Lyr Add: Dancing at Whitsun

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Dancing at Whitsun
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Mar 18 - 08:51 PM

There is a dis-connect that bothers me. In the second verse she is walking "by fields of young corn" but in the the third verse we are told "the fields they stand empty."

So if I am performing the song for an audience more than my self, I'll preceed the third verse in a speaking voice with the intro, "But for years and years...." Seems to tie the sentiment and what the song is trying to convey better, at least to me. It is one of those songs that merits an explanation before you sing it. Gopherit

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Dancing at Whitsun
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Mar 18 - 09:45 PM

"Anthems" is one of my eight desert island discs. In my view, the very best compilation of Shirley's songs is on a record called Fountain Of Snow (the title coming from the words of the song Polly Vaughan), released in 1992. Indispensable.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Dancing at Whitsun
From: GUEST,Some bloke
Date: 07 Mar 18 - 06:10 AM

I've always sung it as "pastures to seed"

I'm sure that in the depths of time, I sat writing it down from a tape of Shirley Collins singing it...

Subject: Dancing at Whitsun
From: GUEST,Elizabeth Hovey - A Morris dancing "lady"
Date: 07 Jun 18 - 01:16 AM

I'm grateful to all who have described their relationship to this song and the versions of lyrics.

My Morris team, all women, and in fact the oldest ongoing women's Morris team in North America, has been asked to come to a English-Style Garden's revisiting of a 1918 celebration there of the end of the Great War. (In Old Westbury, Long Island, NY on 6/23). It certainly seems no other song compares with it for fitting this occasion. And we will need a break between dances.

I only heard of Dancing at Whitsun for the first time a couple of weeks back. (It was on our american Memorial Day, which coincides with the fixed holiday that once was Whitsun.)   A more startling coincidence is that our team dances primarily in the style of Ascott-Under-Wychwood, the very town that Jean Redpath identified as losing 80-90% of its male population in the war.

Although I have song in several choirs, and led a song as many as 5 times, I have never, ever had a solo, and it is looking like this performance must be one. I will be grateful for any well-wishes.

If you know someone who would be interested in this weekend honoring the end of WW1 in the greater NYC area, please pass along the details. We'll be dancing our hearts out.

https://www.oldwestburygardens.org/se_gymkhana_062318.htm

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Dancing at Whitsun
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Jun 18 - 02:07 AM

Well, since the song was written for Shirley Collins, I guess one could consider the Shirley Collins version to be definitive - but I think I like several word choices in later versions more - even Shirley Collins made changes in later performances.

Here's the recording from the Shirley Collins box set Within Sound (2002):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJjj9zCMOwc

And here's my transcription of this recording:

WHITSUN DANCE
(words by Austin John Marshall, as recorded by Shirley Collins)

It's fifty-one springtimes since she was a bride,
But still you may see her at each Whitsuntide
In a dress of white linen and ribbons of green,
As green as her memories of loving.

The feet that were nimble tread carefully now,
As gentle a measure as age do allow,
Through groves of white blossom(?), by fields of young corn,
Where once she was pledged to her true love.

The fields they are empty, the hedges grow free--
No young men to tend them, or pastures go see
They've gone where the forest of oak trees before(?)
Has(?) gone to be wasted in battle.

Down from their green farmlands and from their loved ones
Marched husbands and fathers and brothers and sons.
There's a fine roll of honor where the Maypole once was,
And the ladies are dancing at Whitsun.

There's a row of straight houses in these latter days
All covering the downs where the sheep used to graze.
There's a field of red roses (??), a wreath from the Queen
But the ladies remember at Whitsun,
And the ladies are(?) dancing at Whitsun.


Some of these words are hard to understand, but I did the best I could and put question marks where I had trouble. The "red roses" surprised me, but that's what I hear.

Reinhard's Mainly Norfolk says this was a previously unreleased 1968 demo, so maybe it was polished up a bit in later recordings.

---

There's another Shirley Collins recording of the song here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiv6FslfdFI

The lyrics in this version have poppies and several other differences from the demo recording.

