:04
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Oh the Cuckoo is a pretty bird she sings as she flies,
She brings us good tidings she tells us no lies,
She sucks the little birds' eggs to keep her voice clear
And when she cries "cuckoo" the summer draws near.
As I walked down by the side of a bush
I heard two birds whistling, the Blackbird and Thrush,
I asked them reason so merry they be
And the answer that they gave me,
"We are single and we are free".
But the Nightingale sings so sweetly for true love she knows,
She's pierced her brown breast on the thorn of a rose,
That rose once as white as the first fall of snow
Glows scarlet in the moonlight her heartache to show.
A-walking and a-talking, a-walking was I,
When I spied Cock Robin in a ditch he did lie.
I asked him who caused him such sorrow such strife,
And he told me that the Sparrow had taken his life.
And when the year's a-turning and wassailing we go,
I'll spy our small King as he dashes through the snow,
The Wren singing boldly is out a ways in front,
Of the boys in straw costume who are out on the hunt...
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6. |
Footsteps In The Snow
03:42
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Oh I knew when, when I first loved you,
That the price I'd pay was having to let you go.
I never stalled you, when duty called you,
I'd kiss you warm enough to keep you through the cold.
And you never were, one for farewells love,
So I'd wake those days to find myself alone
All those times not one goodbye love,
All you'd leave behind you were your footsteps in the snow.
And my Mother warned, never love a soldier,
All he'll do is leave you for some early foreign grave;
Even if he lives love, he'll live only for the gun,
you'll have lost you love to the wars either way.
Oh your son he is nearly fourteen,
And, by god, he looks like you when you were a lad...
And he's growing, he's not a boy but he,
Oh he'll need a father to teach him how to be a man.
And your daughter, you've barely seen her
And yet still she asks about you all the time.
And you may as well have been a stranger,
But you're that stranger in her prayers every night.
As a man you, you're just an echo.
As insubstantial as your brief letters home...
And as a father, you're just a shadow
You're little more to us than footsteps in the snow.
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7. |
Hush
03:19
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Hush, hush, coming down the stair,
Creeps the lady with the golden hair,
Old Sir John spies her all alone,
And he wants her for his very own...
"Lovely lady fair and bright,
Will you lay with me tonight?
And let you down that golden braid,
In my arms 'til morn will stay."
"Old Sir John I must answer no,
And now back to my chambers go
For I am pledged to my own love James,
And for him a maid I will remain..."
"Lovely lady fair and bright,
Will you lay with me tonight?
And let you down that golden braid,
In my arms 'til morn will stay."
"Oh Sir John I have answered no,
I'll not willingly with you go,
I'll not prove myself untrue,
By giving myself this night to you."
"Lovely Lady fair and bright,
You will lay with me tonight
And let you down that golden braid,
in my arms 'til morn will stay."
Old Sir John he has gold and land,
He's bribed her father to force her hand,
Her father will her pleas ignore,
For he loves his daughter but loves money more.
"Lady lady dry your eyes, it will not do you good to cry,
You tonight will with me lie and nothing now will save you
When the morning light has come it's off to your own true love you'll run,
When he hears what I have done, I swear he will not have you."
"Lovely lady fair and bright, will you lay with me tonight
and let you down that golden braid?"
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8. |
Hetty's Waltz
02:38
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"Come take my hand won't you do me a favour
Won't you come dance with me?", says Hetty to Joe,
"Can't promise I will be much of a mover,
But I promise I'll try not to step on your toes."
"Look we're in luck", she says, "the next ones the waltz,
And I'm pretty sure I know how this one goes –
Your hand on my waist and mine on your shoulder,
It's one, two, three; one, two, three; over and over..."
"Wasn't it you I saw last week at the movies?
We were too shy to say hello.
Maybe we're neither quite as brave as we could be,
But I'd let you kiss me if you'd walk me home."
"Let's take the 10.50 right past the Minster,
A tower so proud reaching right to the sky."
Joe says to Hetty, "Love, I'll make you a wager:
There's no-one in this wide world as in love as I..."
"It's been a lifetime that we've had together,
But just one more time darling, before you go,
Come take my hand won't you do me a favour
Won't you come dance with me?" says Hetty to Joe.
