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Subject: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: GUEST,Owen Date: 21 May 17 - 02:05 AM Hello! Does anybody know what's up with the last verse of Andy Irvine's version of this song? It just doesn't add up. It would just be a complete non-sequitur if not for the last line: "In hopes that you and I might meet again." Who is he going to meet? Didn't he just see his true love? And isn't he lying in bed with the lassie with the land? Adding to the confusion is that I see the lyrics listed on some sites as "If I'd (rather than I) married the lassie that had the land" in the earlier verse. The only thing that almost makes sense is that he didn't really marry the lassie with the land, but signed up for the army instead. Then he lets his lover believe he's marrying into security rather than going into some danger. I saw on some site I had open a minute ago that perhaps this song originated around the time of the famine, which only gives the singer a reason to abandon his love and doesn't seem to help with understanding the last verse. Thanks for any ideas! |
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Subject: RE: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: BobKnight Date: 21 May 17 - 03:06 AM I read somewhere that this verse, was an "orphan verse" which appears in a few songs, and has somehow become attached to this song as well. I sing this song too, and I don't try to make sense of it, just sing it. Apart from that, it's a great song. :) |
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Subject: RE: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: Jim Carroll Date: 21 May 17 - 03:22 AM Not sure of Irvine's version, but it's always worth going back to the source of the song in order to make sense of it - the older singers tended to do a more reliable job than those who picked the songs up later In this case, it came from Brigid Tunney of Beleek, in Fermanagh and was first recorded from her by the BBC in the early 1950s This is her version in full (from the singing of her Grand-daughter, also Brigid) 1 As I roved out on a bright May morning To view the meadows and flowers gay Whom should I spy but my own true lover As she sat under yon willow tree. 2 I took off my hat and I did salute her I did salute her courageously When she turned around sure the tears fell from her, saying: 'False young man you have deluded me.' 3 'For to delude you, how can that be my love It's from your body I am quite free. I'm as free from you as the child unborn is And so are you too, dear Jane, from me.' 4 'Three diamond ring sure I own I gave you Three diamond ring to wear on your right hand.' 'But the vows you made love, you went and broke them And married the lassie that had the land.' 5 'If I married the lassie that had the land, my love, It's that I'll rue to the day I die When misfortune falls sure no one can shun it. I was blindfolded I'll ne'er deny.' 6 Now at night when I go to my bed of slumber The thoughts of my true love run in my mind. When I turn around to embrace my darling, Instead of gold sure it's brass I find. 7 And I wish the queen would call home her armies From the West Indies, America and Spain. And every man to his wedded woman In hopes that you and I might meet again. Fairly straightforward - it's a dialogue between a couple - a man who had promised to marry the woman and the woman he had abandoned for a wealthier girl Verse 1 The meeting, described my the man - the "I" who has "roved out" It is immediately revealed that, despite having married someone else, he secretly still loves the girl he abandoned (he refers to her as "my own true lover". Verse two She accuses him of abandoning her and makes it clear that she still loves him Verse three He tries to make light of the affair, saying no harm has been done (he is lying by pretending he doesn't care for her any more and she should forget him - no harm done) Verse four Spoken by both characters in turn He says that the rings he gave her should be compensation anough for his behaviour She asks, "But what about the promises you made - don't they count for anything" (quite often in this type of song the girl is pregnant and has been left to sort out the mess - not here) Verse five He tells her he regrets his actions and blames himself for doing what he did, and is stuck with the consequences Verse six He tells her that he still thinks about her, especially when he is lying next to his wife, who, he says, he doesn't love (gold/brass symbolism) and regrets his actions, despite of having benefited financially Verse seven He uses the imagined analogy of soldiers being parted by war to sum up their own position and says he wishes that all couples who love each other could be together. In my opinion, this is one of the finest and most beautiful English language songs in the Irish repertoire - it sums up perfectly the period in which it was probably made, just following the famine, when relationships took second place to staying alive by marring for money rather than for love. Singers and listeners needs to put themselves in the place of the characters in the dialogue and decide whether the man is genuine or is just trying to bluff his way out of an embarrassing situation - the structure of the song suggests the former rather than the latter, in my opinion With due respect to Andy Irvine, you need to listen to Brigid (senior or junior - both make a superb job of it) singing it to get the full impact of its sheer beauty. For me Brigid senior is one of Ireland's finest singers and all her children and grandchildren are or were great singers in their own right. You can find BRIGID JUNIOR and others singing it on Utube Personally, I think the song needs instrumental accompaniment like a fish needs a bicycle, but that's me!! Enjoy! Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: GUEST,henryp Date: 21 May 17 - 05:15 AM From Mainly Norfolk - thank you again, Reinhard; As I Roved Out / The Deluded Lover [Roud 3479; G/D 6:1165; Ballad Index K150; trad.] Michael Gallagher sang The Deluded Lover in 1952 to Peter Kennedy and Sean O'Boyle. This recording was included on the 1975 Folktrax cassette of songs sung by Brigid Tunney, Paddy Tunney and Michael Gallagher, The Mountain Streams. The album's liner notes commented: Michael Gallagher, Brigid [Tunney]'s brother, Paddy [Tunney]'s Uncle Mick, was born in 1891 and, when recorded, was working as a boot repairer in Belleek. Previously he had been a farmer, and before that lived 33 years in Glasgow. Like his sister, he learned his songs from his parents and grandparents on both sides of the family, as well as from aunts, uncles and others. The Deluded Lover was from his aunt, Brigid, in Ballintra, Donegal. The title for this song was provided by the collectors; Michael called it As I Roved Out. Michael Gallagher's nephew Paddy Tunney of Co. Fermanagh sang As I Roved Out on his 1962 Folk-Legacy album The Man of Songs. Diane Hamilton and Sean O'Boyle commented in the album's sleeve notes: Some of the most charming of ordinary Irish love-songs are in the form of the pastourelle, which has been called the aristocratic progenitor of the "As I roved out one morning" type of ballad. [Diane Hamilton was the pseudonym of Diane Guggenheim (1924–1991), an American mining heiress, folksong patron and founder of "Tradition Records".] The air, which is one of the most elusive in all Irish folk-song, has never been published. Planxty sang As I Roved Out in 1973 on their LP The Well Below the Valley and on the anthology Planète Celtique. Andy Irvine commented: We learned this sad and beautiful song from the singing of Paddy Tunney who lives in Letterkenny, Co. Donegal. He has described it as dating back to the days of the famine, when any bit of property at all was enough to tempt a man to jilt his true love in favour of the lassie with the land. Acknowledgements; Thank you to Timothy Mellor for the information on the Michael Gallagher and Paddy Tunney recordings. However, Mainly Norfolk does not give the words originally collected. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: Reinhard Date: 21 May 17 - 07:38 AM Thank you, Henry. I've now added Michael Gallagher's verses from Kennedy to Mainly Norfolk. But they are nearly identical to Brigid Tunney's that Jim gave us above so I don't need to copy them here. Andy Irvine's verses on the Planxty album are quite similar too except for leaving out verse three. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: GUEST,Nick and Simon Date: 16 Jul 18 - 10:33 AM On close reading the last verse: I see the metaphor here as one of force/duty against will. The queen has dispatched her armies, and in much the same way, some force dispatches this man into marriage with the land owning woman. Whatever this force is, be it famine or pregnancy or tradition or his own error, The Queen is never good in Irish music, so lets call it (and her) a bad force. Our hero wishes an end to the bad force that orders young men to go somewhere and do something they, presumably, would rather not do. He wishes an end to the force which dispatches him to the land owning woman so that he could return to his true love. Although the metaphor |
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Subject: RE: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: Jim Carroll Date: 16 Jul 18 - 11:17 AM If anybody would like a folder of recordings od Brigit Tunner's and Michael Gallagher's songs I'm more than happy to oblige (PM me an e-mail address) The Willie Clancy Summer School has set me ablaze with the desire for people to hear these beautiful songs, so catch the fire before it goes out Jim |
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Subject: RE: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: Jim Carroll Date: 16 Jul 18 - 11:46 AM Tunney, of course Jim |
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Subject: RE: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: Steve Shaw Date: 16 Jul 18 - 06:19 PM Apart from Jim's verse three, which Andy Irvine omitted, Andy's version is almost identical with the one Jim posted. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: Joe Offer Date: 16 Jul 18 - 10:44 PM The Traditional Ballad Index has listings for seven different songs title "As I Roved Out." I've grouped all our "Roved Out" songs together until I figure out a good way to distinguish one from another. -Joe- |
