Help: I Wandered by a Brookside

Subject: RE: Help: I Wandered By A Brookside
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 17 May 07 - 12:38 PM

I had missed that footnote: 'Also in ms. by Captain Martin Williams, Ostrea Lake'. Creighton was in Ostrea Lake in 1935 and took a photograph of Captain Williams, but apparently made no sound recordings there. 'In ms.' might suggest that he wrote the words down himself, but that is only a guess. The Creighton Archive lists only the photo; perhaps the ms is somewhere among the general correspondence. At any rate, it seems unlikely that his tune, assuming he had one, is extant.

Subject: RE: Help: I Wandered By A Brookside
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 17 May 07 - 11:43 AM

Since there are no links at the top yet, I'll mention that I posted some tunes for this (from Levy, American Memory and Helen Creighton) in this thread: Lyr Add: I Wandered by a Brookside , transposed to the same key for comparison. There is also a bit more information on the song.

Barry T's words (linked above) are the words given in Helen Creighton's Maritime Folk Songs (from Mr. Berton Young of West Petpeswick, N.S., collected Aug 1951) but the tune isn't exactly the tune from that book, though obviously related. According to the notes there, she collected another version (from Captain Martin Williams of Ostrea Lake) and the tune may be from that (the notes don't make it clear if the other version was with tune or not).

Mick

Subject: RE: Help: I Wandered By A Brookside
From: breezy
Date: 15 May 07 - 06:03 PM

The singing ref does a pretty good job of it with some nice guitar picking too.

he could be performing it this coming Sunday at the Rose and crown in st Albans when its the Windward Experience evening , 3rd Sunday of the month

Free gig

Subject: RE: Help: I Wandered By A Brookside
From: Mr Happy
Date: 15 May 07 - 06:25 AM

A hearty thanks to one & all for your very useful contributions!

Subject: RE: Help: I Wandered By A Brookside
From: Barry T
Date: 14 May 07 - 08:25 PM

I have that in my tunebook... probably the version collected by Helen Creighton.

http://members.shaw.ca/tunebook/brooksde.htm

Subject: RE: Help: I Wandered By A Brookside
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 14 May 07 - 06:22 PM

No Malcolm it isn't - I wandered by the brookside isn't included in Down the Green Groves (at least not in my 1989 copy). There is a general note that says, "As Alfred did not collect any tunes at all, I had to set about finding them. I have spent many hours, poring over books and manuscripts, and listening to records, hoping to find the tune that was right for each song. Every time we heard someone sing a song that was similar to one on a manuscript, we obtained the tune from them. Where there was more than one tune, we chose the nearest one. Some of the songs were so beautiful that I felt I had to write new tunes; and then, of course, somebody comes up with the right one."

I think, because Barbara has been receiving royalties for the Eva Cassidy recording, that she wrote that tune (and also because it was Bob and Gill Berry who told me that Barbara was now getting royalties). The tune notated by Caro Kettlewell in Bob Copper's Early to Rise is based on "There's no place like home"!

Kitty

Subject: RE: Help: I Wandered By A Brookside
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 14 May 07 - 01:01 PM

Written somewhere round 1850 -or a little earlier- by Richard Monckton Milnes (words) and James Hine (music). It seems to have started as a poem by RMM (Baron Houghton, 1809-1885); it was also set later on (c.1875) by a Mrs Mackinlay.

The words were quite widely published on broadsides; see for examples  Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads:

As I Wander'd by the Brookside

Undated sheet music published by Ditson in America can be seen at the Lester Levy Sheet Music Collection:

I Wandered By the Brook-side. A Ballad.

I Wandered by the Brookside. Ballad

The song is number 2418 in the Roud Folk Song Index; it hasn't been found often in oral tradition; beside the text Alfred Williams got from Miss Leah Serman at Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire, Walter Pardon knew it and it is in the Copper Family repertoire. Helen Creighton found it once in Nova Scotia.

I don't know whether Barbara Berry set it to an existing tune or whether she made up a new one; presumably that information is in her book Down the Green Groves: Songs from Oxfordshire, Collected by Alfred Williams (1877–1930) (Kirtlington: Pedlar Music, 1989).

Subject: RE: Help: I Wandered By A Brookside
From: RTim
Date: 14 May 07 - 12:38 PM

Barbara Berry wrote the tune to this as recorded by Fairport. The words are from Alfred Williams's Mss.
It can be heard on:
http://www.mysongbook.de/msb/songs/i/iwandere.html

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Help: I Wandered By A Brookside
From: Leadfingers
Date: 14 May 07 - 12:36 PM

Off the top of my head I cant remember who did the words - It was an Oxfordshire poet , but the original melody was by Barbara Berry , and first recorded by Barbara with her husband Len , when they were working as The Portway Peddlers .

Subject: RE: Help: I Wandered By A Brookside
From: Mr Happy
Date: 14 May 07 - 12:13 PM

anyone know where the tune/ sheet music can be found?

Subject: RE: Help: I Wandered By A Brookside
From: Barry Taylor
Date: 13 Sep 99 - 09:00 PM

If it's the right tune, there is some history and image files of the 1847 music notation here

Just Edit Search for "brookside" when you open this page.

Subject: RE: Help: I Wandered By A Brookside
From: Stewie
Date: 12 Sep 99 - 11:55 PM

Anton, the CD booklet indicates 'traditional/arranged Archie Fisher'.

Subject: RE: Help: I Wandered By A Brookside
From: Anton
Date: 12 Sep 99 - 07:55 PM

Dear Stewie! Maybe you can send me credits for I Wandered By A Brookside or this traditional song?

Subject: RE: Help: I Wandered By A Brookside
From: Anton Sviridov
Date: 12 Sep 99 - 07:52 PM

Dear Stewie! Thank you for fast help. This is magic amazingly.

Buiochas le Dia

Subject: RE: Help: I Wandered By A Brookside
From: Stewie
Date: 12 Sep 99 - 07:27 PM

Anton, here are the lyrics as given on the Fisher album:

I wandered by a brookside/I wandered by a mill/I could not hear the water/The murmuring was still/Not the sound of any grasshopper/Or the sound of any bird/For the beating of my own heart/Was the only sound I heard.

I lay beneath the elm tree/To watch its long, long shade/And as it grew the longer I did not feel afraid/I listened for a footfall/I listened for a word/But the beating of my own heart/Was the only sound I heard.

With silent tears fast flowing/Then someone stood behind/A hand upon my shoulder/I knew the touch was kind/She drew me near and nearer/We neither spoke one word/For the beating of our own two hearts/Was the only sound I heard.

Subject: RE: Help: I Wandered By A Brookside
From: Anton Sviridov
Date: 12 Sep 99 - 06:56 PM

Thank you, Vince! I find this song on album Sunsets I've Galloped Into, 1996. If really cover of this album have lyrics, I try finding this album in Moscow, but I don't find this lyrics in WWW.

Subject: RE: Help: I Wandered By A Brookside
From: vince morash
Date: 12 Sep 99 - 04:12 PM

you might try looking through some archie fisher albums, as I think he recorded that about 20 years ago. sorry don;t know which one my copy is long gone

Subject: Help: I Wandered By A Brookside
From: Anton Sviridov
Date: 12 Sep 99 - 02:43 PM

I am looking for the lyrics of "I Wandered By A Brookside" (album Tsubo of Whippersnapper)everywhere but cannot find them. I know that this song published in Fairport Convention Songbook 2, but I don't find this book in Russia. If you have them, would you please mail them to me? My email is [e-mail]

Thank you. Slante!