---

Please note the post above (click) from Desert Dancer for a 1982 version of the lyrics from the songwriter himself, Austin John Marshall.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Dancing at Whitsun
From: Reinhard
Date: 08 Jun 18 - 12:25 AM

Joe, I hear "poppies", not "roses" in this recording. and "Had gone to be wasted". The rest of question-marked words are correct. I also would write "honour" - it's a very English song.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Dancing at Whitsun
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Jun 18 - 01:15 AM

Yes, and now that I listen to the 1968 recording another day, I can hear "poppies."
Still, I'd say the songwriter's version is most reliable.
Thanks, Reinhard.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Dancing at Whitsun
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Jun 18 - 05:28 AM

You do know that poppies are the symbol of remembrance here, and everyone in public life wears one in the run up to Remembrance Day (nearest Sunday to Nov 11) ?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Dancing at Whitsun
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 08 Jun 18 - 10:16 AM

btw ... Lovely version here by
Rosie Hodgson & Rowan Piggott

https://rosiehodgson.bandcamp.com/track/dancing-at-whitsun

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Dancing at Whitsun
From: Joe Offer
Date: 29 May 21 - 07:13 PM

Whitsun was last Sunday, but this additional last verse written by Anne Coleman is too good to miss. I'm not sure I could sing it without getting weepy.

The last of them's gone now. They say they're at rest
All laid in the kind earth with the bravest and best
But if you go out early on a bright golden morn
You can see them all dancing at Whitsun ...
They're dancing together now at Whitsun.

Emailed to me by Elizabeth Block.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Dancing at Whitsun
From: Rumncoke
Date: 30 May 21 - 04:21 AM

I remember seeing the 'Whit Walking' when I was at home in Barnsley, South Yorkshire.
The Sunday School children in their white clothes would be paraded around the streets in two long lines - though I don't know exactly the
reason for it.

I don't find anything odd in the ladies dancing past white blossom and young corn beside the roads around the village, the best land, but able to see, higher up on the hillsides fields unkept for lack of men to work on them, and maybe horses too - lots of horses were taken from the farms, and from carters and carriers too, which disrupted the lives of many people.
My father's mothers family went 'into town' from the wilds of Derbyshire three times a year and relied on deliveries and collections for the rest of the time.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Dancing at Whitsun
From: vectis
Date: 02 Jun 21 - 12:51 AM

There's a wreath of red poppies, a gift from the Queen

Subject: ADD: The Week Before Easter
From: Joe Offer
Date: 27 Mar 23 - 04:06 PM

The Week Before Easter
Early Christians believed the week before Easter was a good time to be baptized, calling it "White Week" because of the clothing customarily worn between Palm Sunday and Good Friday. The song is also known as "The False Bride" who was, in keeping with the season, "dressed all in white." We took this version in the 1970s from the singing of Robin and Barry Dransfield.


The week before Easter, the morn bright and clear
The sun it shone brightly and keen blowed the air
I went to the forest to gather fine flowers
But the forest would give me no roses.

The roses are red, love, and the leaves they are green
The bushes and the briars are a pleasure to be seen
And the small birds are singing and ranging their notes
All among the wild beasts in the forest.

Now the first time I saw my love, she was dressed all in white
In robes of white linen, fair dazzled my sight
And I thought to myself, well, I might have been that man
But she's going to be wed to another.

And the next time I saw my love, she did in the church stand
With a ring on her finger, and a glove in her hand
And I thought to myself, well, I might have been that man
But she's gone and she's wed to another.

And the parson that married them, aloud he did cry,
All you that forbid it, I'd have you stand nigh
And I thought to myself, I've a good reason why
But I had not the heart to forbid it

And the last time I saw my love, she was sat down to dine
Well, I sat down beside her and I poured out the wine
And I drank to the lassie that should have been mine
But she's gone and she's wed to another.

The men in yon forest, they're asking me
"How many wild strawberries grow in the salt sea?"
And I ask it them back with a tear in my eye
"How many dark ships in the forest?"

Go and dig me a grave, dig it long, wide and deep
Aye, and cover it over with flowers so sweet
So I can lie down there and take a long sleep
And that's the best way to forget her.


http://www.goldenhindmusic.com/lyrics/WEEKBEFO.html

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Dancing at Whitsun
From: Reinhard
Date: 27 Mar 23 - 05:13 PM

Joe, shouldn't this go into the thread Lyr & Tune add: The False Bride (Penguin) ?