Folk songs mentioning the month of May?

Subject: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: GUEST,BlackAcornUK
Date: 16 Apr 20 - 02:11 PM

Hello all, I hope you're each keeping well in these strange times;

We all know that the month of May features prominently in English folk songs - I had an idle fancy of trying to compile a list of as many of these as possible.

For starters, there's:

> As I Roved Out / The Deluded Lover

> One Morning in May / To Hear the Nightingale Sing / The Soldier and the Lady

> The Birds in the Spring / (Down) By the Green Groves /
One May Morning Early

How many others could we collate here??

Many thanks for any/all suggestions which 'May' be forthcoming...

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: Elmore
Date: 16 Apr 20 - 02:23 PM

May Song by Beggar's Velvet.

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: peteglasgow
Date: 16 Apr 20 - 03:07 PM

john martyn' 'may you never'? great song

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: Zhenya
Date: 16 Apr 20 - 03:56 PM

Hal an Tow

Barbara Allen

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 16 Apr 20 - 03:56 PM

One morning, one morning, one morning in May
I heard a married man to a young girl say
Arise, pretty Katie, and go along with me
Across the Blue Mountains to the Alleghenny

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: GUEST,Rossey
Date: 16 Apr 20 - 04:11 PM

Many seem to go a' walkin' in May, I think it scans better than December and other available months. Its warmer and a fresh season so I suppose a metaphor for new love!

The Nightingale.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQsQ1O-f1Ec

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Apr 20 - 04:16 PM

Autumn to May? (not trad, but based on trad)

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Apr 20 - 04:19 PM

Padstow!

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Apr 20 - 04:26 PM

Well not a folk song, but over 400 years old, a wonderful jolly madrigal by Thomas Morley, full of sexy double-entendres. "Now Is The Month Of Maying." Go thou and google now!

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 16 Apr 20 - 04:43 PM

Anniversary Waltz.

Go to Bodleian Broadside Ballad website and go through the first lines. Or simply put May in the search engine. Then let us know how you got on...……...next year sometime.

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 16 Apr 20 - 05:19 PM

Spotted Cow

One morning in the month of May As from my cott I strayed
Just at the dawning of the day I met with a charming maid

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: Ged Fox
Date: 16 Apr 20 - 05:51 PM

In the Pleasant Month of May

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 16 Apr 20 - 06:10 PM

Patrick Galvin's "James Connolly":

...And there they shot him, one bright May morning...

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Apr 20 - 06:12 PM

Good call, Jack. I should have remembered that.

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 16 Apr 20 - 10:06 PM

Streets of Forbes.

This is an Australian bushranger ballad, about Ben Hall. Verse three goes,

Ben went to Goobang Creek and that was his downfall,
For riddled like a sieve was valiant Ben Hall,
'Twas early in the morning upon the fifth of May
When the Seven Police surrounded him as fast asleep he lay.

I've taken the lyrics from Ron Edwards' book, Great Australian Folk Songs, as I think the lyrics in the DT have some typos (or maybe mondegreens).

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 16 Apr 20 - 10:12 PM

Don't Buy the Liverwurst!

To the tune of the chorus of Down By the Riverside.

Oh buy the corned beef if you must,
The pickled herring you can trust,
And the lox puts you in orbit AOK.
But that big hunk of liverwurst
Has been there since October First,
And today is the Twenty-Third of May.

OK, it's not folk, it's Allan Sherman, but it went over quite well when I sang it at our local folk club on the 23rd of May one year.

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: Reinhard
Date: 17 Apr 20 - 12:33 AM

The Birds in the Spring / By the Green Grove / Down By the Green Groves / One May Morning Early (Roud 356)
Cambridgeshire May Carol (Roud 305)
Gathering Rushes in the Month of May / Underneath Her Apron (Roud 899; G/D 7:1493)
Hail! Hail! The First of May / May Song [Dave Webber]
May Dew [trad.]
A May Garland / This Morning Is the First of May (Roud 305)
May Morning / As I Roamed Out / The Bonny Green Tree (Roud 2512; Laws P19; Henry H795)
The May Morning Dew (Roud 5405)
May Song / Northill May Song / Bedfordshire May Day Carol / The First of May / Arise, Arise (Roud 305)
The Month of May / The Pleasant Month of May / The Haymakers (Roud 153; Henry H697)
One Morning in May / To Hear the Nightingale Sing / The Soldier and the Lady (Roud 140; Laws P14)
Padstow May Song (Roud 305)
The Queen of May / As I Walked Through the Meadows (Roud 594)
Seventeen Come Sunday / As I Roved Out / One May Morning / The Soldier and the Maid (Roud 277; Laws O17; G/D 4:791; Henry H152, H793)
Swinton May Song (Roud 305)

