Added: 3 years ago
From: jonasjar
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  • Epic vocal harmonizing from 4:28 onwards..

  • Song from my childhood. Wonderful.

    I think the intense change in rhythm in the middle passage reflects the sound of factory weaving - that and the sexual tension of the hand weaver himself, faced with a girl who earns more than him and can choose her own partner. Now that's an industrial revolution!

  • I heard this song in my history class. It is great.

  • @TheTuffgong42 what an innovative way of having history class!

  • the ending when Maddy Prior triple-tracks is one of the most beautiful performances ever put on vinyl. Period.

  • Once again, I must say. This is one of the greatest yew-tooby thingys ever.

  • Love the 'crackle' at the beginning, gives the effort validity in my eyes, who of us who grew up with this music had pristine albums? We are from Yorkshire, when I was growing up we didn't listen to Led Zep, Stones or any of that ilk, it was Steeleye Span, Fairport, Tull, Brian Ferry and Don Maclean, Bad Company and the like...

  • @Migglyman I've always liked the crackle of LPs, so on this one I inserted it a little by fake, cause this tune is not the first one on that side so it really doesnt have much of a crackle on its own :-)

  • @jonasjar then a hearty bravo is well in order, the song is nicely sync'd with the video... all round a splendid job

  • I love this song SO, SO much. Thank you for giving it the tribute it deserves.

    I think I may have misunderstood the lyrics all these years. The way I always heard it, the "narrator" of the song took a fall in the social strata of his time and place by marrying a factory girl instead of "girls fine and gay" and thus wound up a poor weaver instead of whatever station he was born into . . . and in the end the hardship of that life defeated him physically and spiritually. Was I wrong?

  • I still say this is one of the best videos on YouTube. The attention to detail, timing of the lyrical text sows such a reverence to the song. What an awesome tribute to a one of my favorite Steeleye songs.

  • @rhayader0625 Some say it's disturbing and superfluous to display the lyrics, but I grew up reading the lyrics and sing along to the music just like dad did, as a way of learning words and pronunciation of a foreign language. Over time I began to think that beautiful lyrics also tend to look good in print, that you can enjoy the graphic form as well as the spoken sounds, and now decades later I still stick to my old guns :-)

  • @jonasjar

    Disturbing and superfluous? The votes speak for themselves. :-)

  • @jonasjar I very much appreciate the lyrics! I like to learn them as I listen, and it's great when I don't have to look them up on some sketchy lyric website in order to do that.

  • @danaraina I'm glad to hear someone likes the scrolling lyrics, there was visibility problems with the words why I tried different colours like a madman.

  • Unspeakably beautiful.

  • Brilliant song and bloody excellent video you made for it. Thanks!

  • @freethoughtmusic thanx for praise, its real nice to get acknowledge for trying to do a good job. Wish it was more common for uploaders to chose quality over quantity but it seems to be rare these days. I prefer having one upload to be proud of than a hundred crappy ones that really doesnt make anyone happy.

  • Beautiful! Maddy Prior's voice is uniquely powerful and aided so well by the chords. Even with the leering content of the lyrics at times she manages to make it sound beautiful. I get the shivers especially at the sense of social change given with how her clear voice raises from the clicking and the clacking of the weaver's loom lyrically to "where are the girls- I will tell you plain, the girls have all gone to weave by steam, And if you'd find them you must rise at dawn and trudge to the mill

  • Jonasjar: Some of the images you have used are amazing. I'd love to use some of them in my classes. Did you get them all on line?

  • @Goodrunningwoman yes I did. If you give me an email adress I can send you the entire set of pics in winrar format.

  • Jonasjar: Not only is Maddy's voice superb, but the song is historically important. The images in your video are wonderful. I'm toying with the idea of asking my history students to watch it. Thanks so much for sharing it.

