Added: 4 years ago
From: olimandolin
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  • 1:38 my uncle with the beard :D just love this song aswell.

  • This is absolutely bloody amazing. Love hearing folk of different cultures mingling with each other. What a brilliant sound.

  • Amazing Just love it.

  • Awesome

  • 'The Imagined Village' is that not the title of a book written by the left wing author Georgina Boyes - she who with a gaggle of Marxists attacked Cecil Sharp and his work? But then she was only following the lead of Troskyite SWP member David Harker and supported by likes of Eric Hobsbawn - he who admitted in a BBC interview that the deaths of 15 - 20 million people would have been justified if the Soviet Union had achieved its 'radiant tomorrow' - Hmmm interesting.

  • @Prydwen3 what?

  • its the smell of where we all grew up

    Mr Spud

  • We listened to this song in my wind ensemble class today.... It's awesome!!!!

  • i met johnnie (the guy on the drum) at the eden project! hes so nice

  • ran across this quite by chance...

    ...awesome

    folk's a long way from dead, not when you've got Aussies like Jeff Lang leaning more toward folk than blues these days...

  • @DioIsTheBest I think it's kinda cool.

  • @fractuss I agree :p i only said it sucks so i could piss off a friend xD

  • Johnny Kalsi - woop! 

  • I like this version but I would LOVE for someone to upload the Martin Carthy's solo version...it is superb.

  • i saw the mystro martin carthy at the croydon folk club on april18th.what can i say but abbs fantastic.he sighed my copy of the martin carthy chronicles box set.a fantastic singer and guitar player and a wonderfull man to talk to.thank you martin.miss carthy get better soon.

  • My god she can move for a big girl......Can anyone give me the answer to the name of a Ex Teacher from the 60's died in the 80's i think and was on BBC4 a wile back.The only one song remembered was something to do with a ape

  • @HELLO2YOU3 Jake Thackeray. Also a genius!

  • My god she can move for a big girl......

  • Great stuff

  • Going along to the Cecil Sharp gig on the 1st March, cant wait to hear this song :)

  • I've heard lots of 'what is Martin Carthy doing with this rubbish?' comments. I find these hilarious as they are exactly what was said by some people when he joined Steeleye Span and performed this very song.

    To be honest I don't think the Imagined Village have got it quite right yet. But that is exactly how folk music should be, original and inventive. If it doesn't work, mess around with it until it does.  It is great what they are doing, even if it is a bit rough around the edges atm.

  • @paraphraseable Amen HAIL HAIL.

  • Is that Martin Carthy on acoustic guitar?

  • @alanabit yes

  • love watching eliza dancing as she sings and plays ... listened to this sung by martin C so much when i was young and my parents had vinyl to spin when folk club guests werent giving impromptu sessions

  • May this band go far! I love this!

  • I personally mainly listen to Death Metal, But I was randomly searching through the radio stations, And I heard this song from the beginning, and I was shocked, It's such a good song!

  • Multi-Culturism at its finest!

  • This was the first I saw, first I'd heard of the Imagined Village, and it totally blew me away. Amazing. Summer '08 was a good one.

  • We are so lucky aren't we? All this richness of cultures interacting, leading to stunning levels of creativity.

  • Incredible!

  • Comment removed

  • Oh Lordy. Ain't multiculturalism grand.

  • iv seen the imagined village live twice and love them ! they always get everybody dancing and singning along

    this song is one of my faves

    xx

  • Is that Benjamin Zephaniah playing the guitar?

  • @crazyaboutcolours18 not at all. it's just a black man.

  • Pretentious.

  • @themightymorrismuss you and me both :) fortunately they got decimated by the electorate last week. I may not be that happy with the outcome of the election but thank god people showed some common sense when it came to those ignorant little bigots!

  • @themightymorrismuss Nicely understated!

  • i want martin carthy's fylde orsino

  • This sounds like a mess! Just put Chris wood the guitar player and leave it alone!

  • Holy Crap!! That is simply one amazing performance. It would have been great to be at that one live. I think I'll see this clip about athousand times over the next month or so. Jools Holland?? How does this guy do it?

  • I have been looking for this video for so long. Absolutely loved this performance on Jools Holland and noted the name of the track on my mobile then misplaced it when we moved to Australia. Digging around in an unpacked box tonight, two years on, I found my phone and immediately looked the name of the song up. Just fantastic!

  • I loe this track. Does anyone know who the male lead singer is?

  • @hephaestion It's Chris Wood.

  • @hephaestion ...and he's fab.

  • Absolutely bloody WONDERFUL. A musical and visual treat. Martin Carthy's smile at 5:55 speaks volumes and his daughter has to be one of the most beautiful women on the planet.

