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User Name Thread Name Subject Posted
John Moulden English Folk Songs (67* d) RE: English Folk Songs 27 Feb 99


"Seventeen come Sunday", "My Bonny Boy" and "Folk Songs from Somerset" are the names which were given to the three movements of "The English Folk Song Suite," a composition for military band by Ralph Vaughan Williams. It is often heard in an orchestral arrangement by Gordon Jacob.

Each of the three movements uses the tunes of several songs - most of which, if not all, were collected in Somerset by Cecil Sharp - thus the most likely place to look for words proper to these tunes would be in his works - but beware his early 20th century tendency to censor the words for sexual content.

In "Seventeen come Sunday" I hear the eponymous tune and a version (or possibly two versions) of Dives and Lazarus - better known as the Lowlands of Holland or The Star of the County Down.

In "My Bonny Boy" is the tune of the song which starts "Now once I was courted by a bonny, bonny boy" and another called "The Cutty Wren" which is well known.

Folksongs from Somerset has four tunes: Blow away the Morning Dew, High Germany, Whistle daughter whistle and John Barleycorn.

I'm not prepared to post words unless search elsewhere fails to find them - and if you are in difficulty I'll provide further references first!

John Moulden


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