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: Gordon Jackson
Date: 17 Apr 20 - 01:49 AM

On the fourteenth of May
At the dawn of the day

The Bonny Black Hare

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 17 Apr 20 - 02:12 AM

our monthly singing session always has a theme (with the caveat - and as always, the theme is optional so no worries if you have another fantastic song to share, and chorus songs are always appreciated) & I often send out a link from Lyrics.com which is a huge searchable collection of song lyrics and here's a link to songs with "may" in the title with another caveat, some are to the word "may" or the personal name "May" not necessarily the month.

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 Apr 20 - 02:34 AM

the ball of yarn,

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 Apr 20 - 03:45 AM

just as the tide was flowing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-SPThFpviU&list=UU-GtPNIEDLICv5yKnirJAPg&index=37&t=0s

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: Gordon Jackson
Date: 17 Apr 20 - 03:50 AM

Garland Gay.

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 17 Apr 20 - 08:30 AM

National Anthem of Montenegro

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Apr 20 - 07:14 AM

banks of claudy.

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: Vic Smith
Date: 19 Apr 20 - 07:19 AM

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: Vic Smith
Date: 19 Apr 20 - 07:23 AM

Sarah Jane

"One day for my amusement,
It being Thursday the first of June...."

Whoops sorry! A day too late - as usual!

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 19 Apr 20 - 11:12 AM

April, come she will
When streams are ripe and swelled with rain
May, she will stay
Resting in my arms again

Country rhyme cleverly adapted by Paul Simon

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 20 Apr 20 - 12:13 AM

I gather there are many songs that go by the name of Shamrock Shore, or Paddy's Green Shamrock Shore. I may have missed it, but we don't seem to have the one Paul Brady sings, and it seems no one has mentioned it in this thread. Apologies if I've missed it. It's here, and the first stanza goes,

From Derry quay we sailed away
On the 23rd of May
We were taken on board by a pleasant crew
Bound for Americay
Fresh water there we did take on
Five thousand gallons or more
In case we'd run short going to New York
Far away from the Shamrock shore.

Same date as in Don't Buy the Liverwurst!

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Apr 20 - 02:55 AM

May day is the most important date in the Irish folklore calandar
That is when ariigs of the'May Bush' were brought int the homes to ensure good luck for the year; usually hawthorn, but here in Clare, the yellow Broom

The longest song I found specifically on May is a seventeen verse broadside published in Evans's Old Ballads Vol. 2 (1778)
Entitled 'The Story of Ill May Day' "in the time of Henry VIII, and why it is so called; and how Queen Catherine begged the lived of two thousand London Apprentices"

Google 'A Collection of Songs and Ballads Relative to the London'
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Apr 20 - 03:14 AM

Here we go gathering nuts in May/knots in May/knots of may?

Two teams of children face each other in a line and the first team skips forward singing the opening stanza,
Here we come gathering nuts in May, Nuts in May, nuts in May,
Here we come gathering nuts in May, On a cold and frosty morning.
They then skip back to their original position and the second team skips towards them repeating a verse in the same form but beginning, “Who will you have for nuts in May?”
After the first team has made its choice, they sing “We'll have [name] for nuts in May”
and the second team asks next “Who will you send to fetch him/her away?”
The first team then sings the final stanza; We'll send [name] to fetch him/her away,
The children chosen then advance to the centre, take hands and try to pull each other towards their own side. The loser has to join the winner's row and the game begins again.

