PRAYER TO THE YEAR (Overs)

 

Black is the nightshade and the feast of the crow

Eight is the secret that we never will know

And all is a tangle of river and root

East of the sunlight and west of the moon

 

Colours are brimstone, oak ash and thorn

Here in the valley with the ripening corn

A walk with the gorse flower is always in bloom

East of the sunlight and west of the moon

 

Blackthorn the winter, frost in the Spring

This year the rains came on a gatekeeper’s wing

Scarlet the garland, a prayer to the year

When summer is hiding in an old man’s beard

 

Gold is a promise in the sparkling flame

Copper the bracken sets the forest ablaze

Silver the birch tree will whisper a tune

East of the sunlight and west of the moon

​​

​

PATTERNS (Overs)

 

The wrinkle of a frown

I love to watch him sleeping

As the morning comes around

Night time staggers into day

 

Rain will fall

The clouds have a heavy heart

Weeping on us all

A storm to rip the world apart

 

Flowing flowing the flowing of the tide

Falling falling falling from your mind

 

Shadows walk into the sun

Rainbows riding on the wall

Patterns of our lives, the beauty of it all

 

secrets in a drawer

enough words to build a mountain

till we are both alone

reaching petals to the sky

 

Leaves will fall

The trees have a heavy heart

Shivers on the breeze 

A sorrow of the letting go

 

Flowing flowing the flowing of the tide

Falling falling falling from your mind

 

Shadows walk into the sun

Rainbows riding on the wall

Patterns of our lives, the beauty of it all

​

​​

CRUEL SISTER (traditional, arr Overs, MacColl, Nicholls, Tomlins) 

 

There lived a lady by the North Sea shore
Two daughters were the babes she bore
As one grew warmer than the sun 
Cold as clay grew the elder one

Oh sister will you go with me
To watch the ships sail on the sea?
She took her sister by the hand
And led her down to the North Sea strand

And as they stood on the windy shore
Lay the bent to the bonnie broom
The cold girl threw her sister o’er
Fa la la la la la la la la la

Sometimes she sank, sometimes she swam
Lay the bent to the bonnie broom
Crying, "Sister, reach to me your hand"
Fa la la la la la la la la la

 

Oh sister, sister let me live
And all that's mine I'll surely give
Your own true love that I'll have and more
But thou shalt never come ashore

And there she floated like a swan
Lay the bent to the bonnie broom
The salt sea bore her body on
Fa la la la la la la la la la

​

​

THE BRAMBLE BRIAR (traditional, arr Overs)

PALE MOON  (trad/Overs)

 

In Birling Gap lived a rich merchant

Who had two sons and one daughter dear

By day and night they were contriving

To fill their sister’s heart with fear

  

One night, one night of restless slumber

One brother rose up from his bed

He heard a servant court their sister

He heard they had a mind to wed

 

Dear brothers, brothers why do you whisper

And what’s become of that serving man?

We’ve lost him where he’s been a hunting

We’ve lost him where he’ll never be found

 

Don’t weep for me my own dear jewel

And don’t you mourn and don’t you cry

Go o’er the hills and lofty mountains

And in the bramble briar my body you’ll find

 

Dear sister, sister why do you whisper

And won’t you tell us where you’ve been

Stand up, stand up you are deceitful

My love and me you both have slain

 

Now to avoid all shame and anger

These brothers sailed across the waves

The wind did blow and the storm did thunder

And the raging sea did prove their grave

 

 

Pale moon doth rain, red moon doth blow

White moon doth neither rain nor snow

​

​

SNOW MOON (Overs/Tomlins/Tusser)

 

Sowe peason and beanes in the wane of the moon

Who soweth them sooner he soweth too soone

That they with the planet may rest and arise

And flourish with bearing most plentiful wise

 

I talk with the moon and the moon knows my heart

When I was a young child I wished on a star

I wish we could all take a rest and arise

With courage enough to be gentle of mind

 

Moonlight inspires the billowing tide

To move with a power that won’t be denied

Murmuring wings in the dying of the sun

The full snow moon has come

​​

​

FAIR MAID IS A LILY O (traditional, arr Overs, MacColl, Nicholls, Tomlins)

 

I put my hand all on her toe

Fair maid is a lily O

I put my hand all on her toe

She says to me do you want to go?

