What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST,Ash
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 05:25 PM

Personally, Ilove "Oor Hamlet", but I'm sure I heard him sing a song with June Tabor about hunting wrens. Has anyone else heard this?

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 06:06 PM

Ash,

Are you sure that you're not confusing June Tabor with Maddy Prior?

Martin recorded Hunting the Wren during his second stint in Steeleye Span.

To my knowledge, he's never recorded with June Tabor.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: RolyH
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 06:19 PM

Martin Carthy and June Tabor sang 'Hunting the Cutty Wren' on Les Barkers 'Oranges and Lemmings' album.

("Made popular by the late 'Stupid' Sedgewick, the last of the very thin Barnoldswick wren hunters")

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 06:36 PM

Thanks for the clarification, RolyH

And to get back to the original question, furthur favourites include 'Dominion of the Sword' and the version of 'The Outlandish Knight' on Shearwater.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 23 Aug 04 - 12:50 AM

Stars in Your Crown is good, [really nice],
he sings it with his wife [mrs carthy], and his daughter called elixa.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: MBSLynne
Date: 23 Aug 04 - 05:45 AM

Old John and Famous Flower of serving men

Love Lynne

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Sooz
Date: 23 Aug 04 - 06:23 AM

jOhn, your spelling has improved no end since you started this thread!

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Bagpuss
Date: 23 Aug 04 - 07:27 AM

Sovay and possibly Lord Franklin

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST,Chris B (Born Again Scouser)
Date: 23 Aug 04 - 08:54 AM

Herga Kitty

I see someone's resuscitated this thread so I thought I'd have another look.

Yes, murder/rape etc ballads are 'gut-wrenching' but then so is Saturday night in the casualty unit at my local hospital. As it happens, I agree that 'Prince Heathen' is a very powerful song in the same way that 'Straw Dogs' is a very powerful film, and like that film the song is by no means without artistic merit. Perhaps it's unfair to pick on it too much.

I do know, however, that I played it to an old girlfriend several years ago with the usual 'You've GOT to hear this song' preamble. She didn't like it much. About a year later she told me she had been raped while she was working abroad so perhaps it was understandable that she didn't quite get the appeal.

OK, you can't allow for everyone's sensibilities and you shouldn't try or you'd never create anything. But, you know, I used to LOVE Steeleye Span in the 70's. Then after they broke up I sort of forgot about them (as you do if you have a life) until another old girlfriend (don't ask) bought me a then-new album by them which featured yet another grisly ballad about babies being murdered. By 1989 I couldn't quite bring myself to treat this as innocent entertainment in the same way I could when I was a teenager and even more ignorant than I am now.

I realise we're getting away from the 'What's you favourite song' thing but we've all grown up (if that's the right word) with this music. Maybe it doesn't do any harm to reflect on what it means to us now by comparison with what it might have meant to us 30 years ago.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST,Johannes Schiefner
Date: 13 Sep 04 - 11:29 AM

Hello John P and all,

the 4 CD Box you mention, what is the exact title of this and on which label did it appear?

Johannes Schiefner

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 13 Sep 04 - 11:52 AM

Carthy Chronicles on Free Reed.

My favourite today is Famous Flower of Serving Men as re-recorded on his new release Angels. Tomorrow, something else...

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST,Stephen
Date: 13 Sep 04 - 12:55 PM

Geordie is my all time favourite (the original version... I've never much cared for the new version he released a couple of years back)... Also, The Trees They Do Grow High, Sovay (the Swarb versions, not with Brass Monkey - not that they're not very good), Lord Franklin, Polly on the Shore, Streets of Forbes... the list could go on and on and on!

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: *Laura*
Date: 13 Sep 04 - 04:40 PM

I love the way in Prince Heathen he says the word "dog" - he really spits it out, it's really powerful. And I like The Foggy Dew

xLx

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: English Jon
Date: 14 Sep 04 - 12:22 PM

currently "King Knapperty"....but hey, Carthy is a way of life in this house!

Jon

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Teresa
Date: 14 Sep 04 - 12:51 PM

I love everything of his, and have loved seeing him perform live.

I want a recording of "Hamlet" ... did he record it? I've seen him perform it several times. For anyone who doesn't know ... a hilarious summary of the play that will put any study guide to shame!

T

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Eric the Streetsinger
Date: 14 Sep 04 - 01:12 PM

Carthy's version of "The Great Valerio" on the album "Beat The Retreat"
(Richard Thompson tribute!) with Maddy Prior on vocal is hard to beat-
he plays that wonderfully eerie guitar piece at the end of it which is just chilling! I'm also partial to "Skewbald", and the very odd and upbeat version of "John Barleycorn" he recorded with Steeleye Span!

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Little Robyn
Date: 15 Sep 04 - 08:19 AM

The words for Oor Hamlet are in the DT.
Robyn

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 15 Sep 04 - 09:48 AM

"Stairway to heaven" Oh..... I'll get my coat.....