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Subject: RE: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: GUEST,Reinhard Date: 17 Jul 18 - 08:35 AM Well, "As I Roved Out" is a very generic phrase so it's no surprise that there are a lot of songs using it. But aside from "The Trooper and the Maid" and "Seventeen Come Sunday" which share or swap a lot (even the Traditional Ballad Index lists Seamus Ennis' "As i Roved Out" as an exemplary recording for both songs!), the other five songs are quite different in topic and easy to distinguish. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: GUEST,henryp Date: 17 Jul 18 - 06:56 PM Planxty; The Well below the Valley As I roved out (Christy) Although the next song has the same title as one on the first side, the resemblance ends there - it is a completely different song. This version was learned from Andy Rynne of Prosperous, Co. Kildare. Who are you, me pretty fair maid Who are you, me honey? She answered me modestly, “Well I am me mammy’s darling.” Christy Moore; I used to introduce this as having been learned from John Reilly. The singer Andy Rynne subsequently contacted me to remind me that he taught me the song at the Boyle Fleadh in 1964 after mistakenly polishing off my carry-out at a coming out party in Jack Reddys to mourn the loss of Jacks Jinnet who had fallen into a boghole on the way home after a, particularily bawdy, Comhaltas night in Pat Dowlings where poor auld Paddy Kenny mistook the Emmet Spiceland for three young slappers. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: GUEST Date: 28 Apr 20 - 04:55 PM This song is a metaphor for the Irish men who fought in the British Army, which is made clear in the last verse. The ‘lassie with the land’ is England and the true love in the meadow is Ireland, home. I hope this is of help! |
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Subject: RE: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: GUEST,Starship Date: 28 Apr 20 - 05:18 PM Good take from Niamh Parsons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqaAbKxxfgg |
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Subject: RE: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: GUEST,Guest Date: 26 Sep 20 - 01:35 AM Followimg on from Jim Carroll's meanings for each of the seven verses Verse 7 And I wish the queen would call home her armies, etc The man is in an unhappy marriage to the woman with land and he still loves his former lover and wishes he could be with her again. So he surmises that if soldiers returned from war then perhaps the soldier who departed from the woman he is now married to will return back to his true love, and that then gives the opportunity for him to free himself from this unhappy marriage and return back to his true love. A straightforward explanation for this seemingly out of place verse. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: Felipa Date: 26 Sep 20 - 04:39 PM "in hopes that you and I might meet again" has always seemed strange to me in the context of married couples, when the man has just said to the lassie without the land that he regrets his marriage to someone else (the lassie who had the land). Sometimes I omit it, sometimes I sing it anyway. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: meself Date: 29 Sep 20 - 01:02 AM That video of Brigid Tunney singing it is wonderful. My own feeling is that the last verse was not part of the original song. It happens now and then in trad. songs that some singer will have added a verse with personal meaning, but little if any connection to the thrust of the main body of the lyric. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: GUEST,Garthman Date: 25 Nov 21 - 04:13 PM Yes, the last verse probably crept in late one night after several jars of the black stuff were downed. It doesn't belong there and I always omit it. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: The Sandman Date: 27 Nov 21 - 12:18 AM Verse seven He uses the imagined analogy of soldiers being parted by war to sum up their own position and says he wishes that all couples who love each other could be together. In my opinion, this is one of the finest and most beautiful English language songs in the Irish repertoire - it sums up perfectly the period in which it was probably made, just following the famine, when relationships took second place to staying alive by marring for money rather than for love. Singers and listeners needs to put themselves in the place of the characters in the dialogue and decide whether the man is genuine or is just trying to bluff his way out of an embarrassing situation - the structure of the song suggests the former rather than the latter, in my opinion With due respect to Andy Irvine, you need to listen to Brigid (senior or junior - both make a superb job of it) singing it to get the full impact of its sheer beauty. For me Brigid senior is one of Ireland's finest singers and all her children and grandchildren are or were great singers in their own right. You can find BRIGID JUNIOR and others singing it on Utube Personally, I think the song needs instrumental accompaniment like a fish needs a bicycle, but that's me!! Enjoy! Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: Thompson Date: 27 Nov 21 - 01:38 PM Aren't yiz all very pure? He can be married (and dissing his wife to his "own true lover") but that doesn't stop him coozling up to the lover with his hope that he and she may meet again. A swine, I say. Steer clear of this chancer like a sensible woman! |