  • @Goodrunningwoman Really glad you like it, actually it was a joy to assemble and a good history lesson for myself as I googled my way through the various angles of the industrial revolution. I think the song covers interesting societal history in a very personal way, that way sparking curiosity in a way my history books in school never did. Thats one of the powers music paired with good lyrics wields, I guess.

  • @Goodrunningwoman as an aside, Prior has always been special to me, from that night on a folk festival in Loughborough in the 70s, when I was 13, sitting on the edge of the stage trying to record the show on a portable professional tape recorder. That was magic and one of the hilights of my life.

  • Timeless!  As amazing now as it was back then!

  • @Goodrunningwoman in fact it was never a fave for me at the time but it has grown on me in the process of making this vid. The ending acapella is by far the prettiest part, a good voice, thats really all you need to make good music!

  • This is beautiful. So good to be reminded of it.

  • Stunning. Thank you SO much for uploading! Have a wonderful day! :)

  • gorgeous!

  • The band released quite a few albums, the early ones more folk oriented, the later ones heavier with rock influences (and drums). 'Parcel of Rogues' seems to me to strike the best balance between folk and rock : - ) I may get a turntable, or just find a CD as a replacement (simplest method). Thanks.

  • I haven't heard this tune in years. The video is perfect. I think 'Parcel of Rogues' is their best album, which I only have on LP and do not own a turntable : - (

  • @DizzyZaftigLady this is actually from the lp with my 25 years old Thorens turntable. Dad has one too, which is 20 years older. They are rock solid and durable as the Cheops pyramid of Egypt. As I dont know their other albums, me too tends to think its their best :-)

  • Steeleye WITHOUT drums..... now that was a band

  • Thanks for the words..Never quite got them all before

  • One fantastic vid to one of my favourite Steeleye Span songs.

    Have a nice day.

    Vanu.

  • I remember mowing the lawn, even though it didn't really need it to get the $3.50 to go buy this album-and loving it to this day- Thank you so much this thoughtful vid- including the lyrics, which I always sang such wrong words as "...I carried my vodka and gin..."!!...Thanks again,JJ!!!

  • You just gotta love Maddy's vocal range and harmonies, they have stick to it kind of melodies that last after the track has long finished. Maddy is about tops in vocal measure, and could quite possibly sing across the board, operatic, rocking, folksy, classical, just a truly great sounding voice and nearly unlimited range, C H E E R S!!!!

  • This is a great tune. Are you familiar with a recording of this song by a band called Brass Monkey?

  • This is one incredible video. So perfectly laid out, and follows the song just right. Awesome!

  • @rhayader0625 thanx for the praise, it was a joy to make and thanks to

    the well known historical topic it was quite straight forward to illustrate.

  • I like this song a lot. You can almost hear the shuttle flying back and forth.

    Tugs at my heart as a lancastrian with a LOT of weavers in my family tree.

  • Lol, love the sound of the needle hitting the groove at the start. Havn't heard that in a long time.

    I'm glad I have a copy of  "Parcel of Rogues" on CD. Fantastic song.

  • Glad you like the needle sound! To me its such a positive sound, full of promise and anticipation. I remember It was also an acknowledge of that the system was working and that the various controls had been properly set for a turntable session.

  • I always time trip in me little head when I hear this music, strikes a chord deep in my heart, of another life whom memory doth stir with much imagery and passion.

    Cheers

  • Brings tears to my eyes whenever I hear it. Maddy's harmonies at the end are knockout. A beautiful and deeply sad song. Thanks for the terrific video

  • I second that, Maddy's a capella self harmony is also in my book the pinnacle of the whole song.

  • @liesl20012 Not so sad. After all he does get the girl. Or does he just imagine that he does?

  • @liesl20012 May I second [& THIRD !! ok.....even FOURTH] that!! I First heard Steeleyes c. 1972 & they STILL 'do it for Me'........what a great legacy they left, eh. Superb REAL musicianship.....SO unlike so much of today's shallow & talentless drivel. & YES.....Superb video.....SO.o m-o-v-i-n-g the WHOLE piece.

