You'll Catch Your Death Out There: The Banks of the Lee

Sometimes poring through the excellent online resources of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, or Mudcat.org or Wikipedia for information on a folk song yields all sorts of fun and interesting knowledge, either about the historical context of the song, its likely composer or famous performances. Sometimes, as in the case of this week's Dead Lover ballad, all you get is, "yep, that's a song that exists."

"The Banks of the Lee" (Roud v167) dates back to at least 1850, but beyond that has little information on it other than that it's been a popular song for a while. The "v" in its Roud Number indicates that it comes from the database's Broadside Collection, rather than having been recorded in the field by a wandering ethnomusicologist. This indicates that it may have been written by a professional for popular consumption rather than appeared through the magical process of folk music creation (yes, I am well aware that every "traditional" song had to have been initially written by SOMEBODY, but the fact that these songs entered the tradition anonymously and are part of a community tradition is part of their appeal to many of us).

But let's talk about broadsides, or broadsheets for a moment, in the context of music consumption and its parallels to the modern media. In the modern age, we have "singles," songs sold separate from a collection or album, initially on vinyl records, but currently as digital files or even Youtube videos. Usually modern singles are meant to promote an artist or work by being played on the radio with a variety of other music, and as such represent the best, or at least catchiest, song a musician currently has to offer.

Back in the days before recorded music, people still wanted to hear new songs and craved variety just as modern listeners do today, but as the phonograph didn't show up till the late 1800s, human beings just spent most of their history passing stuff along by ear, which probably meant a lot of songs had the same second verse of "nurr, nurr nurrr, hmmm, hmmmm, my love something-something la la."  (Joking aside, you will notice that certain phrases, metaphors and rhymes show up over and over, this is because it makes orally transmitted songs easier to remember).

At some point writing became a thing, and early forms of sheet music notation started showing up about 4,000 years ago. Through the Middle Ages music could be written down and shared across time and distance, but it had to by copied by hand, which meant a lot of time and labor and it was limited to mostly the church, the wealthy and professional composers. Then by the mid 1500s the printing press made distributing all sorts of writing more viable, including the words and music of popular songs. The cheapest way to print a document of any sort was a "broadsheet" or "broadside," which we in modern terms might call a "flyer," a single sheet of paper, printed on one side.

Songs printed on broadsides were sold cheaply and in large numbers, and spread songs to the masses. Some of them had musical notation with the melody of the song included, but back then a lot of folks could barely read the words, let alone musical notation. So the easiest way to make your song catch on was to set it to the tune of a traditional or popular song, and let people know you'd just written new words to a melody they already knew (in modern times, people call this "filk music," and think they're very clever for coming up with the idea). This accounts for the many, many folk songs that sound just like other folk songs but with different words.

Of course, sometimes, this leads to frustration for scholars and would-be performers, as the original song may be lost to history, so the little note at the bottom of the broadside that reads, "sung to the tune of..." is completely unhelpful. In these cases modern performers are free to set the words to whatever melody they feel like.

The Banks of the Lee was one of these songs likely written for a broadside. It did manage to catch on and has been performed by singers pretty consistently up to the present day. It tells the tale of two lovers along the River Lee in County Cork, Ireland (we can tell it's meant to be the Lee in Ireland not the River Lea near London because of multiple mentions of "wild Irish flowers"). It's not clear what the narrator's profession is, but in any case he travels away from his beloved Mary across the sea for a time, leaving her with the warning not to "stay out too late on the moorlands."

When he comes back, she's dead. It's not explicitly stated what kills her (werewolves?), but the fact that his warning not to stay out on the moors is included in the song suggests that the exposure to the elements on the cold, damp moor led to an illness that carried her off (I mean, she could have been eaten by werewolves, that would be a pretty good reason to stay off the moors at night). He then hangs out at her grave bringing her flowers.

It's a pretty sentimental song, almost a bit too sappy, especially in rhyming "dearly" with "sincerely," but it's redeemed a little bit with the hint of weather and wildness implied in spending a night on the moorlands. It's also sometimes sung slowly and excessively sentimentally, which I'm hoping to avoid in my version. I may not go full on alt-rock like Cordelia's Dad did in their version, but I plan on giving mine a little more bounce.