  • Was totaly blown-away when I saw this on Jools Holland Later. Amazing and unique blend of instruments and voices.

  • i remember seeing this on Later and being toally blown away. Amazing album by the way well worth a look

  • I heard some reviewer saying that this song was bad. Because it should have less instruments.

    Bullcrap.

    This is the best version of this song I've heard, only hearing it alongside the more traditional versions (just harp+vocals). This is better. It's got more harmonies, the drums add a lot to it, the singers are good and the interludes add variation.

  • It's really not about whether more or less is better. It's about the evolution of a tradition, and the external influences on that tradition. Culture doesn't stay static and survive. It includes and absorbs influences from elsewhere, and even from within. The only constant is change. It may well be that in the end, the simplest of versions will survive, being the most portable - all you need is a voice, but for now, our society and culture are changing. Enjoy.

  • @carollizc

    Well, maybe THEY say that... but I don't really care, lol.

  • seen them last night at celtic connections, must say they blew me away, best gig ive been to in years so please hurry back

  • I was there too! What can you say...What I loved (aside from the excellent music obviously) was the total lack of pretentiousness. Their enthusiasm was infectious.

  • good to hear from someone with taste, pity it was only half full, people just dont know what they missed.

  • all I can say is that there's about twice as many people on stage than there were in the audience of the last folk club I attended.

    As an old fart I can remember the outrage that Fairports caused. Those that argued 'how can they do that to our tradional music?" well the answer is folk music is the music of the people and it adapts and changes ( For me if it encourges people to enjoy these beautiful melodies in whatever wardrobe they have been dressed its good for me.

  • Dear friend, I can understand your point of view. without fairport or steeleye (much better) for me, as an Italian teenager in 1986, was virtually impossible to introduced to English trad music.

    But today I'm not able to appreciate this kind of mix IV are proposing. The mixing proposed by the revival scene was between musical type, a rock attitude in playing traditional music. Here we are facing the shaking of two (or more) different gender of traditional music.

  • In my opinion there is a logical gap and more important I can't see the meaning of this operation. But maybe you are right and the result will be people that will understand that there's nothing like the Copper Family version of "Hard times of old England" .

  • LIke you I love the Copper Family version (also loved Swan Arcade) but I'd argue that the marriage of Folk (from the english tradition) and Rock (from the american/ african tradition) is no different from mixing folk and world music.

    The combination is exciting and lets us hear the music through new ears. I want the Coppers / Fairports/ IM to all exist so I can enjoy them all - sometimes for different reasons. Look out for Jim Moray too!

  • In my view rock is not reducible, even in the 60', to an African or american tradition. Anyway what I wanted to say, with my poor english, is that if someone get in contact with english music tradition trough the glass of a global ethnic music, the logical end for an enthusiast leads to a proper traditional version.

  • I'm not sure I agree with you; there must be room for various interpretations if a tradition is said to be living. If, instead, it's confined to a "proper traditional" version, then it's become the equivalent of Church Latin - dead, brought out and shown off for special occasions. People were aghast when Dylan went electric, when Fairport and Steeleye first did their thing, but I really thought we'd gotten past that....guess not.

  • I agree with carollizc. There is no such thing as a 'proper tradition' anyway - it was always evolving and changing: borrowed tunes with new words and new treatments. Guitars and accordions etc. were, in their time, outrageous European imports. There is certainly a *human* tradition for passing down and sharing stories and tunes and IV are a celebration of that. Hurrah!

  • Thanks. This is currently one of my favourite songs, and really, the theme is one of the oldest around. Girl is beguiled by boy, gives him her most precious gift, (her love - get your head out of the gutter) and he just walks away without a thought for her feelings. That's what makes the song as traditional as anything else. Our society now expects spectacle in entertainment, and IV gives them that, while holding fast to what came before.

  • lomrobos69: please stop fretting, my friend, and maybe get your ears fixed, too :)

    It's an old, old story with an old, old tune but a beautiful new treatment. Where's the problem, extactly? - I hope it's not just the turban...

  • After all, all Bangra is, is Pujabi Morris Dancing.

  • After all, all Bangra is, is Punjabi Morris Dancing.

  • Britain is a multi cultured - this treatment by IV fills me with pride and joy that our music champions both our history and our present. More please...........

  • wow this is quite good

  • hav seen them live :D

    very gd :D

  • That was amazing. Brought tears to my eyes. Loved it.

  • Mesmeric

  • OH yeah. A song about a soldier getting jiggy with a virgin and never calling her again.