  • @liesl20012 always loved the way they mix the phrases of the melody: when Maddy sings ABBA, Pete plays BAAB and then they do it the other way round. Brilliant!

  • @liesl20012 Yeah whenever I hear the harmonies at the end it messes me up. The whole song is a win, but the end really caps it off. I don't even give a fuck about steam and weaving things and bodkins but the music just rips me apart. I love it :)

  • Love this song . It's the only one I can remember well enough to sing at parties.Looked it up cos of Tim Hart's passing. RIP

  • Yes I heard about Hart, very sad to hear.

  • One of my favorite Steeleye Span songs and an entirely excellent video to go with it.

    Thanks, jonasjar!

  • thanks for commenting and my pleasure!

  • So hauntingly evocative of the romance and abject suffering that was the labourers lot. This music is a tangible link to a long forgotten past, truly magical and at the same time thoroughly melancolic in the most beautiful way.

  • I was so glad to find this--it's one of my favorite Span recordings. So many cool arranging touches: the way the electric guitar and bass drop out for the "bedroom" verse (sounds like the music is tiptoeing), or the way Maddy and Peter switch themes for the verse starting at 3:40. And Maddy's self-harmonizing at the end never fails to give me goosebumps. Thanks for doing this!

  • I agree there are many cool features here but

    myself being a choir boy from the age of 11, the hook of the entire song for me, is definitely the self-harmony when the song is basically over. At any time, I can produce her self-harmony in my head virtually in stereo :) The low-down: a really good voice is really all you need :)

  • it gives me goosebumps too. it probably gives almost everyone goosebumps. i wonder what the physiology is behind this. it must do something to the brain. maybe it can be used as a healing modality, after all, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

  • Seblick2 is soooo right. There is something about Maddy's voice that is simply soul-stirring. Steeleye Span: one of the rare puzzles where the pieces come together so beatuifully. Maddy's voice, the driving bass, the guitar work, the harmonies... Thank you so much for sharing this one!

  • I love the rhythm of this - really makes you think of the looms. I can see I'm going to have to listen to more of this band!

  • Thanks for the posting.

    Maddy's voice does get the blood flowing

  • yes indeed, and its a pretty hard piece to sing, I suspect.

  • Thank you for uploading jonasjar! It´s a song which is not only lovely, but has also so much history background...!

  • glad you like it!

  • Great! Thanks for uploading with lyrics. I don't know though. I'm a major Steeleye Span fan, I've got literally all their albums on CD (and on CD they're hard to find) so I've thought about this for a long time. I actually prefer the version they released on Present. I just found it cleaner and more pleasing. Still, thanks for uploading this one!

  • Unfortunately this is all I have with Steeleye, so there wasnt any chosing among versions involved. Yes lyrics is a nice touch (and also more work!) but sometimes people complain about it, but not on this one so far :)

  • God I love this song. Something about the power of Maddy's vocal in counterpoint with Peter Knight's violin (and Kemp's punchy bass), and the lyric's thematic contrast between the blossoming of erotic love and a life soon wasted by tedious labor is so affecting. THANK YOU for scrolling the lyrics (never quite got some of the words before--"rood"?) and setting the song to these beautiful and evocative images.

  • yes I agree it has many interesting and contrasting components. I grew up reading the lyrics along with the music and not being my mother tounge it enhances comprehension, and in lyrics like these, I find the phrases and old words beatiful even to look at. This wasnt my favorite song of the album but I wanted to do a song that wasnt already uploaded, and this one just happened to be quite easy to illustrate.

  • yes I think steeleye has always been good at cool transitions and cool sounds while still keeping many of the traditional elements

  • Yes thats probably Ian, his looks is quite special so its not so easy to mistake him.

  • One of my favorite Steeleye Span songs.

    Not that there aren't a lot of those...

  • indeed, there are more, and I'd like to do more, but the picture collecting for this was pretty straight forward, not so sure how to do it for the wee wee man or ups and down for example.