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9. |
Westlin Winds
03:33
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Now westlin winds and slaughtering guns
Bring autumn's pleasant weather.
The moorcock springs on whirring wings
Among the blooming heather.
The waving grain, wild o'er the plain
Delights the weary farmer,
And the moon shines bright as I rove at night
To muse upon my charmer.
The partridge loves the fruitful fells,
The plover loves the mountain,
The woodcock haunts the lonely dells,
The soaring hern the fountain,
Through lofty groves the cushat roves
The path of man to shun it,
The hazel bush o'erhangs the thrush,
The spreading thorn the linnet.
Thus every kind their pleasure find,
The savage and the tender.
Some social join in league combine,
Some solitary wander,
Avant! Away! The cruel sway,
Tyrannic man's dominion
The sportsman's joy, the murdering cry
The fluttering, gory pinion.
But Peggy dear the evening's clear,
Thick fly the skimming swallows,
The sky is blue, the fields in view,
All fading green and yellow.
Come let us stray our gladsome way,
To view the charms of nature,
The rustling corn, the fruited thorn,
And every happy creature.
We'll gently walk and sweetly talk,
Till the silent moon shines clearly,
I'll clasp thy waist and fondly pressed,
Swear how I love thee dearly.
Not vernal showers to budding flowers,
Not autumn to the farmer,
So dear can be as thou to me
My fair, my lovely charmer.
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10. |
Willy Taylor
02:45
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Willy Taylor and his youthful lover,
Full of mirth and loyalty,
They were going to the church to be married,
He was pressed and sent on sea,
She dressed up just up like a sailor,
On her breast she wore a star,
Her beautiful fingers long and slender,
She gave them all just a smear of tar.
On this ship there being a skirmish,
She being one amongst the rest,
The silver buttons flew off her jacket,
There appeared her snow white breast.
Said the captain to this fair maid,
"What misfortune took you here?"
"I'm in search of my true lover,
Whom you pressed on the other year."
"If you're in search of your true lover,
Pray come tell to me his name."
"Willy Taylor they do call him,
But Fitzgerald is his name."
"Get you up tomorrow morning,
Early as the break of day,
There you'll spy your Willy Taylor,
Walking along with his lady gay."
She got up the very next morning,
Early as the break of day,
There she spied her Willy Taylor
Walking along with his lady gay.
She took out a brace of pistols
That she had at her command,
There she shot her Willy Taylor
With his bride at his right hand.
When the Captain came to hear it,
Of the deed that she had done,
He made her a ship's commander,
Over a vessel for the Isle of Man.
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11. |
Liverpool Lullaby
03:49
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When you're not tired
But are tucked up in bed,
When you want to dance
But have to go to sleep instead,
When you need help drifting off
Please just close your eyes
And I'll sing to you the sweetest
Of the Liverpool Lullabies.
When counting sheep stops working
And they seem to fade away
And weariness doesn't ward off
The excitement of the day,
When you're restless and the peace you crave
Still you cannot find
I will sing to you the sweetest
Of the Liverpool Lullabies.
The ship's moored on the Mersey
In the cold wind rock
And the sounds of men and horses
Clatter on the cobbled docks
And in the little house
Where you and I reside
I will sing to you the sweetest
Of the Liverpool Lullabies.
So think of all the big ships
With sails that catch the wind
And the free birds in the autumn
Flying south and home again
So think of the clearest
And the starriest of skies
While I sing to you the sweetest
Of the Liverpool Lullabies.
If you're ever lonely
You fear you cannot sleep
All through your troubled days
You crave my company,
Sing the songs that I sang softly
Don't you be afraid to cry,
And you'll hear me sing the sweetest
Of the Liverpool Lullabies.
The ship's moored on the Mersey
In the cold wind rock
And the sounds of men and horses
Clatter on the cobbled docks
And in the little house
Where you and I reside
I will sing to you the sweetest
Of the Liverpool Lullabies.
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Rosie Hodgson England, UK
Rosie is a folk singer/songwriter from Midhurst, West Sussex. Having grown up surrounded by traditional music, her voice
possesses a naturalness and maturity, bringing "a ruby-richness to lyrics new and old". (Folk Radio UK)
Rosie is currently touring with her trio, The Wilderness Yet.
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