Lyr Req: Lucy Gray of Allendale

Subject: Lyr Req: Lucy Gray of Allandale
From: GUEST,John Macdonald
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 10:24 AM

Does anyone have the Lyrics of Lucy Gray of Allandale. It's beautiful love song which I would like to learn. I heard it being sung at Brampton Live a few years ago.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lucy Gray of Allandale
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 06:49 PM

John, I just now saw this thread. Do you recall any lyrics from it, story line, sentiment, etc? The title as is doesn't help much, no offense. Also, there are alternate spellings of words in the title and that poses a difficulty.

Please add any info you can think of, OK?

Thank you.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lucy Gray of Allandale
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 07:32 PM

Try "allendale" instead of "allandale", and google will present you with a number of useful references. Always try alternative spellings if you don't at first succeed.

Unattributed sheet music is at the  The Lester Levy Collection:

Lucy Gray of Allendale

The music (I don't yet know who wrote the words) was written by James Hook (1746-1827) who also composed 'The Lass of Richmond Hill', 'Within a Mile of Edinbro' Town', and around two thousand other songs; largely for the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, where he was long the resident organist.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lucy Gray of Allandale
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 07:44 PM

Excellent advice and results as always, Malcolm.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lucy Gray of Allandale
From: Ferrara
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 12:03 AM

Refresh. This is to remind me tomorrow to transcribe the words if no one has gotten them. Norman and Betty MacDonald sang it on one of their albums but I was awfully busy today. I've been meaning to transcribe and learn it for a long time. As I remember it, their liner notes say they believe it was written about a real person, a lovely young girl who died (of consumption?) at about 18. Is this the song you want? The chorus is,

Lucy Gray of Allendale
Lucy Gray of Allendale,
Fairer than any flower
Is Lucy Gray of Allendale.

Rita F

Subject: Lyr Add: LUCY GREY OF ALLENDALE
From: Ferrara
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 05:40 PM

Lyrics, from the album "Doon the Lang Stairs," Songs of North-East England, by Betty & Norman McDonald:

LUCY GREY OF ALLENDALE R. Anderson

1
Have you seen the blushing rose,
The blooming pink or lily pale?
Fairer than any flower,
Lucy Grey of Allendale!
        CHORUS
        Lucy Grey of Allendale,
        Lucy Grey of Allendale,
        Fairer than any flower,
        Lucy Grey of Allendale!
2
Pensive and sad o'er braes and burn,
Where oft the nymph they used to hail,
The shepherds now are heard to mourn
For Lucy Grey of Allendale
        CHORUS
3
With her to join the rural dance,
Far have I strayed o'er hill and dale
Where, pleased, each rustic stole a glance
At Lucy Grey of Allendale
        CHORUS
4
'Twas underneath yon hawthorn's shade
Where first I told the tender tale,
But now low lays the lovely maid,
Sweet Lucy Grey of Allendale.
        CHORUS
5
Bleak blows the wind,
Keen beats the rain
Upon my cottage in the vale
Long may I mourn, a lonely swain,
For Lucy Grey of Allendale!
        CHORUS

With lots of help from Bill D, I put up an mp3 of one verse at
an mp3 of one verse

From the liner notes: From an early poem by the Cumbrian poet Robert Anderson (1783-1844). Lucy was a great beauty who died of consumption at 17 years of age and was mourned by her sweetheart, James Walton, who is buried by her side at Allendale, Northumberland.

BTW this is a lovely album. Dennis Cook produced it. Contact info for Betty (in England) is 01453-810-980. Norman passed away last year. We miss him very much.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lucy Gray of Allandale
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 05:57 PM

Please note the following from Project Gutenberg:

As the lead-mining industry has decreased, Allendale has turned its attention to other methods of living, and now caters for the army of visitors who, each summer, climb its hills and wander through its woods and lanes, and by its riverside, as did the Allendale maid whose memory is perpetuated in the simple lines of the little poem, "Lucy Gray of Allendale."

"Say, have you seen the blushing rose,
The blooming pink, or lily pale?
Fairer than any flower that blows
Was Lucy Gray of Allendale.

Pensive at eve, down by the burn,
Where oft the maid they used to hail,
The shepherds now are heard to mourn
For Lucy Gray of Allendale."

From here, about 1/5 way down the page.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lucy Gray of Allandale
From: Ferrara
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 09:45 PM

Guest, that e-book link is really neat. Thanks!

John MacDonald, I hope you'll get back to the thread and find what you were looking for. I'm happy to have finally transcribed the lyrics. I occasionally play a zither and this is a perfect song for zither accompaniment.

Rita F

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lucy Gray of Allandale
From: Sorcha
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 10:07 PM

Hey, dammit...I DID try Allendale..got nada.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lucy Gray of Allandale
From: Ferrara
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 10:08 PM

Just corrected a few typos.