  • The Imagined Village are touring in 2010! Catch them live at: Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, 18 January 2010.

  • i was just watching this show with my mom and we both really liked this song so i went on itunes and found it and its just incredible

  • I can't describe to you how good this peice of music makes me feel. I just hope that you all get the same feeling from this as I do. This is truly a masterpeice.

  • Very Unusual Mix of Cultures, Instruments, Vocal Ranges - FAB.

  • beautiful and magnificent

  • this is absolutely ridiculous!

  • Addictive and wonderful :-)

  • seen them live and they're not half gd

  • One of the best performances I've seen on Jools

  • battle cry for all that is still good in the world

  • One of the best clips on all of YouTube? Quite possibly,.

  • I saw the Imagined Village at Glastonbury '08 and they, along with the amazing Leonard Cohen, were the best performance of the festival... A truly fantastic re-imagining of trad. folk music- this is hugely important at a time when the BNP are trying to claim folk  as their own- not that we should be surprised as the Nazis did exactly the same thing.... I'm so glad the Folk Against Fascism movement is counteracting the BNP's racist lies.

  • @huxylady who's BNP

  • Brilliant stuff!! taking trad music outside the square. Thats where music has to go. These guys are masters of their own craft and making trad music sound fantastic!! Just fantastic. Check out the Wheeze and Suck band as well..ex pats in australia...doing the same!!!!

  • The rumours of Folk Music's demise have been greatly exaggerated. GOOO ONNNNN YOU BEAUTIES!!!!

  • amazing sound

  • that is just a jaw-droppingly amazing performance

  • So many different instruments and voices coming together to produce such an Amazing Sound. Celtic, Folky and Eastern - Awesome. Love it.

  • the perfect middle finger to the bnp .... i love you martin and eliza !

  • Right on Pozzoz - when will those prats come to realise that we're all black. WhiTes are just blacks who've lost pigmentation over the ages. I LOVE LIZA CARTHY !

  • this is more brilliant than the CD version - live it just makes me want to get up down with it the drumming is awesome; Eliza is just wonderful

  • Is he from The Dhol Foundation??

    This is Fab!!!

  • Yes, Johnny Kalsi from the Dhol Foundation. Sitar is Sheema Mukherjee from Transglobal Underground. Both great bands to check out if you like that kind of percussion.

  • Well, I managed to get to see them last Friday (thanks for the heads up JK), they were simply fantastic and this song being my particular favourite. Loads of new stuff and by the sounds of it a new album on its way.

    And most importantly.....Eliza liked my frock!

  • jonny is so cool and he's so enthusiastic and a great charecter

  • is this irish folk,... like native north european music like this... the mix really makes it powerful

  • English - aided and abetted by an eclectic mix of traditional and modern musicians: The Imagined Village.

    GhaBUeJJEE4 is a more traditional rendition by Eliza Carthy (that's her on female vocals and the fiddle at the end in this version) :

  • Comment removed

  • Powerful stuff

  • Whoa!

  • Imagine having to follow that...yikes!

  • UNCLE ANDY 1.39!!!!

  • What a wonderful version! For me, I'd say it beats the original Steeleye Span version of 1971, but not their re-released version of 2006. Still, very good!

  • I have a lot of really fantastic music from all over the world saved on my 'favourites' but this is the item I play the most. I go back to it time and time again. 

    I particularly love the final instrumental section - its fantastic!!!!

  • In particular look for 'After the rain' by the Dhol Foundation.

  • JK rocks! If you like this then listen to The Dhol Foundation, Afro Celt Sound System and Peter Gabriel's OVO.

    What a seriously fantastic group of musicians.

  • Too right. I saw the Imagined Village twice last year - Johnny Kalsi's part in this is the highlight of a fantastic gig.(and he has cool coats too!)

    Go and see them if you can, this is the state of British music and it;s in rude health!

  • lol, JK would be the highlight of any gig. Saw TDF in Bristol on Sunday......I'm still bouncing and "hoy"ing........and spamming every facebook friend with Imagined Village, ACSS and TDF videos........my mission is to make them start listening to damn good music.....and watching Johnny.

  • absolutely awsome martin carthy and Chris wood what an inspiration to UK and India incorperating both music into one and producing an spine tingling tune with everything that is going on at the moment let more music live in...

  • As the young folks say, awesome! But it makes no sense to say it's better or worse than what Steeleye Span did back in the '70s. Music grows and evolves. What SS did partly made possible this wonderful version by The Imagined Village. They all help keep the music alive.

  • I saw these people live - fantastic!

  • I love this band,great tunes,great feel...Love it!

  • I much prefer this this to the Steeleye Span version. English folk music can be so staid but this is excellent.

