Lyr Add: Newcastle

Subject: Lyr Add: Newcastle
From: GUEST,Jiggers
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 12:45 PM

I heard the following on Internet Radio a few weeks ago - Frank Hennessy Show (Celtic Heartbeat), BBC Radio 2.

I only knew this as a tune before and was delighted to hear that it was also a song.

It was sung beautifully by Hilary James (Hilary James and Simon Mayor, Laughing with the Moon).


Newcastle

Come you not from Newcastle?
Come you not away?
Oh, have you seen my true love,
Riding on a bonny bay?
   
Why should I not love my love?
Why should not my love love me?
Why should I not speed after him,
Since love to all is free?

The mist's upon the mountain
The valley's washed with dew
Oh we loved and laughed this morning
And tonight we'll laugh anew

Saddle me my pony
My finest gown I'll wear
And I'll take the road to Newcastle
To find my true love there

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Newcastle
From: Joe Offer
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 03:54 PM

Hmmmm. Looks like there's more to learn about this song. This thread (click) says our own Vixen sings a version of "Come You Not from Newcastle" (see this site). This thread (click) mentions that Gwen Polwarth edited a songbook titled Come You Not From Newcastle (1972).
I take it the tune is the one titled "Newcastle" that may be found at the ABC Tunefinder - correct?
This link should give you the tune for "Cam'st thou not from Newcastle?" that Bruce Olson had on his Website as ABC.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Newcastle
From: Compton
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 07:45 PM

I can just about remember The Barry Sisters (geordie girl singers) singing it on "Barn Dance"...a fondly recalled show on TV in the sixties...thanks for lyrics.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Newcastle
From: Tootler
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 07:59 PM

The tune "Newcastle" was first published in 1651 in the original edition of John Playford's "The English Dancing Master". Chances are that the tune goes back before that. There is also a dance that goes with the tune which is still danced today.

The form of the tune played today is little changed from the version in Playford.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Newcastle
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 08:21 PM

That's mostly because it was revived, relatively recently, from Playford; it didn't survive in tradition.

Although the tune can be made to fit 'Cam'st thou not from New-Castle', there is no evidence that they really belong together. See Claude M Simpson, The British Broadside Ballad and Its Music, 82-3; where Simpson comments "The trimeter quatrains are so lyrical that is difficult to accept the forcings necessary in putting them to the dance tune. In all likelihood the surviving tune is not the one which must have had some currency in Elizabethan days and in the early part of the seventeenth century".

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Newcastle
From: GUEST,Jiggers
Date: 08 Oct 06 - 04:55 PM

good work - the tune is on JC's site as Newcastle. Nice tune, nice song.

At the folk class I did we'd go from Newcastle into Portsmouth and that worked very well.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Newcastle
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 09 Oct 06 - 02:56 PM

Like LuaLua? He went from Newcastle to Portsmouth.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Newcastle
From: Vixen
Date: 10 Oct 06 - 02:14 PM

Actually, I don't sing it, because I didn't know it had words! Reynaud and I learned it from Playford, and it's one of our favorite instrumentals. Reynaud does nice things with the tune on the hammered dulcimer and I just quietly strum behind him. I was interested to see the words, and, regardless of whether they're the traditional words, they do scan to the tune as we perform it.

Thanks for posting the link to our site Joe!

And thanks to Jiggers for the lyrics. One of the Ren Faire patrons this weekend recognized the tune and was humming along with us!

V