 

Come to me quietly

Do not do no injury

Gently Johnny my jingalo

 

I put my hand all on her knee

She says to me do you want to see?

 

I put my hand all on her thigh

She says to me do you want to try?

 

I put my hand all on her belly

She says to me do you want to fill’ee?

 

I put my hand all on her breast

She says to me do you want to kiss?

​

​​

ALLEYWAYS (Overs)

 

Jumping the cracks in the pavement for luck

The alleyways, the alleyways

Dreaming the dreams that the spider is spinning

Weaving the endings with webs of beginning

In the alleyways. the alleyways

Feels like home Feels like home

 

The big boys will get into trouble again

Running wild

Hearing his voice in old spice and tobacco

drawing my name with a stick in the mud by the river

In the alleyways, the alleyways

Feels like home Feels like home

 

Yesterday upon the stair,

I met a man who wasn’t there

 

Sometimes it seems I live all of my life

In the alleyways

Watching a ghost in the cracks of the ceiling

Everyone shouting but no-one is listening

In the alleyways, the alleyways

Feels like home, feels like home

 

He wasn’t there again today

Oh how I wish he’d go away

​

​​

BAD GIRL (traditional, arr Overs, MacColl, Nicholls, Tomlins)

 

One morning, one morning, one morning in May
I met this young lady wrapped up in white linen,
All dressed in white linen, cold as the clay.

​

When I was a young girl, I used to seek pleasure,
When I was a young girl, I used to drink ale.
Right out of an ale house down into the jailhouse,
Right out of the barroom down to my grave.

​

Come mama, come papa, and sit you down by me,
Sit you down by me and pity my case.
For my poor head is aching, my poor heart is breaking
I am a poor young girl and I know I’ve done wrong.

​

Send for the preacher to come and pray for me
Send for the doctor to heal up my wounds
For my poor head is aching, my sad heart is breaking,
My body’s salivated and I know I must die.

​

One morning, one morning, one morning in May
I met this young lady wrapped up in white linen,
All dressed in white linen, cold as the clay.

​​

​

FAIRY CHARM (trad/Overs)

​

You had to do it on a moonlight night when the pollen was just ripe on the catkins… She stood a few yards away in a woodland clearing with two small branches in her hands. I saw the gold dust flying from the catkins as she waved them gently, and she sang a song over and over…

 

Come in the stillness

Come in the night

Come soon, come soon

And bring delight

Beckoning left hand and right

Come now, come now

Ah come tonight

​

​

YELLOW HORNED POPPY (Overs)

​

Always scared that the water

Might drown me, surround me

I travel this place to the pebbles and salt

and the buttery gold of the yellow horned poppy

 

Holiday smile as the people go home

Always a wonder to be here alone

And we rise with the river we rise

 

Skylark singing a story

Sunny side up in the morning

Prophecy heard in a murmuring bird

The wing of a goose and the creep of the nettle

 

Sky the fruit of a blackberry wine

Water is cold but I know I’m alive

 

And I thought I see you

Moving in the darkness

A thorn in the bushes

Rumour in the rushes

We rise with the river we rise

 

Buried so deep in the people

The bell, the steeple

Woven with rhythms and branches of hawthorn

A dance in the lane and a May making merry

 

Snow and winter is here to play

The bells ring for New Year’s Day

We rise with the river we rise

​​

 

HONEYSUCKLE ON THE VINE (Overs)

 

Oh mother

Won’t you sing a lullaby

When you hear the children cry

Hearts entwine

Honeysuckle on the vine

 

Oh sister

Won’t you sing a song of hope for me

I ache to hear the melody

Hearts entwine

Honeysuckle on the vine

 

Old woman

can you bear the winter’s frost

And all the loves that you have lost

My mother’s words come back to me

We all come in and go alone

But hearts entwine

Honeysuckle on the vine

​

​

NIGHTJAR (Overs)

 

Lullaby my little night bird

Bring your message from the dead

In the stillness light a candle

In the hanging of the moon

​

​

​

​