  • I also first heard this in The Thistle & Shamrock. This is a great song.

  • Same here. I also heard another one about a castle, and maiden and a prince/knight....hmm, can't seem to find the name to it...

  • wow, an awe inspiring piece of music, i saw this on the show, thanks for posting it so that we can see it again, I just love the fusion of the various cultures. Lets all live in harmony, the planet is big enough for us all!

  • Good stuff. But I prefer ACSS!

  • Raga Bhangra folf Rock what a concoction but it bloody hell works.

  • Heard it first on Thistle & Shamrock radio (NPR). loved it and it took me FOREVER to find it on here but totally worth it!

  • my dad plays the guitar in the imagined village! =P

  • Simon Emmerson is my uncle.

  • is he??????? i must know you...somehow....

  • I love the imagined village. awesome. i think the lyrics are a bit ropey in places but hey... i saw them live and what they're doing is important and beautiful. Big love.

  • Seen on tour. Seen at Cambridge. Best thing I've seen all year. How often do you get this much talent on stage? Chris Wood - he's on tour now - get out and see him.

  • Paul Weller isn't a part of the band as such, he just did a collaboration track ("John Barleycorn") on the self titled album!

  • Loving it !

  • YEA its back and LOUD.

    Folk is meant to be; raucous, seditious and irreverent.

    Ps I missed out lewd.

  • Absolutely fabulous multietnical folk happening.l love it.You people made my day.l can´t stop listening to you!!! Thank you.

    Grateful.

  • Is it just me, or were the drums all out of time there?

  • nope, its just you

  • Was that Paul Weller on the cello?

  • You're kidding, right?

  • Paul Weller does play the cello and he is part of the Imagined Village...I just don't know if that's him!

  • I didn't know that; then again, what DO I know?!

    I apologise for doubting you!

  • The guy on the cello is Barney Morse-Brown.

  • yes!

  • awesome martin carthy is a very talented musician, and his daughter Eliza beautiful and talented too..

  • I saw Chris Wood perform this at Towersey on Sunday, with just the cello and a trombone accompanying, and that was awesome too!- Just for the record, MOST of the performers (and punters) this year at Towersey were (or appeared to be ) under twenty five . Folk has a future!

  • Just belting..x

  • Amazing, love overall sound and the fact there are so many elements to focus on - Thanks for posting!

  • AWESOME thanks for posting.

    wish someone would post video or set from glasto 08.. was on the bbc site for a while , but now gone:(

  • glasto footage of IV playing this track now up and looking good

  • Amazing! Unique! Rokkin!

  • saw these peeps @ glasto,s ..

    brilliant performance , i hope somebody posts the vid up on here !!! A+++++++++++++++++

  • Imagined Village is our "home". What a great performance!

  • there's another good un here - watch?v=0H3IyMnKrlk (Hard Times of Old England)

    Cheers for posting this.

    They played near to me a few months back & for some reason I never bothered - dumbass!

  • Saw them yesterday do this at the Wychwood Music Festival. They blew Cheltenham Racetrack away! Absolutly brilliant!

  • Guess folkies are'nt just old bearded real ale nuts droneing on with one hand over their lughole anymore! [funny ain't it....the album is dedicated to the "good old days".... I reckon folk is better nowadays!!

  • Bhangra~: its just Punjabi Morris Dancing!

  • wow made my mouth fall open.. megga music.

  • Oh, this is awesome! Such fun!

  • I saw Martin doing this solo at McCabe's guitar shop, back in 1979. Brilliant solo artist.

  • This is fucking brilliant. I love the Cd but this makes the CD sound like crap.

  • eliza is proper proper gorgeous! pure earthy sexyiness. wonderful.

  • Just such a shame the album version of this is so weak.

  • Ya after seeing this live performance I was slightly disappointed with the album version. Still great stuff though

  • Lovin this, great song.

    Albums good to a fusion of music I think you could call it.

  • OOOOOO This is so good it makes me feel like dancin round Stonehenge like a pagan . Cheers !

  • Id highly recommend it :)

  • Made do dancing round the kitchen table ?-)

  • I was trying to find this before.. yay found it! :) im so happy.

  • the music of the albion is alive and well thanks martin and co

  • this is a classic song, absolutly brilliant

  • eliza is a vixen,this tune got me out of bed to turn it up, delighted to have found it,more of this please

  • usually not home wqhen later on but saw this a bblew mind epic tune

  • I watched this on Jools Holland, sat on the end of my bed and my jaw just dropped.

    This is MEGA

    incredible

  • BTW am I the only one who thinks Eliza Carthy is hella sexy here?