What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?

Subject: Whats Your'e favouri Martin Carthy Song?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 05 Aug 03 - 10:50 PM

HElo, wahts your fabourite martin cartyjy song?
I like plrbty of him songs , so im not sure, anyway my ideae thread so i pick 3,, butbyou can only ppick one]-
1Marrowbones
3=Biker Hill
2-Stars In My Crown [as waterson Carthy]
ps[anyway, he done loloads of good songs, as him, waterson cartyh, ,stelyety span etc]
all around my hat etc,, scarbourer fair etc, anyay, i put 5 thghere already! so eahts your favourite then?
PS- i know i probly spelled somethinfg wrong, if you dont like dislexic people then get lost,mthis is music site , not spelling site,.john

Subject: RE: Whats Your'e favouri Martin Carthy Song?
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 05 Aug 03 - 10:54 PM

Famous flower of Serving Men, Death of Young Andrew as a close second.

Subject: RE: Whats Your'e favouri Martin Carthy Song?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 05 Aug 03 - 10:56 PM

anywat, if you take the e out it fits ok, i dont think it needs an e, not sure really? can a sober joe clone tidy this up plesase.john

Subject: RE: Whats Your'e favouri Martin Carthy Song?
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Aug 03 - 11:01 PM

oh, I like the OLD ones with the driving guitar...like, Three Jolly Sneaksmen, and Bonny Lass of Anglesey and The Bedmaking

Subject: RE: Whats Your'e favouri Martin Carthy Song?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 05 Aug 03 - 11:13 PM

anyway= i tjink the best thing about his songs is= they tell a story, so , if you shut youre eyes and pretend your in the olden times etc, and listen, its like a play, shut your eyes and listen , you like it more.john.

Subject: RE: Whats Your'e favouri Martin Carthy Song?
From: Guy Wolff
Date: 06 Aug 03 - 12:23 AM

Famous flower of Serving realy was an eye opener and is a masterpeice. Geordy is incredable.. Shepard Oh Shepard is a song that never leaves me as well . THat live vertion of SkewBall is realy great. >><> Hard to stop . As I have said before Martin Carthy and Ry Cooder have in their very different ways enlarged the way I think of the Guitar. Huge thanks to Martin !!

Subject: RE: Whats Your'e favouri Martin Carthy Song?
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 06 Aug 03 - 12:29 AM

Here's Adieu to all Judges and Juries is my favorite... ttr

Subject: RE: Whats Your'e favouri Martin Carthy Song?
From: GUEST,Santa
Date: 06 Aug 03 - 04:24 AM

The Maid and the Palmer with Brass Monkey.

Not a song, but The 51st Highland Retreat from St. Valery - I don't think that he has recorded it with solo guitar but it moves me.

Subject: RE: Whats Your'e favouri Martin Carthy Song?
From: Gurney
Date: 06 Aug 03 - 05:00 AM

The Bonny Black Hare. And that Hamlet thing.

Subject: RE: Whats Your'e favouri Martin Carthy Song?
From: jacqui.c
Date: 06 Aug 03 - 05:18 AM

Famous Flower of Seving Men for sure. I also like The Bloody Gardener.

Subject: RE: Whats Your'e favouri Martin Carthy Song?
From: ooh-aah
Date: 06 Aug 03 - 06:17 AM

Willie's Lady, The Ant and the Grasshopper, The Sheepstealers.

Subject: RE: Whats Your'e favouri Martin Carthy Song?
From: greg stephens
Date: 06 Aug 03 - 12:48 PM

"Girls" was I think the title ("Ever tried to squeeze a peach" the final line)

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 06 Aug 03 - 02:31 PM

I'm almost sure the 'famous flower' was on a 45rpm single. I think I actually saw it on a jukebox! Mind you I think I remember all sorts of things...

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Willa
Date: 06 Aug 03 - 02:33 PM

The Bloody Gardener

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: zanderfish3 (inactive)
Date: 06 Aug 03 - 02:44 PM

The Hard Cheese of Old England, without a doubt

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: izzy
Date: 06 Aug 03 - 08:24 PM

Patrick Spens is pretty good. Sovay (in its various incarnations) is just great. I also love his instrumentals with the percussive guitar style --Old Tom of Oxford, Swaggering Boney, etc. But right now, my Carthy favourite (it changes from week to week, depending on which album happens to be on heavy rotation here) is The Queen of Hearts from his first album. Just beautiful. Anybody else wish he had done more love songs? After all, there are plenty in the English tradition --just ask June Tabor...

Cheers,

Isabel

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST,Jim Hancock
Date: 06 Aug 03 - 08:43 PM

No doubt about it - The Wind That Shakes The Barley

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST,weerover
Date: 07 Aug 03 - 11:43 AM

"Jack Orion" with brilliant Swarbrick fiddling

wr

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: RolyH
Date: 07 Aug 03 - 04:08 PM

'King Henry' with the Bonaparte's Retreat tune. ("so with respectful nods towards Mike Seager, Doc Watson and many others, I swiped it.")