  • ...and you are giving me a batch of new words to look up in the dictionary :)

  • youre welcome, some say parcel of rouges wasnt at their peak but I love it. Few songs I've encountered offers such vivid history lesson with a personal angle. As I searched for fitting images I got a quick recap of the industrial revolution stuff that I remember very vaguely from way back in school. The vid was much work but also enjoying and rewarding.

  • One of my favorite songs - thanks for posting it.

  • youre welcome, dont know why but no other of my vids have elicited more comments :)

  • Loooooong time no hear hear now

  • is she gone sick??

  • I believe there's a little general Ludd deep down in most of us, I have no problem sympathising with them. Dont think losing vinyls is the same problem as it used to be, youtube is a pretty large record collection don't you think?

  • You make some great videos by the way!

  • thanx! this one came out nicely for some obscure reason :)

  • Thanks Jonas! I love this one- I do sing it myself but only in the privacy of my own home so far LOL.

    It's really tricky and tiring to sing... but fun!

    I don't think I'll ever come anywhere near this version!!

    Maddy used to live in the same street as me and we went to the same schools too (but at different times). (Bit of trivia4u)

    I'm a big fan of course!!

    thanks again!

    Claire

  • I saw your span clip, thats why I sent you this. You're a neighbor of Maddy's? Way cool! She's near my heart ever since I saw them live at the Loughborough festival in 1971. She seems to have had some health problems? Do you recognise Ian Andersson in the control room? I would never dream of singing anything like this! Really simple melodies is all I can do nowadays.

  • TERRIFIC

  • thanx dave! you know dave, this vid makes me happy, maddy prior voice never fails to make me happy and this kind of fusion of folk and electric appeals to me. Its modernized but prudently, its still undeniably folk flavor, not rock with a folk flavor. And its an honor to be acknowledged by a heavy respected name like yours :)

  • great vid Dude. Wondered why Ian Anderson was pictured with Maddy Prior, then recall that he produced 'Now we are 6' in 1975. The vid really fleshes out the song, gives it context.

  • thanx! when one of the viewer remarked that I had Ian in the vid I simply couldnt believe it, I was totaly unaware of it and thought it was Kemp, her spouse, but after some 2nd thoughts I had to give him right, Ian has a very distinct face, but I didnt know he produced others. This vid was great fun to do, the lyrics + the picure search turned out to be a good history lesson!

  • I love 'Now we are 6' - it's got some fab songs on it. Check out 'drink down the moon' and '700 elves' :O)

  • Ok, I'll check it out!

  • Absolute Class!!!

  • thanx, glad you liked it!

  • Great bit of video making Jonas.

    Inspiring some good debate as well. The introduction of steam power marked the end of an era and would have meant destitution for the hand loom weavers at the time. The word Luddite is still used in Britain as a "tongue in cheek" way to describe someone not willing to adopt a new technology.(like this) but not likely these days to get him transported to Australia.

  • thanks John, artistically I think country girl is better, this is little else than a long sequence of stills without any particular twist. But the history is nice, collecting the stills from the web was a quick history refresh of things I learned in school. And this people is easy to relate to, it wasnt far away, it wasnt long ago. Once I sat on the same stage they were performing on trying to record on a portable tape recorder but it was a failure. See the guy in the control room? Ian Anderson!

  • Its also a demonstration of history repeating it self. The custom of laying off people tuned to an old technology instead of updating them to a new technology is timeless and as popular today as it was then. That way you gracefully avoid the whineing about how good things were before, and its a good opportunity to rejuvenate the work force.

  • What a great video to go along with a wonderful song =)

  • Glad you like it, think we share some faves, Im absolutely dying to make some judy collins vids asap but I dont know how to make them yet. Yea, this song is nice, not a hit single but something to chew on for a long time. The acapella section I can replay in my head, any time of the year, any time of the night. It entered my skull and got stuck there, really stuck :)

  • Realy a nice track! Watching the vid is like a trip to Ireland! Want more of it!

