Track 6

Lowlands

Excuse me while I get something off my chest (if you can’t be doing with a rant please scroll down to the song).

Well I totally failed yesterday to get this out. Was feeling in a bit of a funk to be honest and am also run down now after working on this (my album, as well as other things) intensely for (what seems like) so long, and then feeling like it’s all going to be a load of rubbish anyway and no-one is really going to like any of the songs at all - arggghhhh!!!

I had been procrastinating all day, working myself up to writing about Lowlands - probably my favourite out of all the tracks¹ - and I just gave up in the end. So today you’ll get two songs.

I’m feeling weak and depleted to be honest. The little one has been repeatedly waking most nights now just as I decide want to go to bed. Tonight (well, it is the early hours now) I have literally just given up and come downstairs. He’s sat next to me now after I have spent three hours trying to stay awake simultaneously while getting him to sleep! Just not happening today!

He’s full of milk but his little leggies are hurting him and keeping him up. He has hypermobility i.e. extreme bendiness, so bendy in fact that he can sleep folded over in half!

I can only live in this moment and not stress. It wouldn’t matter if I had no commitments (and I mean things with the family, running the house, writing, singing, running my baking group etc etc). If it crosses my mind just how much needs doing tomorrow then I shall just cry. If anyone, and I mean anyone, (and there have been a couple of judgmental pricks over the years) says to me that I “do not work” or “do not have a proper job” then all I can say is a big “fuck you”.

Being a mother in itself is a full-time job and one that is totally NOT valued by society. On top of that I am also self-employed (this was a carefully chosen route so I could be around for all of my children and not have to use school as childcare. It’s taken a hell of a lot of work and commitment to get to this point).

Making a living through music/the arts, any kind of self-employment or anything that is not quite the “norm” can trigger and upset people (and yes I am obviously quite triggered now myself).

But that is because either they’re jealous that their lives are so boring/conventional or are just so stuck in the old way of doing things (no matter how much they say they are not) and not doing it right themselves.

Well phew! Got that off my chest didn’t I??

Anyway, so it’s now nearly 3am and what I was trying to express is that most people have no friggin idea what other people’s life is like and are very quick to make judgements. I enjoying singing but I do NOT enjoy all this palaver of getting it out there to flog (I do do it for the love of the music but need to make some kind of income too).

No thank you. Recording in a studio ain’t for me. Uploading wav files (wtf is even a ‘wav’ anyway?!) and copy and pasting ISRC numbers is SO COMPLETLY NOT WHAT I AM ABOUT!

I really would rather just go sing in a field. I’m feeling totally run down and full of cold now to be honest (that’s a “stink conflict” for sure². Right, moan over….so to the song please!!

This 17th century song is another of my absolute favourites. Here I am in one of the best tunnels ever!! You’ll see my big kids in the background looking after the dogs while I sing. [right on que my dog has just come to cuddle up to me and the little’un on the setee - she can sense I am feeling stressed now].

I dreamed a dream the other night,
Lowlands, lowlands away, my John,
I dreamed a dream the other night,
Lowlands away.

I dreamed I saw my own true love,
Lowlands, lowlands away, my John,
I dreamed I saw my own true love,
Lowlands away.

This has such a gentle, peaceful melody. So relaxing. And so sad too. It is self explanatory really. But in case you didn’t get it, a woman has a dream about her true love being drowned. She never wants another man so cuts off her hair. And there he shall lie forever “drowned in the windy lowlands” (of Holland, most probably, though could be the Caribbean).

He was green and wet with weeds so cold,
Lowlands, lowlands away, my John,
He was green and wet with weeds so cold,
Lowlands away.

And I’ll cut off my yeller³ hair,
Lowlands, lowlands away, my John,
No other man shall think me fair,
Lowlands away.

My love lies drowned in the windy lowlands,
Lowlands, lowlands away, my John,
My love lies drowned in the windy lowlands,
Lowlands away.

And this is at the recording studio (you can just hear Barrie⁴ joining in there).

The way that Anne Briggs sings it is wonderful and where I first heard it.

I did get a rather narky comment the other day from a man who said I have absolutely no right to sing this song as a woman because it should be sung by a man (he said a load of other bullshit too. Quite frankly I think we should be able to sing any song. There are loads of songs sung by people who should technically not be singing them, but there you go). He probably was just having a bad day. Like I am now!

“Why are you singing a male shanty? U dont even know how what this man is singing about! Why! Just why. Why do women want to take everything. This space is not for u. On the high seas there were no women. Just us men working the rigs. Why the hell do u think this song is for u. Its not. Just stop”

Apparently, according to him, women cannot sing sea shanties.⁵ This was a sea shanty - Annie Briggs sang it as a ballad, which was then followed by some others too.

But in actual fact, on reflection this IS a song sung by a woman.. surely? What about the lines…

And I’ll cut away my yeller hair,
………
No other man shall think me fair,

While researching this I have found that ‘the phrase “my John” refers to a 19^th century habit of calling deck-hands “Johns”, so it may not be a specific person—rather “my sailor”.’⁶ Well I am glad we have cleared that up as I always did wonder who John was!

And finally here is a bit of peace with the little one when he was tiny (oh, my heart!)

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Thank you and goodnight (the birds are just starting to sing now and I’m going up the wooden hill - he’s fallen back to sleep at last!). Track 7 will be out later.

1. And yes I realise I have probably said the same about most tracks!

2. see the German New Medicine healing framework for an explanation on that one.

3. The Notts pronunciation of “yellow”

4. Barrie who gave me a kick up the bum to get recording and came with me to get me organised on the day! Thanks Barrie

5. What about morris dancing then?? I don’t thing women should mess about with that tradition personally.

6. Lowlands (Away) (Roud 681; Henry H469) on Mainly Norfolk