well met, well met, my own true love

[ontology]

We interrupt regular programming to bring you a lot of versions of Banui's favourite traditional ballad ever.

Folk cover blog Cover Lay Down recently posted an entry all about 'The House Carpenter'. (Recently as in 'yesterday', which makes my impulsive spur-of-the-moment search for "house carpenter" on the Hype Machine this afternoon really bedimmed serendipitous, if you ask me.) 'The House Carpenter', which also goes by 'Demon Lover', is, as I mentioned, my very favourite traditional ballad, the only one I have ever a) sung in public, and b) written a short story based upon. (By 'written', I mean 'I wrote a bit of it a year ago and have been attempting to hammer it into shape ever since', but I really, really want to finish it. I just need to get the right voice. I'm contemplating studying a bit of Scots  dialect, as it's a Scottish ballad originally, and I love the weird rhythm of an English with its idioms and structure heavily informed by another language.The first draft is disgustingly pretentious and I want to beat it with sticks.)

So, not only do they post the Nickel Creek and Tim O'Brien (with Karan Casey!) versions I've got, but there's a 1930s field recording, a version by Mick McAuley of Solas (!!! one of my favourite male vocalists, and HURRAH SOLAS MEMBERS ALL OF YOU ARE MADE OF WIN) that brings to mind a more acoustic version of 'Clothes of Sand' which he sung on Solas' "rock album" The Edge of Silence, Natalie Merchant's version which starts with a banjo and ends up sounding like a cross between the acoustic neo-folk of Crooked Still or Nickel Creek with the rockier neo-folk of Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention, and an odd, spare, spooky version by a band called The Tami Show, which calls to mind the creaking of ships and the underwater keening of ghosts. (If you download nothing else, download that one. Gorblimey.)

P.S.: If anyone's got versions of this ballad that aren't in this blog post, I would love to have them.

* * *

In other news, I was terrifically sick all day, skipped my guitar lesson, and stayed in bed. Around five I think the fever -- I seem to have been wrestling with some sort of low-grade flu -- broke, and then the headache that had been looming over me like a thundercloud all day finally decided to let its full force on me, so I took some Excedrin and lay down in the dark with my shiny new House Carpenter playlist. Oh ballads of death and despair, how you cheer me.

Comments

[lady-moriel.livejournal.com]

Dude. Why did I not know about the Hype Machine before?? Now I won't get any work done when I get back to the office on Friday. >_< (Is it not as bad if I get my illegal music from music blogs?) So yeah, gonna download those House Carpenter songs, or at least the Tami Show one, on Friday, along with...a lot of other stuff, probably.

Hope you get better soon. *snuggles*

[faeriemaiden.livejournal.com]

The best thing about the Hype Machine is that if there's someone you want to check out, you type in their name, and -- voila! (Usually.)

Did get better! The snuggling worked! :) I was bedridden most of Monday, the fever broke around the time the sun was setting, and by Tuesday I was almost able to eat normal things. ♥

[boyhowdy25.livejournal.com]

Hey, glad you liked the post. That Tami Show cover is my favorite, too; your description beats mine to a pulp.

If you find any decent versions of this song I didn't post, I'd love to have them, too. I do a semi-regular feature called (Re)Covered in which I post late additions to previous posts; another great version of House Carpenter (or three) would be perfect.

- Boyhowdy (the "they" of Cover Lay Down)

[faeriemaiden.livejournal.com]

Why hullo there! :)

I'm trying to locate some of the other versions (Steeleye Span! Dylan!) but haven't had any luck so far. And may I tell you how much I am enjoying reading your blog? Seeing people reinvent songs is one of my favourite things, and discovering new music is another!

[boyhowdy25.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you are enjoying the blog, and hope that the recent turn towards more popfolk has been okay for you and the other readers you've sent my way. I plan to return to the full breadth of folk possibility soon, I swear, just after the entry I'm finishing up this evening.

As for House Carpenter: Since I posted the original entry, I've had a fan of the blog send along the Dylan cover, and I just today found a Pentangle album at the local library that claims to have another version of the song on it (the album is 1969's Basket of Light, if that rings a bell).

I've already got an odd post going up for this sunday, and am expecting a few things in the mail over the next few days which will probably drive subsequent posts; I'm also determined to post a few more features on actual folk ARTISTS over the next few weeks. But eventually, I'll be putting up another (Re)Covered entry as things fall through the cracks, and I'll put whatever I've found by then.

Wanna have some fun? How about I send you the tracks via email, you write a sentence about each, and I'll use those sentences as a "guest post" for that future (Re)Covered entry? And in the meanwhile, you can keep trying to track down other versions for that same post?

If you're interested, email me at boyhowdy [at] gmail [dot] com, and I'll send the tracks...assuming the Pentangle one isn't too scratched to play, of course (library tracks can be iffy).

[faeriemaiden.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that'd be lovely (and v. exciting!). I'm looking for the Steeleye Span version in particular myself, as it was Steeleye Span that got me interested in traditional folk music (I was six; "The Prickly Bush" and "All Around My Hat" were my favourite songs; it is really all my father's fault and why I can't have conversations about music with most of my peers :p). I shall email you, then.

[take-a-sadsong.livejournal.com]

hi. -raises hand- I searched for the song on Yahoo! Music and found what appears to be 30+ different versions. I've never heard of the song, but I just read the lyrics, it's really beautiful. :)

I'm pretty sure you'd know that Bob Dylan and Joan Baez both covered the song (on seperate occasions, both of them live. I'm listening to Zimmerman's one right now. it's made of awesome.) OHOH. YOU PROBABLY HAVEN'T HEARD OF IT BECAUSE IT'S ON A BOOTLET CD. OMG. MADE OF WIN, FO SHO.

dude. you *have to* get Bob Dylan's cover of this song. it's awesome, and I'm not even a fan of it. aren't I driving you insane? :P


Here's a few names of artists that covered said ballad (or, at least, wrote and recorded a song with the same title), all of which are foreign to me: Laura Gilbert, Pete Seeger, Pentangle, Oakley Hall, Shelby Flint, Jean Ritchie, Clarence Ashley, and a few others that have boring names. :) (I saw Mick McAuley on the list!)

AH! I'm listening to Joan Baez's version. <333333 her voice is so beautiful. :)

I have a feeling you've heard of these before, but, if not, go find them!! :D

[faeriemaiden.livejournal.com]

Man, the Yahoo music ones aren't working for me. I'm only getting thirty-second clips and they won't play. Hmph. But JOAN BAEZ YAY. I didn't know she did a version! I did know about Dylan's cos my dad's got it on a tape somewhere but I've never heard it. (I think that was how he learnt the ballad. He told me he wrote Some Big Highschool Paper on ballads and I think The House Carpenter was one of the ones he used.)

I need to go find proper versions of these now. And finish my short story. Someday. Maybe.

[charismitaine.livejournal.com]

Oh my stars and saints, thank you a million zillion times for linking to that blog! I had no idea it existed and I just spent hours (and ignored Changing Rooms on BBCAmerica) sprinting headlong through old posts and downloading masses of songs, and then turning it into an LJ feed so that I can subscribe to it. *in love and wildly enthusiastic with first blush of young affection*

I'm also very pleased to actually hear House Carpenter, which I've only read before as Daemon Lover. It's not the demon lover ballad I'm most familiar with, though--the one I always think of first is The Riddling Knight. I have no idea what kind of tune it as, but I've read it as a poem all of my life.

[faeriemaiden.livejournal.com]

Oh, lovely, now see I've gone and subscribed to the feed, too, because I shall always always forget to check otherwise. Folk music = win. Discovering new music = even more win. :D