(p) © 2001 Timberhead Music
PO Box 840
Camden ME 04843
Gordon Bok with Carol Rohl, Cindy Kallet, Anne Dodson, Will Brown, the Quasimodal Chorus, the January Men, and the Small World Orchestra
For Mary and Tony, who know where it comes from.
Recorded, engineered and mastered by Bruce Boege, Limin Music, Northport, Maine
Mixed by Bruce Boege, Gordon Bok, and Anne Dodson
Produced by Gordon Bok and Anne Dodson
Cover photograph by Gordon Bok
Other photographs by Gordon Bok and Carol Rohl
Programming by Carol Rohl
January Men & