Tune Req: A Ship Came Sailing (coll. Baring-Gould)

Subject: RE: Tune Req: A Ship Came Sailing (coll. Baring-Gould)
From: Martin Graebe
Date: 08 Nov 10 - 07:26 AM

LR - what you have is, indeed, the 1905 Edition for which the musical editor was Cecil Sharp. The name of the song changed with this edition, but it is the same text and tune and it retained the same number in the book.

I'm not sure that I can add greatly to what has been said above. The tune is that sent to B-G by Octavia Hoare as heard from S.M. Walker at St Enoder '... an old Cornish Parson.' She only sent four verses and the published song is a composite from these, from other singers, and from printed texts. Oh, and the Roud Number is 18829 if you want to look at other versions.

Martin

Subject: RE: Tune Req: A Ship Came Sailing (coll. Baring-Gould)
From: Little Robyn
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 06:40 PM

I don't think it's just a reprint - my Dad found it in a box of old books around 1965-67. I didn't like it at first because I thought it was Western, as in cowboy songs and it wasn't until we started singing Daddy Fox and Halanto that I woke up to the treasure it was. It has a hard cover with red paper glued on and water stains that have lifted the colour out. The spine has white cloth with the title embossed in gold (tho' that's nearly gone) and it looks like a bit of rubbish - but it was like that when I got it.
Mitch suggests it could be printed any date up to the 20s or 30s but it is the 1905 edition.
Robyn

Subject: RE: Tune Req: A Ship Came Sailing (coll. Baring-Gould)
From: Artful Codger
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 05:48 PM

The date for that edition should be 1905 (unless its merely a reprint).

Subject: RE: Tune Req: A Ship Came Sailing (coll. Baring-Gould)
From: Little Robyn
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 04:13 PM

My copy of 'Songs of the West' is undated but it's not a first edition - it says
'To the memory of the late D Radford Esq. JP of Mount Tavy,....'
'Also to that of The Rev. H. Fleetwood Sheppard, MA...'
In the introduction it mentions that Mr Radford died January 3rd 1900 at the age of 72 and Henry Fleetwood Sheppard died December 27th 1901, aged 77 years.
So my book is from the early 1900s.
The Preface is interesting. It says they made some considerable changes, admitting that the songs were set as duets and quartettes to 'catch the public taste, and to humour it. But now that real interest in Folk airs has been awakened, we have discarded this feature.'
They also found that the arrangements were too elaborate so they simplified the settings.
Then they 'omitted 22 songs and supplied their places with others, either because the others are intrinsically better, or that they have earlier and more characteristic melodies, or again because the songs though sung by the people, did not seem to us to have been productions of the folk-muse.
Again, when our first edition was published, modal melodies were not appreciated, and we had regretfully to put many aside and introduce more of the airs of a modern character. Public taste is a little healthier now, and musicians have multiplied who can value these early melodies.
Consequently we have not felt the same reserve now that we did in 1889'.
The Preface isn't signed but on the title page, in smaller print, it says:
New and revised edition under the musical editorship of Cecil J. Sharp, Principal of the Hampstead Conservatoire

Robyn

Subject: RE: Tune Req: A Ship Came Sailing (coll. Baring-Gould)
From: masato sakurai
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 11:37 AM

The song first appeared in Baring-Gould and Fleetwood's Songs and ballads of the West : a collection made from the mouths of the people (1891), no. 86: "Deep in Love." Notes are on p. xxviii.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: A Ship Came Sailing (coll. Baring-Gould)
From: Artful Codger
Date: 05 Nov 10 - 11:22 PM

I must confess, when I first posted the request, I was fearful that the tune would be a dud not worth bothering others about. But I'm pleasantly surprised. It bears similarities to a regularized "The Water Is Wide" (O Waly Waly), though not in a way that jumps out at one. This latter tune has been an earworm for me for at least 30 years, and I would have learned the song if I didn't already sing a different version of "O Waly Waly" to a less common (but I think more starkly dramatic) tune: see Gems of Scottish Song, or listen to June Tabor's ripping version. So now I'm in a bit of a quandary, because all three tunes are too good to pass up, but I get easily confused when there are large overlaps in lyrics. I think I'll hunt for a good broadside text that would match this tune, and perhaps concoct my own version of "The Water Is Wide".

leeneia, you're welcome, and Robyn, thanks again!

Subject: RE: Tune Req: A Ship Came Sailing (coll. Baring-Gould)
From: stallion
Date: 05 Nov 10 - 08:44 PM

Martin Graebe is the person to talk to about Baring-Gould stuff, dunno how you would go about contacting him.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: A Ship Came Sailing (coll. Baring-Gould)
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 05 Nov 10 - 06:56 PM

Thank you, both Robyn and Artful Codger for the abc and MIDI's. They really make it possible for a new person to learn the piece.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: A Ship Came Sailing (coll. Baring-Gould)
From: Little Robyn
Date: 05 Nov 10 - 06:46 PM

AC: I don't have access to the remainder of the notes.

Notes:
86. A Ship Came Sailing over the Sea. This curious song was obtained by the late Rev. S. M. Walker of Saint Enoder, Cornwall, from a very old man in his parish, and it was sent me by [...]

