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May Morning

Eliza Carthy sang May Morning in 2002 on Waterson:Carthy's fourth album A Dark Light. She accompanies herself on violin and Barnaby Stradling plays a Fylde acoustic bass guitar. Martin Carthy commented in the album's sleeve notes:

Liza learned May Morning from the Cecil Sharp collection, also Crystal Spring, where she played with a rhythm of the tune, changing it from a straight three-four time to a kind of twelve-eight, filled with shifting accents. People sometimes get nervous about country idylls. The exist a-plenty in England, and, superficially I suppose, such reluctance can be seen as understandable. But, going even the teeniest bit deeper, isn't it surely true that people have always dreamed about having it better? And why not? When one lives a life as hard and unrelenting as the people who made these songs then dreamworlds such as The Big Rock Candy Mountain or, indeed, The Land of Cockaigny (as the European variants are known) can be seen in a clearer light and with a proper perspective.

Lyrics

Eliza Carthy sings May Morning

As I walked out one May morning, one May morning so early,
'Twas down by the side of a shady green tree
Oh there I beheld a most beautiful damsel,
She sat there a-sighing all underneath the tree.

I stepped up to this fair maid, I wished a good morning,
She was the very first girl that ever wounded me.
“You never shall want for gold or bright silver
If you will only place your reflections on me.”

“I thank you, kind sir, but I think you are a-joking,
You think you are more fitting for higher girls than me.
Besides your own friends they will always be a-frowning,
They'll always be a-frowning and scolding of me.”

Come all you pretty fair maids that go now a-courting,
Never trust a young man of any higher degree:
For ehen they've enjoyed all the flowers of your garden
Then they will go and leave you as my love left me.

(Repeat first verse)

Acknowledgements

Eliza Carthy posted her own verses in this Mudcat Café thread.