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST,eliza c
Date: 15 Sep 04 - 09:54 AM

Chris B, surely the point of songs like Prince Heathen is to stop people from behaving the way they do in the song? I am not sure that it's particularly "grown-up" to ignore issues of human personal politics-and I am certain that MC doesn't sing this song in the spirit of innocent entertainment.
Maybe we don't need these songs to remind us how terribly people can behave as we now have the news on every day showing us full in the face; or maybe we need them more than ever. As the news washes over us in the background, perhaps the jolt we feel having something with that important message on the stereo is necessary? It's a message that has been passed down in the form of this song through generations-shouldn't we listen to that advice?
Sometimes difficult things can be said in music that you don't have the platform to say elsewhere-which is where, incidentally, I have no problem with rap music.
Sorry if latching on to this part of the discussion isn't appropriate, all. I have wondered about this in the past.
cheers,
x ec

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Reinhard
Date: 18 Sep 04 - 04:12 AM

Teresa, a live recording of Oor Hamlet is on the Carthy Chronicles box set.

And, to continue the thread, my favourite Martin Carthy song is (nearly always) the one I heard last. Though, his recent re-recording of Famous Flower of Serving Men is absolutely breathtaking.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Sep 04 - 05:31 AM

I'm sure I heard Martin Carthy sing a version of Chris While's 'Circle Round the Sun' here in Auckland. Does anyone else remember that or was I just dreaming?

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST,Eisbaer
Date: 18 Sep 04 - 09:56 PM

John Barleycorn!

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Teresa
Date: 18 Sep 04 - 11:27 PM

Thanks, Reinhard.

T

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 01:50 AM

Got it, eliza! Yes, I too ask meself the same question most days... Is this song cathartic? Should I be singing only 'feel good' songs to the warm fuzzy audiences that long to smile and hum those sweet memories of yesteryear... Sure, I do love the purely positive songs... and those that wind up reality checks and melodrama to the feverish breaking point ... and then end with happy ever after...

The message is in the medium... i guess... It's just so complex, this simple thing called music...

And while I keep learning all manner of songs that relate the hard won morals of previous ages... I sometimes need to give 'em a break and get 'light' for a while. It goes both ways.

These days, people seem to be overwhelmed with fighting... and the news and information glut is too large of a glass to drink in one sitting (maybe if it was something good for us it'd be different)... so we're shutting down... turning off anything that doesn't inspire tangable hope we can sink our teeth into...

This too shall pass... and the pendulum just keeps swinging. But I daresay we have much to learn from that ol' pendulum... For healing must occur, and the feedback from a moved, insipred responsive audience is sometimes our only guide through the darkness.

May the swinging lantern always lead you safely... home.
ttr

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 02:48 PM

Paul Downes once told me he had asked MC(his hero)why he had recorded a Glbert O Sullivan song

MC poked him in the chest and said because its a good song

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST,Richard
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 05:26 PM

I didn't know he wrote any but I suppose you mean 'What's your favourite song sung by Martin Carthy'

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 05:44 PM

I didn't know he wrote any

MC has written several extremely powerful songs. Those which spring immediately to mind are A Question of Sport and Dominion of the Sword. There are many more which he has, in effect, reconstructed from fragments, probably the best known of these are Famous Flower of Serving Men and Brown Adam.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST,XGK guest
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 03:21 PM

My own favourite is a song called Streets of Forbes so much I name my son after the character sung about
If I can pick another John Barleycorn

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST,Lou
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 05:08 PM

I love the songs that tell a defined story...where can I find the one about the Old Blind Harper? I'd love to play that to my daughter. Saw Martin in Oxford 10+ years ago - ground-breaking stuff for me with my then Led Zep obsession. I love to chase the story on through the ages - listen to Carthy's Skewbald and Leadbelly's Skewball and you'll see what I mean...

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: s6k
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 10:30 AM

if you ask me, MARTIN CARTHY (debut album) is without doubt his best album.

it would be my top 10 of all time, and the album surely contans his best songs.

you need only listen to 'high germany', 'the trees they do grow high' and 'the wind that shakes the barley' to know this is a classic.

j0hn you MUST get Martin Carthy.... by some bloke... forgot his name now.

amazing

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST,Lou
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 05:09 PM

And thinking about it, albeit subconsiously I named my daughter Eleanor (and she is fair!) as opposed to sweet William if it'd been a boy, so Famous Flower of serving men it is then...

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST,Chris B (Born Again Scouser)
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 11:31 AM

Dear Eliza,

I don't disagree with anything you say. However, I think a song's content and context can have a different meaning at different times. I don't want to bash 'Prince Heathen' (at least, not the song) but, well...

For instance, an old mate of mine, Noel Murphy, used to do very well for himself in the 60s largely singing old Irish rebel songs to English folk audiences, including audiences of British squaddies who loved all of that stuff at the time. After 1969, many of those old songs didn't come over as as quaint or jolly as they did before. Not that they were any the lesser as songs, but the context had changed and they had a different meaning for many audiences by the end of the 70s.

