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User Name Thread Name Subject Posted
GUEST,Storyteller Lyr Add: The Morning is Charming / Hunting Song (22) Lyr Add: MORNING LOOKS CHARMING (from Watersons) 31 Jul 05


Sorcha has already posted the lyrics to the Watersons' version of this song, The Morning Looks Charming, from their 1966 Topic LP A Yorkshire Garland in this thread Hunting the Hare, but as that is about a different song it may be as well to repeat it here.

The Morning Looks Charming

The morning looks charming all nature is gay
Come away me brave boys to your horses away
For the first of all pleasures is hunting the hare
You haven't as much as a moment to spare

Chorus (after each verse):
    So hark to the hounds the morn is fair
    Come brave boys a-hunting the hare

The lively tuned horn how melodious it sounds
To the musical notes of the merry mouthed hounds
Over yon stubble field you will find her below
See now cries the huntsman hark to him we'll go

See now where she goes with the hounds in full view
And a heavy and weary the nearer we drew
Oh the hedges and ditches to us are no bounds
For the world is our own while we follow the hounds

How glorious a death to be honoured with sounds
Of a horn and a shout and a chorus of hounds
Here's a health to all hunters and long be their lives
And may they be blessed in their sweethearts and wives.

From sleeve notes by A.L.Lloyd "This song came to Frank Kidson from the Howden district of Yorkshire. It does not seem to have spread far from its native home. Like nearly all our hunting songs, its words sound as if they were made by an educated amateur writer, rather than a folk poet. Following their sound instinct, the Watersons have re-phrased one or two of the more literary lines. The tune is related to the melody of the sea song Roll, Bullies, Roll (sometimes, in error, sung as �Row, Bullies, Row�)."

(Thanks to Reinhard Zierke's website for comprehensive information.)


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