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: GUEST,Niamh
Date: 20 Apr 20 - 04:26 AM

https://youtu.be/ChvYafObIf8

One morning in May as I carelessly did stray
To view yon green valleys where the lambs sport and play
In the clear morning dew as I lay down to muse
A fair maiden of honour appeared in my view

I said pretty maid how happy we could be
For it is so decreed that married we shall be
Let me not see you frown for my heart it is your own
When these words they were spoken sure the tears trickled down

Come dry up your tears there is nothing to fear
I would roam through the green fields for many’s the long year
When the birds sang so sweet this young man proved his deceit
Saying adieu pretty fair maid we shall never more meet

With my snuff box and cane this whole world I will range
Like Venus or Diana in search of her swain
When the moon shone so clear I will mourn for my dear
Over mountains, clear fountains where no-one will hear

There’s one thing I know and that before I go
I will never return for to hear her sad woe
There’s another thing I know and that before I go
That the ranger and the stranger has many’s the foe

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: CupOfTea
Date: 20 Apr 20 - 01:46 PM

"As I went a-walking one morning in May..." Seems to start a number of songs. Two I sing:

Cuckoo's Nest "...i met a pretty fair maid and unto her did say..."

And
Slieve Galion Braes "... To view yon fair valleys and mountains so gay..."

Joanne in Cleveland

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Apr 20 - 02:52 PM

the rebel soldier

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Apr 20 - 02:53 PM

the verdant braes of skreen

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: Gallus Moll
Date: 20 Apr 20 - 07:33 PM

The Isle of Eigg

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 21 Apr 20 - 04:18 AM

Paddy Roberts' spng to the tune of "The Bluebell Polka" a
"Picking a bluebell in the merry month of May"....

And I thought "Spotted Cow" was June?

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Apr 20 - 12:28 PM

The Spotted Cow

One morning in the month of May
As from my cot I strayed,
Just at the dawning of the day
I met a charming maid.
I met a charming maid.

"Good morning, fair maid! Whither," says I,
"So early? Tell me know."
The maid replied,"Kind sir," she cried,
"I've lost my spotted cow."

"No more complain, no longer mourn
Your cow is not lost, my dear.
I saw her down in yonder lawn,
Come, love, I'll show you where."

"I must confess you're very kind
I thank you, sir," said she,
"You will be sure she's there to find?"
"Come, sweetheart, go with me."

Into the grove we did repair
Across the flowery dell,
We hugged and kissed each other there
And love was all our tale.

Into the grove we spent the day
And thought it passed too soon.
At night we homeward went our way
And brightly shone the moon.

If I should cross yon flowery dell,
Or go to view the plough,
She comes and calls her gentle swain,
"I've lost my spotted cow."

From Wanton Seed, Purslow
APR99

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: Gallus Moll
Date: 21 Apr 20 - 04:49 PM

The Isle Of Eigg
by Robin Laing

'Twas in the merry month of May, when balmy winds do blow.
I met my love in Arisaig where rhododendrons grow.
I met my love in Arisaig in the shadow of Craig Mor,
The sun shone on the Isle of Eigg, far from the silver shore.
Sun shone on the Isle of Eigg, far from the silver shore.

And in the months that followed our love and friendship grew,
Warmed by the summer sun and a love that was so new.
We walked among the hills and heard the crashing ocean roar.
The sun shone on the Isle of Eigg, far from the silver shore.
Sun shone on the Isle of Eigg, far from the silver shore.

Autumn came to Arisaig with colours fair to view.
Birds were flying South again, soon we'd leave there too.
A sad song echoed in the hills: Lochaber no more.
The sun shone on the Isle of Eigg, far from the silver shore.
Sun shone on the Isle of Eigg, far from the silver shore

Words:

Arisaig: A village in South Morar, looking out to Skye and the Small Isles

Isle of Eigg: One of the Small Isles in the Inner Hebrides

This song set in the Western Highlands expresses the beauty of the place and the sadness of parting, using the phrase "Lochaber no more" in the last verse, with its memories of the famous pipe tune of that name.

This 17th century pipe-tune was played at the 1927 funeral of fiddler James Scott Skinner and is "a favourite tune of Scottish pipers who use it as a funeral march or lament, though its origins may or may not have been Irish" according to The Fiddler's Companion website at www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers.

