The Etchingham Steam Band (Shirley Collins, Ashley Hutchings, Ian Holder and Vic Gammon) sang Some Tyrant Has Stolen My True Love Away live on 23 December 1974 at the “Nova Scotia” in Bristol. This recording was included in 1995 on their eponymous Fledg'ling CD, The Etchingham Steam Band.

This version is based on Henry Hills' My True Love I've Lost, as collected with other songs by W. Percy Merrick in November 1899 and printed in Journal of the Folk Song Society, I (3) 1901, 96 [VWML RoudFS/S155496] . The E.S.B.'s first verse is introduced from elsewhere and the second is altered.

Steeleye Span (then with Martin Carthy and John Kirkpatrick) sang this song as Some Rival. This is a set from Lucy Broadwood's Traditional English Songs and Carols (1908, pp. 108-11), which was noted from farm labourer Mr Lough at Dunsfold, Surrey, in 1898 [VWML GB/6a/2].

George Butterworth collected The American King from Mrs Cranstone (c. 50), of Wood Dale, Billingshurst, in July 1907 [VWML GB/4/19] . This was printed in 1977 in Michael Downey's book of “hitherto unpublished folk songs collected by George Butterworth”, The Ploughboy's Glory.

From Mainly Norfolk.