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Subject: RE: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: GUEST,Grishka Date: 27 Nov 21 - 02:00 PM The post of 28 Apr 20 - 04:55 PM by that anonymous GUEST makes perfect sense to me, while I cannot claim any expertise. Even if the last verse is an "orphan verse", possibly attached to an older love song (suitably altered), it fits perfectly. The mask is being lifted. |
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Subject: The song in general From: GUEST,Derek Butler Date: 28 Oct 22 - 02:14 PM if this is from Fermanagh could the boy be a Protestant and the girl a catholic . 'The Lassie who owns the land' could be from 'The big house' and thus another Anglo-Irish protestant? |
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Subject: RE: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: meself Date: 28 Oct 22 - 03:04 PM There's no suggestion of religious differences in the song - but, of course, everyone is free to read into the lyrics whatever the heck they want. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: Steve Shaw Date: 28 Oct 22 - 07:51 PM All I know is that my good mate Martin Cole loved to sing this song, including that last verse, he on guitar with me playing the accompaniment that you hear on Andy's version as best as could on diatonic harmonica. I even had Liam O'Flynn's final solo! |
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Subject: RE: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: Steve Shaw Date: 28 Oct 22 - 07:52 PM As best as I could. Grr. Oh reading specs, where art thou! |
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Subject: RE: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: GUEST,Derek Butler Date: 29 Oct 22 - 06:07 AM I think it is possibly a common sort of throw away ending from another song that got detached from somewhere else. Remember oral traditions do tangle up songs and tunes and both or either,songs and words are often much older than the point at which they were collected or given lyrics- look at the better known tune to 'Ae fond kiss' and ' Rory Dahl's Port or ' Dannny Boy' and the ascribed 'Derry Air', again to one Rory Dahl. However the wish for the army to return may , unintentionally or not, reflect the impossible wish that Time can be reversed and mistakes, such as the one rued by the 'false young man'here, put right. I am trying to build a story around this song, and am largely influenced by the sad tune evoked by Andy Irvine on his hurdy gurdy, which is similar to the haunting noise made by eilean pipes and is of course, one might say, 'very Gaelic' It is very sad and regretful in this case. As to religious differences, well it is just a speculative piece of licence om my part. The original song may not even come from nineteenth century Ireland, where the 'lassie that has the land' might well have been an Anglo-Irish girl from 'the big house'- but there is no clear evidence of that, or of the period in which it is set. Like all good art, its message is universal The 'misfortune' might well have been some sort of circumstance that forced him into revoking his vows and marrying the wrong woman or it might well have simply been a wrong but uncompelled judgement by a selfish soul. We have to use our own imagination. Anyway, as sung by Andy Irvine and Planxty all those years ago it is a hauntingly sad and beautiful song telling 'a sad old story' perhaps reminiscent of Hardy. Let us just enjoy it for what it is. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: Steve Shaw Date: 29 Oct 22 - 07:09 AM I agree with that last sentiment. You inspired me to listen to a lovely live performance from 1976 on YouTube. Took me back... |
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Subject: RE: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: GUEST,James Phillips Date: 29 Oct 22 - 11:35 AM I have long since stopped bothering trying to make sense of some folk/trad lyrics. They often confuse me. Like in the version of "Ay Waukin, O" by Jock Tamson's Bairns, it's a girl pining after her "lad" in the penultimate verse, but switches to a lad pining after his lass in the final verse. Other times I get confused by who's supposed to be speaking and seeming confusion in the motivation of the participants in a story. I always just put it down to a combination of lyrics becoming bastardized and confused between versions over time, and my own lifelong trouble with understanding lyrics and poetry in general. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: As I Roved Out - last verse From: meself Date: 29 Oct 22 - 12:42 PM Bear in mind, though, that it was a convention in ballads to go back and forth between speakers without identifying who is speaking - often it is obvious, but just as often, perhaps, it is confusing. My point being that the confusion is not always due to error, mishap, misfortune, bastardization, intoxication, etc. |
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