June Tabor, “bridget o’Malley,
from: Cologne Folk Festival, 1990
“Oh Bridget O’Mally, you’ve left my heart shaken
With a hopeless desolation I’d have you to know
It’s the wonders of admiration your quiet face has taken
And your beauty will haunt me wherever I go
The white moon above the pale sands
The pale stars above the thorn tree
Are cold beside my darling but no purer than she
I gaze upon the cold mon
’Til the stars drown in the warm sea
And the bright eyes of my darling are never on me
My Sunday is weary, My Sunday it is grey now
My heart is a cold thing, my heart is a stone
All joy is dead in me, my life has gone away now
Another has taken my love for his own
The day it is approaching when we were to be married
And it’s rather I would die than live only to grieve
Oh meet me my darling ere the sun sets on the the barley
And I’ll meet you there on the road to Drunslee
With a hopeless desolation I’d have you to know
IT’s the wonders of admiration your quiet face has taken
And your beauty will haunt me wherever I go”
““I have no musical education whatsoever...I just learned the songs and copied the phrasing by playing those records ad nauseam, trying out both [Anne Briggs and Belle Stewart] singers’ styles. Then I tried putting the two together, and missing a few bits out – and that’s approximately what I’ve been doing ever since. It’s also why I don’t do singing workshops, because that’s about as much as I can tell anyone.””