Lyr Req: Westron Wynde

Subject: westron wynde
From: MMario
Date: 17 Mar 00 - 01:57 PM

or in modern spelling, Western wind

as in:

Western wind when wilt thou blow
the small rain down (etc)

the verse is in the DT, my question is, has anyone seen an expanded version? I've been looking, but all I find is the one verse or the single verse combined with instrumentals.

This verse is over 500 years old. SOMEONE must have written some complimentary verse to go with it. Anyone?

Subject: RE: Help: westron wynde
From: GUEST,Murray on Saltspring
Date: 17 Mar 00 - 02:55 PM

A.L.Lloyd (Folk Song in England, 113)quotes the fragment (which is what it is--Chappell gives only this, from the early 1500s song-book) and adds "This is always printed as a stray verse from a lost poem. But among H. E. D. Hammond's manuscripts is a night-visit song collected at Puddletown, Dorset, in 1905, which may represent the complete form of the piece. It is a version of the familiar ballad of the cock that crew too soon and made the lover turn out of his sweetheart's warm bed into the cold windy night." He gives the identifying verse, which is no. 6 in Hammond's MS. -- and that is available in James Reeves, The Everlasting Circle (1960), p. 136, as follows:

Once I loved a lass and she loved not me
Because I was grown poor, poor a little, poor a little, poor,
I knocked both loud and sure, sure a little, sure a little, sure,
My love she arose and slipped on her clothes
And came down and let me in.

When I beheld my true love's arms
My heart grew cold and faint, faint a little, faint a little, faint.
I took her round her middle so small
And carried her to bed.

All the fore-part of the night
We did both sport and play, play so pretty, play so pretty, play,
And all the last part of the night
She sleeped in my arms till day.

My love she kept a cock and a pretty crowing cock
And it crowed in the morning so soon, soon so very, soon so very, soon.
My love she thought 'twas day and she hastened me away
But it proved to be the light of the moon.

The wind it did blow and the cocks they did crow
As I tripped over the plain, plain so very, plain so very, plain.
So I wished myself back in my true love's arms
And she in her bed again.

Now I'll prove so true to my own true love
As the stars all in the sky,
And if she should not prove the same by me
She's far better lost than won.

The 4th verse is taken from another version, since HEDH just wrote "etc." after line 1. Bowdlerising, I suppose.

This strikes me as being very likely a descendant, at least, of the song of old Henry;s time.

Subject: RE: Help: westron wynde
From: MMario
Date: 17 Mar 00 - 03:12 PM

thanks murray! Does look like it might be related.

Subject: RE: Help: westron wynde
From: Vixen
Date: 17 Mar 00 - 03:21 PM

There's also a version that appeared (I believe) after WWI:

O Westron Wynde When wilt thou blow The small rain down can rain

O would that my love Were in my arms And I had my arms again.

FWIW

V

Subject: RE: Help: westron wynde
From: Allan C.
Date: 17 Mar 00 - 03:25 PM

Seems to me the Limelighters did a variant version of this song with an extra verse or so. I will check my recording (if I still have it) over the weekend and see if I can transcribe it.

Subject: RE: Help: westron wynde
From: MMario
Date: 17 Mar 00 - 03:25 PM

vixen - that is the old and venerable fragment....was there any MORE to the song?

Subject: RE: Help: westron wynde
From: GUEST,Bruce O
Date: 17 Mar 00 - 06:33 PM

The original is just the one verse. It's in BL MS Royal 58, songs from the court of Henry VIII, and probably within about 10 years of 1530.

Subject: RE: Help: westron wynde
From: GUEST,Murray on ss
Date: 17 Mar 00 - 07:48 PM

Oops--sorry, some lines got lost somehow. It begins as follows:
Once I loved a lass and she loved not me
Because I was grown poor, poor a little, poor a little, poor,
But she all in good part hath stole away my heart
And she'll keep it for evermore.

When I came to my true love's door
I knocked [etc.]
Mind you, how the things are related is moot: the 16th century verse MAY have had more words, but it may also have been something of a "floater", and managed to find a berth in a song on the Night Visit. I don't suppose we will ever be sure. -- Were I as accomplished (if that's the word) a forger as Payne Collier last century, I'd try and turn out a pseudo-Tudor song of at least four verses on the theme. I throw that out just for fun, mind you!! There are some things out there that SHOULD have existed, but never did till a twentieth-century rhymer filled the void. Case in point, the so-called "ancestor" of "Waltzing Matilda" about "Marlborough and Me".

Subject: RE: Help: westron wynde
From: GUEST,Chocolate Pi (at home)
Date: 17 Mar 00 - 11:15 PM

Perhaps not very helpful, but I've always seen that Bob Dylan tune about "If today were not a winding highway" (or however it goes; Youngest Fan could help here) as a reference to the Western Wind fragment.

Chocolate Pi

Subject: RE: Help: westron wynde
From: GUEST,Chocolate Pi (at home)
Date: 17 Mar 00 - 11:15 PM

Perhaps not very helpful, but I've always seen that Bob Dylan tune about "If today were not a winding highway" (or however it goes; Youngest Fan could help here) as a reference to the Western Wind fragment.

Chocolate Pi

Subject: RE: Help: westron wynde
From: Vixen
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 10:00 AM

Just found this thread again...