Robin Laing is a song-writer and performer originally from Edinburgh, still his "spiritual home" according to his website, and now living in rural Lanarkshire.

This song is on his first album, Edinburgh Skyline (Greentrax CDTRAY021) from 1989. Hamish Henderson on the sleeve notes comments on his "preoccupation with the transitory nature of things – with time, the passing of the seasons and the annual resurrection and rebirth which the folksong of the world celebrates."

Robin Laing is a member of New Makars Trust which aims to encourage local communities to celebrate their own history and culture in new songs.

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 21 Apr 20 - 05:19 PM

Matt McGinn: We'll have a May Day Now

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: meself
Date: 21 Apr 20 - 06:01 PM

Is there a folk song that DOESN'T mention the month of May?

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: Gallus Moll
Date: 22 Apr 20 - 06:12 AM

Jack - 'We'll Have A May Day' (then - not now!)

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: Gordon Jackson
Date: 22 Apr 20 - 09:43 AM

I suspect May is the most commonly mentioned month. I wonder if there are months that are not mentioned in folk songs.

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Apr 20 - 01:53 PM

lakes of ponchertrain, mentions March.BRIGG FAIR mentions August.june is mentioned in the jug of punch. the Cuckoo mentions april, may, june and july.OCTOBER is mentioned in 3 SCORE AND TEN.
September , november january and feb, have they missed out

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Apr 20 - 02:27 PM

january. it was in the month of january
november. skibbereen
february, trimdon grange explosion
spo how about september and decmber

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 22 Apr 20 - 08:56 PM

September is in Heights of Alma. Britain's sons will long remember/The glorious eighteenth of September/We caused the Russians to surrender/All on the heights of Alma.

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Apr 20 - 03:59 PM

the nightingale

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 26 Apr 20 - 06:22 PM

> Is there a folk song that DOESN'T mention the month of May?

The Battle of Sowerby Bridge was fought on the forty-fourth of March.

Three months before the month of June, it was the month of March. (The Grand Canal)

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 27 Apr 20 - 03:54 PM

I am still trying to find out who wrote the following.
It was part of a radio program that, I think, first went out on Radio Oxford, and then was repeated on Folk on two in 1982.

Steve Heap has arranged the whole thing but when I asked him about it he had no isea who had written it.
It obviously predates the May day bank holiday (1982 and the question do we get a day off school?). It fits with my wife's childhood memories in East Lancashire of going out and dancing round a hand held pole for pennies.

I sing it most years hoping to get a reaction from somone else who knows it.

THE FIRST OF MAY

My granny said the other night "Next monday is the day
that marks the ending of the old, it is the first of May".
"Now what's so special we all cried, do we get a day off school,
Do we go for a bike ride down our lane, or a trip to the
swimming pool ?"
Well Granny sat us quietly down and opened her book
to read.
"You kids are losing heritage to spaceships, telly and speed.
If only for one minute a day you'd just sit down and try
To think about the days of old. Don't let tradition die."

CH. Like Easter eggs and Bonfire Night and Christmas
and New Year,
Our Maypole means so much to us, so give us arousing cheer.

"When I was younger and lived at home, my brothers and sisters and me
Would work for hours through April showers with ribbons and paint, you see.
All the colours we could find and trim them up so neat
That when the first of May came round we'd the best
pole in our street.
The morning of the first of May was special to us all.
We'd dance around the Maypole and on our friendswe'd call.
We'd knock on doors and sing our songs with garlands and banners and chains,
And pick up the pennies that folks threw down to driveoff the April
rains."

Her words put new life in our blood, we'd two days left to go.
Johnny found a wooden pole and painted it for show,
And Susie cut the ribbons up, and Gran taught us the song,
And when the first of May came round we'd do it, right or wrong.
We danced 'til nine o'clock that morn and then set off for school.
We told the teachers what we'd done and I felt a proper fool,
But they were very pleased with us and we showed the class the way
To dance around the Maypole and welcome in the May.

Any info?

Robin

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 27 Apr 20 - 11:53 PM

may crowning hymn..flowers of the rarest...queen of the angels queen of the may

Subject: RE: Folk songs mentioning the month of May?
From: GUEST,diplocase
Date: 28 Apr 20 - 02:39 AM

50 songs set in the month of May (there are reasons for any apparent duplications) Make yourself a great playlist!

