Chords: Fighting For Strangers (Steeleye Span)

Subject: Fighting For Strangers (Steeleye Span)
From:
Date: 06 Feb 98 - 12:09 PM

The notes in the database describe this as a 19th-century anti-war song. So has anyone else recorded this?

Hg

Subject: RE: Fighting For Strangers (Steeleye Span)
From: Bruce O.
Date: 06 Feb 98 - 05:01 PM

Steeleye Span's song sounds a bit like an extended version of "Johnny has gone for a soldier"

A another song of rather similar content is "Off to Flanders" in Alfred Williams' 'Folk Songs of the Upper Thames'. This stems from a broadside ballad, probably of 1691, when the English were fighting in Flanders, "The Farmer's Son of Devonshire", in my internet broadside ballad index at ZN2772.

Another anti-war one is the short, but pity, "Will you go to Flanders, my Molly, Oh" in Herd's Scots Songs, 1776. The tune of this later became known as "Gramachree Molly", and "The harp that once through Tara's hall".

Subject: RE: Fighting For Strangers (Steeleye Span)
From: Bruce O.
Date: 06 Feb 98 - 05:10 PM

I probably got my Irish songs mixed up. There's an anti-war Irish one that starts "Missus McGraw the sergent said, Would you like to make a soldier out of your son Ted?"

Subject: RE: Fighting For Strangers (Steeleye Span)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Feb 98 - 04:51 AM

Mrs. McGrath is in the database. I think Pete Seeger did a recording of it, and it's in "Rise Up Singing." It's a good song, but I haven't had any luck getting a group to sing it - I guess the meter is a bit difficult for group singing.
I guess Fighting for Strangers is the same basic song - I hadn't noticed that before, but now I know why it sounded so familiar when I heard the Steeleye Span recording. Are there other versions of the song, in the database or elsewhere?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Fighting For Strangers (Steeleye Span)
From: Claire K.
Date: 07 Feb 98 - 07:45 AM

Atwater-Donnelly did an abbreviated version on their album "Like the Willow Tree." (the whole album is excellent, btw)

Claire K.

Subject: Fighting For Strangers?
From:
Date: 14 Apr 98 - 10:34 PM

I'm looking for info (and a more "traditional" recording, if such exists) of what Steeleye Span recorded as "Fighting For Strangers". They've actually mixed two songs there; the one I'm looking for is the one that starts "A recruiting sargeant came our way". It's the one that's in the database here.

Anyone know who to ask? I tried the record company who supposedly forwarded my question to the band, but that was months ago.

Hg

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I moved this message here from another thread on the same topic.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Fighting For Strangers (Steeleye Span)
From:
Date: 17 Jan 04 - 04:23 PM

Hi All,

Does any one have the Chords to "Fighting for Strangers.


Vince

Subject: RE: Chords: Fighting For Strangers (Steeleye Span)
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Feb 14 - 11:25 AM

i'm also searching for the chords to this song, as for some reason i find it hard to work them out myself! i wish one of those wiz guys like privetricker would help us out!

- Chrid

Subject: RE: Chords: Fighting For Strangers (Steeleye Span)
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Feb 14 - 12:01 PM

Steeleye Span used a line from another song as the chorus of their "Fighting for Strangers". The other song is called "Our Captain Cried All Hands". It shares, mostly, a melody with "The Blacksmith". Martin Carthy recorded Our Captain on his Byker Hill album in 1967; Steeleye Span did it more recently on their Cogs, Wheels and Lovers album. That track can be heard here.

The other song is a version of Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier that I've never heard anywhere else. There's multiple possibilities for chords, but here's a starting point:

(Em) A recruiting sergeant came our way
To an (D) inn nearby at the close of day.
He (Em) said young Johnny you're a fine young man
Would you (G)like to march along behind a (Bm) military band,
With a (G) scarlet coat and a (D) big cocked hat,
And a (Em) musket at your (Bm) shoulder,
The (Em) shilling he (D) took and he (G) kissed the (Bm) book,
Oh poor (Em) Johnny what will hap (D) pen (Em)to you?

Hmm, I hope that's right. It's from a long-ago memory and I'm not in a position to check it right now. I may have processed it over the years into something slightly different from what Steeleye Span did.