Subject: Lyr/Tune Add: LUCY GRAY OF ALLENDALE
From: Artful Codger
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 10:37 PM

The tune from sheet music at the Lester S. Levy collection is entirely different from in the MP3 above. Here's an ABC transcription of the melody and harmony lines. Perhaps Joe/clone will MIDIze them and link them here.

The music includes an introduction and coda; I've marked the sections with embedded text, which should appear above the staff line. The tempo marking is a rough guess.

X:1
T:Lucy Gray of Allendale
S:Lester S. Levy sheet music collection
C:unattributed
M:2/4
L:1/8
Q:"Andantino" 1/4=60
K:D
"Intro." d2 A>G | F3 D | EBAG |GF zE | DGFE | FdcB | Afed | ca^g=g | fefg |
f2 e2 | dFGA | BAdD | F>G TE2 | D4 | "Verse" d2 A>G | {G}F3 D |
EB AG | G3/2A/4G/4F E | F ^G A2 | d3 c | {c}BA Bc | A4 |
Ad fd | dc BA | Ad fd | dc BA | d>e fz | B>c Hd A |
G>A Fd | F>G E2 | D "Coda" ABc | d>ef z/A/ | G>AB z/d/ | F>G TE2 | D4 |]


X:2
T:Lucy Gray of Allendale (accompaniment)
M:2/4
L:1/8
Q:"Andantino"
K:D clef=bass
"Intro." D,2C,2|D,2F,,2|G,,2A,,2|D,2A,,2|B,,3C,|D,2E,2|F,2G,2|A,2B,C|DA,DG,|
A,2A,,2|B,,3A,,|G,,F,, z^G,,|A,,2A,,2|D,A,,D,,2 | "Verse" D,2C,2|D,2F,,2|
G,,2A,,2|D,3C,|B,,2A,,2|E,2E,,2|A,,C,E,G,|
F,A,,D,A,,|E,A,,A,A,,|F,A,,D,A,,|E,A,,G,A,,|F,>E,D,z|G,2HF, F,|
E,>C,D,=G,,|A,,2A,,2|D,2 "Coda" z2|F,>E,D,z/C,/|B,,>A,,G,,z/G,,/|A,,2A,,2|D,A,,D,,2\]


Lucy Gray of Allendale

1. O! have you seen the blushing rose,
The blooming pink or lily pale?
Fairer than any flower that blows
Is Lucy Gray, Lucy Gray, is Lucy Gray of Allendale.

2. Pensive and sad o'er brae and burn,
Where oft the nymph they us'd to hail,
The shepherds now are heard to mourn
For Lucy Gray of Allendale.

3. With her to join the rural dance
Far have I stray'd o'er hill and dale
Where, pleas'd, each rustic stole a glance
At Lucy Gray of Allendale.

4. 'Twas underneath yon hawthorn shade
That first I told my tender tale,
But now low lays the lovely maid
Sweet Lucy Gray of Allendale.

5. Bleak blows the wind and keen beats the rain
Upon my cottage in the vale.
Long may I mourn, a lonely swain,
For Lucy Gray of Allendale.


These words are very close to the McDonald version posted by Ferrara. Note that the Levy version has no chorus, but rather a simple repetition in the last line of each verse; this is only shown in the first verse. I added punctuation and converted f's into s's where appropriate.

The third line of the first verse of Ferrara's copy appears to be truncated.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lucy Gray of Allandale
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 11:49 PM

I wonder if Norman and Betty were unaware of Hook's music, and, having found the lyric as a poem, made up their own tune and chorus?

That's how it sounds. It would be interesting to know where they got that background information, too.

There is a brief, but interesting, note in Keith Gregson's paper 'The Cumberland Bard: An Anniversary Reflection' (Folk Music Journal, London: EFDSS 1983. Vol 4, no 4, 333-365:

"In 1794, being at Vauxhall Gardens for the first time, I felt disgusted with many of the songs written in the mock pastoral Scottish style, and supposing myself capable of producing what might be considered equal or perhaps superior, on the following day I wrote four songs. 'Lucy Gray' was my first attempt and was suggested by hearing a Northumbrian rustic relate the story of two lovers ... These songs were set to music by Mr Hook; and my first poetic effusion was sung by Master Phelps, with great applause."

(Robert Anderson, Cumberland Ballads, 1893, p 4).

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lucy Gray of Allandale
From: Ferrara
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 11:52 PM

Malcolm, I had the same thought, that maybe Norman and Betty set the poem to music.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lucy Gray of Allendale
From: GUEST,Guest: John Macdonald
Date: 20 Sep 06 - 05:58 AM

Thank You all for your help and advice. An impressive response. I agree that it would be great on the Zither. When I heard it played and sung, it was accompanied by Guitar and Appalachian Dulcimer. Now I need to get on and learn the song. Thanks again.

Regards, John Mac.