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Snuffy
Date: 07 Aug 03 - 06:09 PM

You're right, Zanderfish - The Hard Cheese of Old England is hard to beat, but I reckon Hunting The Cutty Wren with June Tabor runs it close.

WassaiL! V

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 07 Aug 03 - 07:23 PM

I rather like the one he does about the beaten wife stitching her husband into the bed and lamming him about the head with the cast iron skillet.... never could remember what it was called.

LTS

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: zanderfish3 (inactive)
Date: 08 Aug 03 - 07:03 AM

Hey Snuffy I think you could be right, I started laughing when I recalled to mind. That June Tabor is not bad either.
Dave

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: A Wandering Minstrel
Date: 08 Aug 03 - 07:38 AM

I'm putting in another vote for "Famous Flower of Serving Men" there has to be respect for anyone who can remember as many verses as He can

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Garry Gillard
Date: 08 Aug 03 - 10:33 AM

Famous Flower of Serving Men

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Aug 03 - 12:02 PM

Broomfield Hill , Adam and Geordie...But I do love all of his stuff...oh, and The Bonnie Black Hare.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Aug 03 - 01:24 PM

Sorry..I mean Brown Adam and Geordie.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: zanderfish3 (inactive)
Date: 08 Aug 03 - 02:55 PM

is that a new one ' Brown Adam and Geordie '

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Guy Wolff
Date: 08 Aug 03 - 09:39 PM

And the one where the sixteen year old girl puts up the sheet and monk falls down the well. Love it<><><> Guy

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 09 Aug 03 - 01:42 AM

hello, i'm suprised nobody mentions pR"ince Heaten" yet!,
and that one were he sings " I goy a dog, got a good dog too etc", dont know what its called.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Little Robyn
Date: 09 Aug 03 - 02:49 AM

Hamlet!

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST,Chris B (Born Again Scouser)
Date: 09 Aug 03 - 06:29 AM

John

Why has nobody mentioned 'Prince Heathen'? Lets see: abduction, rape, humiliation, voyeurism, degradation...

This might have been acceptable folkie entertainment in 1969 but I would like to think we've all grown up a little since then. You know, I remember Kim Howells (the UK culture minister) decrying rap music for it's so-called celebration of violence and gang culture. Carthy, Steeleye, Mr Fox and other UK folk acts were doing material about rape, infanticide and so on throughout the 70s and 80s. Rap is supposedly evil, according to the government. Carthy gets an MBE. Go figure.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST,Glyn Owen
Date: 09 Aug 03 - 08:27 PM

"I've got a dog " is from while gamekeepers lie a sleeping" I think.
As to my own favourites...
1) False knight on the road.
2) John Hamilton.
3) Going and staying (incedibly simple backing and mind blowing)

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Desdemona
Date: 10 Aug 03 - 02:24 PM

Oh, that's not FAIR...impossible to choose.

Prince Heathen
Patrick Spens
Seven Yellow Gypsies
Famous Flower of Servingmen
The Song of the Lower Classes (love the multiple Martins on "Out of the Cut"!!)
Geordie
Hard Cheese of Old England (been torturing my children with it since infancy!)
Almost all of "Because It's There" (Think about it...May Song, Jolly Tinker, The Death of Young Andrew, Long John, Old John and Jackie North...unbelieveable stuff!)
Byker Hill

Oh...this is impossible, he's my favourite singer!

D.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST,Malc
Date: 12 Aug 03 - 08:15 PM

ANYTHING by Martin Carthy has to be just about the best in folk. I don't have a favourite - I like every one of 'em!!!
Many years ago, he had to cancel a gig because of 'flu, yet he still turned up and helped to set out the chairs - what a guy!!

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST,eliza c
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 04:35 PM

I like the Ant and the Grasshopper, and the version of Byker Hill on Life and Limb. Also Prince Heathen, Seven Yellow Gypsies, and Dominion of the Sword.
My 5p
x e

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 04:55 PM

I think Chris B might have missed the point about traditional ballads, which is that they aren't, and never have been PC. But they are gut-wrenching, including especially Martin's versions of Prince Heathen, Willie's Lady and Little Musgrave. And the Two Magicians with Dave Swarbrick....