—Arise Arise - Kerfuffle “To the Ground”
—Child #299 As I Roved Out on a May Morning (17 come Sunday variant) - Joe Heaney “The Road from Connemara”
—As I Roved Out (“a diamond ring I own I gave you”) - June Tabor
—Cambridgeshire May Carol (the hedges and the fields)- Kyle Carey “One Morning in May”
—Ce Moys de May - Shira Kammen “The Almanac”
—Now is the Month of Maying - Alfred Deller & Deller Consort
—Gathering Rushes in the Month of May - Anne Briggs
—As I Was A-Walking One May Summer’s Morning (Roud 586) - Carolyne Hughes & Daughter “I’m a Romany Rai”
—Hal-an-Tow - Broceliande
—In May, That Lusty Season - Libana “A Circle is Cast”
—La rousée du joly mois de may - The Toronto Consort “All in a Garden Green”
—A Little Pretty Bonny Lass - The Stairwell Carolers “Audite Nova”
—Child #043 May Blooming Field - Cordelia’s Dad “Double Live”
—The May Carol - Kyle Carey “One Morning in May”
—May Carol - Shira Kammen “The Almanac”
—May Day Carol - Anahata & Mary Humphries “Song Links 2”
—The May Day Carol - Jean Ritchie - “Carols for all Seasons”
—May Song - Martin Carthy “Because It’s There”
—Northhill May Song - John Roberts, Tony Barrand et al “To Welcome in the Spring”
—May Morning (Coo Coo As I Me Walkèd) - Dorothy Dino Rice
—Month of May (Making Hay) - John Roberts, Tony Barrand et al “To Welcome in the Spring”
—May Song (Hail Hail the First of May) - Beggars’ Velvet “Lady of Autumn”
—Now Is the Month of Maying - The King’s Singers “All at once well met “
—Now the lusty spring is seen - Toronto Consort “All in a garden green”
—O lusty May - Toronto Consort “All in a Garden Green”
—One May Morning (Not A Day Too Young) - Louis Killen “The Bird in the Bush”
—Padstow May Song - Ian Marshall “21 Songs of Cornwall”
—Swinton May Song - The Watersons “For Pence and Spicy Ale”
—Voici venir le joli mai - Jaques Douai “File la laine”
—Voici venir le joli mai - Malicorne “Almanach”
—In May, That Lusty Season - The Heath Sisters “Anthology”
—May Morning Dew (How Pleasant in Winter) - Joe and Kathy Bly “Cíana
—Voici le mois de mai - Evelyne Paris and Frdérique Paris - “Anthologie de la chanson française: Rites, magies et miracles
—May Day Carol - Alan Mills “More Songs to Grow ON”
—Hal an Tow - Chris Moore “Gift from the Universe”
—C’est le mai - Malicorne “En public”
—My Husband’s Got No Courage In Him - Maddy Prior & June Tabor “Silly Sisters”
—Bold Fisherman - Tim Hart & Maddy Prior “Heyday”
—The Bonny Black Hare - A.L. Lloyd “The Bird In the Bush”
—In da Moarnin of May-o, isle of Yell - Elizabeth Morewood “Traditional Shetland Songs”
—Je me suis levé - Didier Hébert “Anthologie de la chanson française: Rites etc”
—Le mai de Clerieux - Gabriel Yacoub ibid
—One Morning in May (Unfortunate Rake) - Texas Gladden 1941 “A Treasury of Library of Congress Field Recordings”
—The Queen of May - Shirley Collins “Classic Celtic Music from Smithsonian Folkways”
—The May Song (Good Morning) - Jeff Wesley “It was on a Market Day”
—A May Day Carol (Bellman) - Richard Dyer-Bennet “Vol 4”
—Marions les roses (chant de quête) - Malicorne “Quintessence”
—Ce Fu en Mai - June Tabor “Apples”
—In da Moarnin o Mey-o, isle of Unst - Elizabeth Morewood “Traditional Shetland Songs”
—Child #004 On the First Morning in May (Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight) - Steven Griffith