Similarly, I remember Karl Dallas describing Mr. Fox's music as 'X Certificate Folk', likening them to old Hammer movies (mind you , I always thought he was a twat). A lot of the blood-and-guts ballads that were recorded in the late 60s - early 70s (many of which were effectively re-composed and made more graphic and explicit by the singers) played, I'm sure, on the same appeal. I first heard Martin singing 'Prince Heathen' at Cambridge in 1974 and for each person who took away a message about the obscenity of male violence to women there were probably at least a few who got a kick out of the song's description of the same thing. Nowadays the ratios would probably (hopefully) be reversed.

However, to return to the original question, I heard Martin sing a lovely song last year by Sidney Carter about a young squaddie who falls for a Greek girl after World War 2. It put me in mind of an old mate of mine (and a lifelong socialist) who was in Greece after the war and who loved the country and the people but never was able to come to terms with the fact that they were there to crush the Greek partisans and restore the King of Greece to the throne - and they knew that the people knew it. This mate of mine subsequently became a teacher of Jazz singing and as far as I know he's still at it.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 23 Feb 07 - 10:01 PM

No one mentioned ... To the begging I will go? My absolute favorite and my introduction to Mr. Carthy lo these many years back. I used to be active in the Church (C of E - high Anglican)---used to party all night and turn up to teach Sunday school on Sunday ams. The priest introduced me to Martin Carthy and I can still remember how I felt the first time I heard this song......

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: melodeonboy
Date: 24 Feb 07 - 05:31 AM

The Bedmaking. I also love his version of Tom of Oxford, but as it's a tune it don't count!

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 24 Feb 07 - 05:41 AM

Hard Cheese of Old England, Heartbreak Hotel.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 24 Feb 07 - 05:48 AM

Back in '04 s6k wrote:

"if you ask me, MARTIN CARTHY (debut album) is without doubt his best album."

I agree with that and feel that Mr Carthy's earlier work is his best. I'm not sure he'd be too pleased to hear that but those first two albums packed one hell of a punch!

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST,Steve_Cooperator
Date: 24 Feb 07 - 08:32 AM

Its a bit like asking someone who has just come back from the New Forest !"What was your favourite tree?"

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Feb 07 - 03:29 PM

The Death of Young Andrew and Stewbald. Although I own most all of his early works, I think Martin's music became more interesting after he began using open tunings. God bless him- I hope he can keep playing and singing forever.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: david from cleckhuddisfax
Date: 24 Feb 07 - 05:31 PM

Sorry cant get my head round any of his material even though there seems to be an overarching almost obseqious hero worship going on here i,m afraid that defining a favourite from his material is for me impossible .Perhaps Mr carthy is a love him or hate him figure good guitar yes but singing well frankly no .No passion no feeling ne verve just drone and bore with more of the same yawn ....

Standing by for flack .....build thr barricades Anon

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Alec
Date: 25 Feb 07 - 01:50 AM

If absolutely pushed I would opt for "Byker Hill" but I was very taken with Steve Cooperator's observation about trees and the New Forest.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST,Terry McDonald
Date: 25 Feb 07 - 03:49 AM

Like many other people, for me it's The Famous Flower of Serving Men.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: GUEST,English Jon
Date: 25 Feb 07 - 08:50 AM

blimey...how old is this thread?

I can't agree that Martin's singing is unfeeling/passionless - I feel he subtly emotes the stories he sings - it's not showy singing, but it is deeply controlled. Personally, I think he'll be remembered as a singer long after people have forgotten about his remarkable guitar playing.

No one has mentioned the new album with Swarb "Straws in the wind" - Reworkings of stuff from the Penguin book, and to my mind, one of the best yet. "The Ship in Distress" is remarkable - a great song anyway, but such a brooding, ominous arrangement.

I spent a very long time looking for a guitar that sounds like Martin's 000-18 on the recording of "Byker Hill" (the live one with Swarb in that guitar shop in the states) - Finally found an old 0-18 that's seen a bit of life and it's pretty close (although I have had to spend a long time re-learning how to play with a thumb pick), so I guess that particular track probably cost me more money that any of his other recordings. (Don't ask about my collection of Patrick Bouffard CDs)

Was his earlier work better? hard to say - I've been following him for years now, since seeing him at the impressionable age of 16 in 1992 - half a lifetime ago, in fact. He's always struck me as being a considerable nose ahead of anyone else in the field of guitar accompanied English folk song (with the possible exception of Nic Jones), and to my ear is a far more musical performer than say, Martin Simpson (arguably a superior guitarist). I have found him to be a constant inspiration - every time I try to figure something out, he's already done it first...

for example - I wanted to find a way to play diatonic melodeon tunes on guitar...so, I tuned the top and middle pairs of strings a major second apart (1 string each for push notes and pull notes) with the bottom pair tuned to bass notes..result DADEAB... oh look - Carthy has been playing in CGCDGA for years - the same intervals but a tone lower.

There is SO much in that man's playing. How on earth do you pick a favourite?

Jon

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Martin Carthy song?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 25 Feb 07 - 01:27 PM

No one's mentioned Bill Norrie. The line "once I was full of this boy as the plum is of the stone..." gets me every time.

Famous Famous Flower and Sovay...well, goes without saying.