I thought the *original* verse was:

O Westron Wynde, when wilt thou blow
The small rain down can rain
O would that my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again

That's all I know of it--

V

Subject: RE: Help: westron wynde
From: Ringer
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 11:51 AM

Are the words in the DT correct? The ys in yf and yn seem out of place to me; they are certainly not related to the thorn character which was pronounced th and has become corrupted (eg ye olde tea shoppe). Bruce-O...?

As to Dylan: it was If today were not an endless highway. wasn't it? I've never actually heard BD sing it. It used to be popular in sessions 30 years ago, or so, but I haven't heard it for almost as long.

Subject: RE: Help: westron wynde
From: Ringer
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 11:52 AM

Sorry: screwed up closing tags.

Subject: RE: Help: westron wynde
From: GUEST,Jim Dixon
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 12:51 PM

Tim Hart and Maddy Prior recorded this song on their album Summer Solstice where its length is given as 26 seconds, but it works. The same album contains some other very short (and very old) pieces: "Of All the Birds" - 53 seconds, and "Adam Catched Eve" - 23 seconds. Likewise, their Folk Songs Of Old England, Vol. 1 contains "Adam And Eve" - 55 seconds.

"Westron Wynd" is often included in poetry anthologies and literature textbooks, but instead of "Christ, if my love were in my arms/And I in my bed again," it was often bowdlerized as "OH, if my love were in my arms/OR I in my bed again."

Subject: Lyr Add: WESTERN WIND (Jim Spencer)
From: GUEST,William Pint
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 01:38 PM

These are additional words to 'Westron Wynde' that were written (to my knowledge) by a Milwaukee singer songwriter poet named Jim Spencer back in the early 70's. Jim is no longer with us but he had a way with words - especially traditional lyrics. He recorded several albums including "the Most Beautiful Song in the Forest" an original story set with original songs based on Mother Goose rhymes.

Western Wind when will you blow?
The small rain down shall rain
Criest "If my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again"

No moon, no cloud is in the sky
How calm the eventide
Tossing here I sleep alone
With no one by my side

I drift in dreams my feelings flow
As sure my memories roam
Western Wind when will you blow
And lead me safely home?

Oh Western Wind, where will you blow?
My heart with yearning pain
Is weary through these winter days
To lie with my love again

Western Wind when will you blow?
The small rain down shall rain
Criest If my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again

Subject: RE: Help: westron wynde
From: MMario
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 01:47 PM

*happy dance* *happy dance* I KNEW there had to be something like this out there. Thank you!!

Subject: RE: Help: westron wynde
From: GUEST,William Pint
Date: 11 Apr 00 - 11:13 AM

My pleasure!

Subject: Lyr Add: WESTERN WIND (from The Limeliters)
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 12 Apr 00 - 10:17 AM

This is more or less the Limeliters' version:

Chorus:

Western wind, when wilt thou blow
The small rains down can rain
Oh if my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again

East wind blowing from a foreign shore,
Out of an alien sky
This was the road she chose to take
When she kissed her love goodbye
And the west wind was blowing by

Chorus

Once again on the highest hill
She stood to see his face
But then the western wind blew cold
And made her steps retrace
It said this is your place

Chorus

Foreign lands beckon so strange and fair
They take our youth away
But when the western wind blows cold
Vermilion skies turn gray
And she thinks of her younger days

Chorus

Subject: RE: Help: westron wynde
From: MMario
Date: 12 Apr 00 - 10:24 AM

more! More! (okay, I'm greedy)

Subject: Westron Wynde
From: alanKH
Date: 01 Jan 02 - 09:42 AM

I see that they have the first verse in the archives..but no more...and untill I can get hold of a copy of songs of love lust and loose living by Isla cameron and tony britton (ordered) i cannot refresh the words..anyone know all of them perchance????

ALAN

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Westron Wynde
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 01 Jan 02 - 10:02 AM

There is only the one verse.  Some similar lines turn up in a traditional night-visiting song, but that doesn't in itself prove anything; and various people have tried their hands at adding their own verses.  There's some discussion of the fragment, the song, and a set of additional verses written in the 1970s or thereabouts in this earlier thread:  Help: westron wynde

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Westron Wynde
From: English Jon
Date: 02 Jan 02 - 05:39 AM

Don't know of any words other than the one verse. The tune is only known because lots of composers based Masses on it in the 1500s. (hence, a composite tune could be calculated from fragments of material). John Sheppard wrote a particularly nice "western wind" mass.

Hope thats of some interest, Happy new year, EJ

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Westron Wynde
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Jan 02 - 11:49 AM

Good grief! One verse is all there is and one verse is all there needs to be. It says exactly what it wants to say and no more. It's like a perfect rose. Anything additional would spoil it.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Westron Wynde
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 02 Jan 02 - 12:23 PM

Try this for "Now Westlin Winds" different song, but great site. Fingers crossed here we go! Dick Gaughan

Link fixed. You used an underscore where you should have had a space. --JoeClone, 4-Jan-02.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Westron Wynde
From: Allan C.
Date: 02 Jan 02 - 12:32 PM

It the Limelighters, in their The Slightly Fabulous Limeliters album created some additional lyrics for this song. You can hear portions of them in the soundbyte furnished on that page.