Miss Octavia L. Hoare. We heard the same from old Sally Satterley at Huckaby Bridge, Dartmoor. She was the daughter of an old crippled singing man on the moor. I have told the story of the way in which she, as a young bride with her husband, took possession of a house built all in one day, in my Dartmoor Idylls, "Jolly Lane Cott." Sally is now dead, and her house has been rebuilt and vulgarised. One verse, running –

"I put my finger into the bush
Thinking the sweetest rose to find,
I prickt my finger to the bone,
And yet I left the rose behind."

is found in "The Distressed Virgin," a ballad by Martin Parker, printed by J. Coles, 1646-74. Parker seems to have taken the lines into his ballad from one previously existing. Two of the stanzas, 3 and 6, occur in the Scottish song, "Wally, wally up the Bank," in "Orpheus Caledonicus," 1733, No.34; The stanzas 4 and 5 in the song in "The Scot's Musical Museum," 1787-1803, vi. p.582. In "The Wandering Lover's Garland," circ. 1730, are two of the verses worked into another ballad.
We took down the song a third time from William Nichols of Whitchurch, near Tavistock. It was a song of his grandmother's, who seventy years ago was hostess of the village inn.


There they are!
Cheers,
Robyn

Subject: RE: Tune Req: A Ship Came Sailing (coll. Baring-Gould)
From: Anglo
Date: 05 Nov 10 - 11:34 AM

Cyril Tawney recorded this on his first record, Between Decks (1961), recorded by Peter Kennedy. Quite lovely. My copy is sadly quite scratchy now.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: A Ship Came Sailing (coll. Baring-Gould)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 09:07 PM

Thanks, AC. Nice tunes.
Oh, and Songs fo the West is at Google Books.

-Joe-

Subject: Lyr Add: A Ship Came Sailing (coll. Baring-Gould)
From: Artful Codger
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 08:37 PM

Source: Songs of the West: Folk songs of Devon and Cornwall, song #86. Sabine Baring Gould. Originally published 1889-91.


No. 86 A SHIP CAME SAILING

        1
A ship came sailing over the sea
As deeply laden as she could be;
My sorrows fill me to the brim,
I care not if I sink or swim.
        * 2
Ten thousand ladies in the room,
But my true love's the fairest bloom,
Of stars she is my brightest sun,
I said I would have her or none.
        3
I leaned my back against an oak,
But first it bent and then it broke,
Untrusty as I found that tree,
So did my love prove false to me.
        4
Down in a mead the other day,
As carelessly I went my way
And plucked flowers red and blue,
I little thought what love could do.
        5
I saw a Rose with ruddy blush,
And thrust my hand into the bush,
I pricked my fingers to the bone,
I would I'd left that rose alone!
        6
I wish! I wish! but 'tis in vain,
I wish I had my heart again!
With silver chain and diamond locks,
I'd fasten it in a golden box.

* May be omitted in singing.

Notes:
86. A Ship Came Sailing over the Sea. This curious song was obtained by the late Rev. S. M. Walker of Saint Enoder, Cornwall, from a very old man in his parish, and it was sent me by [...]

[AC: I don't have access to the remainder of the notes. The song is considered a variant of "Deep in Love"/"Died for Love"/"Must I go bound", and it has floating fragments in common with both "O Waly Waly" branches.]


ABC transcription (with thanks to Robyn):

  X:1
  T:A Ship Came Sailing
  S:Songs of the West, #86. Sabine Baring-Gould, 1889.
  N:As sung by an old man of St. Enoder, Cornwall
  N:Music arranged by H. Fleetwood Sheppard.
  M:4/4
  L:1/4
  Q:1/4=80 "Con sentimento."
  K:Bb
  F/ || B A B (c/B/) | A G/> F/ F E | D F B c/ d/ | e d c z/ F/ |
  w: A ship came sail-ing_ o-ver the sea,  As deep-ly la-den as she could be;  My
  B d f (e/d/) | c G e (d/c/) | B G F E | D F B z/ F/ |
  w: sor-rows fill me_ to the brim,  I_ care not if I sink or swim,  My
  B d f (e/d/) | c G e (d/c/) | B G F "^rall."E | D F B2 ||
  w: sor-rows fill me_ to the brim,  I_ care not if I sink or swim.
  

---

Click to play

Click to play (melody only)

Subject: RE: Tune Req: A Ship Came Sailing (coll. Baring-Gould)
From: Little Robyn
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 07:09 AM

PM sent.
Robyn

Subject: Tune Req: A Ship Came Sailing (coll. Baring-Gould)
From: Artful Codger
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 02:03 AM

Song no. 86 in Sabine Baring-Gould's Songs of the West is "A Ship Came Sailing (over the Sea)", a variant of the "Deep in Love"/"Died for Love"/"Must I go bound cluster. A preview of the book is available at Google Books, but the preview omits the first page of the score, leaving only the tail of the tune viewable. Could some kind soul post the full melody? If you have the book and don't know how to notate in ABC or an equivalent system, but can email me a scan the page, PM me for my email address, and I'll post an ABC/MIDI.

Thanks in advance!