  • yea theres a lot of culture and old brittish history entwined in it, I like that, learning about the conditions of other people in a foreign country or in a different time, and you often realise its not much that differs them from us.

  • This is a wonderful old folk song. It really tells a tale from the days of the industrial revolution in England and the changing class structure of the 19th century. A tale of drudgery for the lowly woman Mill worker treated little better than a slave and the lust, loosely disguised as love, from a couple of gentlemen behaving badly. Ha! Best sung in pubs with real ale flowing.

  • You mean this is a regular in the pub? cool! The sleeve notes mentions Bert Lloyd and Robert Cinnamond as singers who has contributed parts of it so its not really a Span conception?

  • I cant recognise that story, thought that she more or less replaced him as employee, and cant see any lusty men behaving bad, only his aching to regain that maid and her blissful bed?

  • I've probably got it wrong. I thought 'Cam Ye O'er Frae France' was about Geordies from Newcastle for years until someone on youtube pointed out it was a Scottish song and the reference to Geordies was about the soldiers of George III. Ha! I thought this song was about a well off tradesman, a tailor and weaver who lusts after a 'bit of rough' from the factory. His infatuation and conquest of her and the thrill of crossing the class barrier he confuses with love until he's had his way with her.

  • tja det är en jäkla massa britt historia på det där albument, det var synnerligen lärorikt att ragga bilder till denna, va som en rikti crash course i brittish industrial revolution!

  • Wow. She has a wonderful voice and the sound is fabulous on this video. I like the song too.

  • Her song was famous in those circuits in those days and here you can hear it without a lot of other instruments competing for the space. I think this song is uneven, maybe a bit long and maybe too much words but I like the historical aspect, the story it tells.

  • Nåväl, om detta klassiska låten är inte värt 5 stjärnor så är jag en apa farbror. Det är från 1973 albumet Parcel av Rogues, inte deras bästa album, men den har också klassiska Misty Moisty Morgon och upp-och nedgångar i den. Som ett album, det är inte som traditionella eller lika bra som Hark Village Wake eller under Salt.

  • det här ju inte nån särskilt "bra" låt från det albumet men de flesta andra är ju redan uppladdade och ville undvika att göra dubletter. Ibland vet jag inte vad jag ska tycka om den här, 1a vers är seg, sen blir det ju klämmigare och sista acapellan är gudomlig!

  • Det är min favorit låt från albumet. Jag brukar sjunga den när jag har haft ett par för många öl på vägen hem:)

  • Kan du hela texten? nä, det kan jag väl aldrig tro? :)

  • Nej, inte alla, bara de första par verser och lite om hennes bröst: D

  • ja jag kan inte heller låta bli att tycka att det är rätt trevliga beskrivningar av hur han brukar vika ner täcket, bor du i england eller? och hur har du blivit sån expert på steeleye?

  • Född i England. Jag växte upp lyssnade till Steeleye Span. De påminner mig om mina rötter, deras låtar är en del av att vara engelska.

  • annorlunda men coolt. jag gillar det och det låter riktigt häftigt i stereo:) fin melodi och texten är för kul! eller snarare intressant kanske:)

    vilket år kan denna låt tänkas vara från?

  • kan tänkas vara från 1973, men du! man måste inte ge femmor på allt, jag är gla' åt fyror också! sångarinnan är en riktig godbit och här framträder hon väldigt bra, hon behöver inte slåss med en massa andra ljud.

  • va, finns det lägre betyg oxå??:))

    men jag gillar ju hela konceptet med musik, bra video till och att jag fått chansen att höra något jag inte hört förr. sån't ger per automatik en xtra stjärna serr'u:)

    Jo hennes röst låter verkligen bra mot fiolerna. Gjorde hon flera album i samma stil?

  • det är en grupp de gjorde en hel sinkadus me' skivor sen har hon kört solo också.

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