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST,Auldtimer
Date: 14 Aug 03 - 05:31 AM

Maybe you should checkout, "Martin Carthy The Definitive Collection" out now on Highpoint Recordings HPO 6001.(If I could have fitted in a short sample from the CD this could have been quite a snappy advert.) "Highpoint Rcordings" is a sub-devision of Topic Records so expect a high quality product at a reasonable price level. (Enough already) Trying not to sound like a salesperson on comission, this is yet another collection from past Topic recordings and very fine it is too and presumably someone's list of favorites. Many of my own favourites are included altough sadly not, "The Siege Of Delh", still maybe next time. cheers

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: The Barden of England
Date: 14 Aug 03 - 06:08 AM

'Company Policy' for me. True folk music and observation

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: John P
Date: 14 Aug 03 - 09:06 AM

Screw the idea of picking just one. In no particular order, this week's list:

Willie's Lady
Bonnie Lass of Anglesey
Prince Heathen
Nothing Rhymed
Hamlet
The Maid and the Palmer
Sovay
The Famous Flower of Serving Men
Cold Haily Windy Night
The Broomfield Hill
Siege of Delhi
Billy Boy
I Was a Young Man
Outlandish Knight
John Blunt
The Wife of the Soldier
Domeama
Arthur McBride and the Sargeant
The Bed Making

John Peekstok

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST,Pelrad
Date: 22 Aug 03 - 10:11 AM

Maybe I'm crazy, but I remember Martin Carthy's version of Famous Flower of Serving Men being much more graphic and involved than what's in the digitrad. I heard him do it live at the Mystic Sea Music Festival in 2002, and I literally forgot to breathe for the duration of the song. It was the most amazing thing I'd ever heard.

So have I got a really fertile imagination? Or can someone point me in the direction of that version?

Kim

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 25 Aug 03 - 05:36 PM

Every single song mentioned here is great (well, 'Hamlet' I haven't heard), but my favourite album is still his first, and the song that sticks in my mind is High Germany.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Desdemona
Date: 25 Aug 03 - 07:45 PM

Pelrad,

I actually requested Famous Flower of Servingmen, and Seven Yellow Gypsies (my husband was at the time absorbed in learning to play the latter) at the Mystic Sea Music Festival in 2002; the lyrics Martin sang that night are the same ones I've always heard.

D.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 03 Sep 03 - 10:37 PM

Anyway-I went to whitbly folk festival, and in the music stand i see a really nice thing,
it was a box set, Martin Carthy Coillection, 4 CDS and about 100 songs, it was 40 quid, and loads of songs that i havent got yet, i wished i bought it, but i dident have 40 quid, i am going to save up for it, there is 4 cd's in it and a book in it about the songs, did anyone buy it yet?
My frend called Dodgy Dave can get pirates cds, i ask him about this he says " who the hell is martin carthy, i neber heard of him"!
Its mostly modern pop tunes, and rave music etc, that he does,
only 3 pound for each cd, but he neber heard of martin carthy, and no folk musics, so looks like i'll have to buy it from the shop, its good cd though and woth it, if they havent got it, i will order it from hMV.john

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Dano
Date: 04 Sep 03 - 04:36 AM

The Bows of London! Suprised no one mentioned it yet.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: John P
Date: 04 Sep 03 - 09:34 AM

John from Hull,
The 4 CD box is great. You should buy it. Lots of live tracks with Martin's personality shining forth.

Please support your favorite musicians by NOT buying pirated CDs. Be honest, not a thief.

John Peekstok

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST,Arne Langsetmo
Date: 04 Sep 03 - 04:44 PM

I go with "Rigs of the Time". . . .

I'm sure that present events call for an upgrade to
the lyrics, though. . . .

Cheers,

                            -- Arne Langsetmo

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: red max
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 05:11 AM

Skewball

A few thoughts on the old albums...those last three in the late 60s before Swarb departed were wonderful, but why did Swarb never contribute any vocals? I love his singing

The early 70s ones, Landfall and Shearwater are rather bleak. Perhaps he was going for the purist approach in reaction to his work with the Albion Country Band and Steeleye?

I don't think you can top his late 70s LPs. Sweet Wivelsfield, Crown of Horn and Because It's There. Wonderful stuff, warm and powerful

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 10:21 PM

anyway=wahys that song called were he goes " joy, and love and piece"?, thats a nice song., i heard somwere that he recorded over 1000 different songs", i only got a few of them, but i buy siome motre wehen i got the money.joghn.
ps, did anybody know the best martin carthy cd's that i should buy? cheers.john

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Ed.
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 08:51 AM

John, the "Joy, Love and Peace" song that you're asking about is The King

Martin has recorded it several times. The Steeleye Span version is the best to my ears.

Martin's best album? That's a difficult one. I'd probably say Shearwater, but I'd doubt that many would agree.

There are a number of compilations which would be a good starting point. If you let me know what you already have, and what you particularly like, I might be able to offer better advice.

(To answer the original question):
Siege of Delhi
Palaces of Gold
Willie's Lady
Sovay

and every other song anyone else mentioned!

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 09:19 AM

Bonnie Lass of angelsea..........wow wow wow