Origins: My Love (from Steeleye Span)

Subject: Steeleye Span - My Love
From: GUEST,nickr90
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 10:56 AM

On Sails of Silver CD the credits appear to be all for the band but many of the songs sound trad. In particular 'My Love'. It is driving me nuts I am sure I know the tune but cannot place it. Any help?

Subject: RE: Steeleye Span - My Love
From: Little Robyn
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 01:26 PM

Kelvin Grove aka Bonny Lassie-O and The Shearin's no' for you.
Robyn

Subject: RE: Steeleye Span - My Love
From: GUEST,nickr90
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 02:57 PM

thanks Robyn
are the cd tracks original or trad?

Subject: RE: Steeleye Span - My Love
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 07:52 AM

The "Sails of Silver" liner notes state clearly: All songs written by Steeleye Span.

And Maddy Prior is cited in the liner notes as "No, we weren't fed up with doing folk songs, but we'd all been writing and wanted to adapt our styles to make Steeleye music something fresh. What we came up with reflected traditional themes, yet sounded contemporary."

Reinhard

Subject: RE: Steeleye Span - My Love
From: Nerd
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 05:21 PM

In an interview I once did with Maddy, she suggested that the producer was more influential as well in the choice of material.

I wrote it up as follows:

Two years after the final break-up, the band was back again, this time with the stable lineup that had recorded the classic mid-seventies albums: Maddy Prior, Tim Hart, Rick Kemp, Peter Knight, Bob Johnson and Nigel Pegrum. "They asked us to make an album," Prior recalls, "and we got on so well, we thought we'd tour."

The album in question, Sails of Silver (1981), exemplifies the incertitude that characterized the band through the 1980s. It contains only one traditional song, the rest of the material having been written by the group. The unfamiliar material and slick production values both contribute to the feeling that this is not a Steeleye album at all. Prior explains, "Because we'd all kind of gone in different directions, all doing different things, with different ideas, that certainty that we'd had before, we'd lost. We were so in disarray, and we didn't have the material we were confident with. So [producer Gus Dudgeon] had a lot more input, and I think that's why it sounds very sweet and rounded and nothing offensive in it, you know. And that wasn't what we were known for, and it isn't what we do, what we're good at." Still, she insists, it's not a bad album, really. "I actually think it's quite a jolly album. And very accessible."

Subject: RE: Steeleye Span - My Love
From: Reiver 2
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 02:29 PM

Yes, "Sails of Silver" is different from some of their earlier albums, but I agree with Maddy, it's not a bad album. In fact, it's one of my favorites! I only have it on a cassette tape so I don't have any notes about the song. I'm surprised that they were all written by the group. I guessed that some may have been ("Senior Service", for example), but some I thought were trad.

Reiver 2

Subject: RE: Origins: My Love (from Steeleye Span)
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Jan 06 - 11:25 PM

The tune is Kelvingrove scot trad 13 13 7 7 13 whatever those numbers mean.
In our hymnal There is a song Will you come & follow me "The summons" by John l Bell (b 1949) When I heard it I knew I had heard it before on a very old SEye Span tape. I guess they wrote the words to "my love" to The tune kelvingrove