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Harry Kellswater

from Faerie Fire Dances by Marc Block

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Harry Kellswater Words by Marc Block, music Trad. (Kellswater, Roud 916)

Gina le Faux’s recording of this song, which she learned from her fiddle master James Carmichael, gave me this lovely melody. Again I found myself singing different words to it, and the song more or less wrote itself once I decided which story I was telling – a Queer version of the many traditional songs where boy meets girl in the greenwood (probably on a morning in May) and they get it on, and not much else happens. My boy-meets-boy at least talk of love and hold hands first.

lyrics

Once more now I crave your attention
A story I will sing to you
Of when I was younger and slighter
And often-times lost in the blue

Down by the green shades I’ll meet him
Amongst the wild roses we’ll sing

It’s early, so early in the summer
When the greenwoods with new life ring clear
It’s then that the gentle souls gather
And it’s there that I first met my dear

For when I grew weary of the feasting
And I stepped away from the fair
A-walking down by the green briars
The loveliest lad I saw there

His blue eyes they shone out like diamonds
His yellow hair tumbled in curls
And his waist as slender as willows
His smile as pretty as pearls

Gaily he bade me good morning
And it’s gaily I gave him the same
And we smiled together in the sunshine
So boldly I asked him his name

My name, Sir, is Harry Kellswater
I came here a-seeking like you
That we two no longer be aching
For one to love and be true

Then in the shade of the oak tree
On the moss we sat down and talked
Of life and of love, and, by and by
Down by the river we walked

Hand in hand we went onward
Down the long lane me he led
Down to his bower he showed me
Downy soft was the bed

And all the day long we were rolling
I never had known such delight
The beauty of life and of loving
I lay in his arms that night

Here’s a health to you, Harry Kellswater
You bring me the pleasures of life
The beauties of loving and giving
And respite from strife

It’s yonder my Harry’s approaching
He said he’d return in the spring
Down by the green shades I’ll meet him
Amongst the wild roses we’ll sing

credits

from Faerie Fire Dances, released October 28, 2020
Guitar: Marc.
Fiddle, backing vocals: Gina le Faux.
Accordion: Simon Dumpleton.

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Marc Block Nottingham, UK

"one of the most exciting singers I've heard in a long, long time" - Mike Harding

“The joy in the singing is totally what I need right now” – Peggy Seeger

"Really good stuff" - Mark Radcliffe, BBC R2 ... more

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