"John Barleycorn Must Die" concluded the second set
of Martin Carthy's live-streamed performance on 1 May 2021,
which several hundred people, Mudcat members included,
tuned in for in real time.

Martin Carthy having had this song in his repertoire for who knows how many years,
took the liberty of introducing the song by describing
an Arthur Ransome collection in his childhood home titled
Old Peter's Russian Tales,
English translations of Russian legends and stories.
This English-language book honors certain Russian words by
presenting them with English definitions, words like
"bogatir" and   "moujik", which Carthy quoted.


Carthy emphasized the English translation "Men of Power" which
turns out to be the title of one of Arthur Ransome's translated tales.
And Carthy concluded his introduction by
describing John Barleycorn as
an English counterpart to the Russian "man of power".

And then he sang the song, of course.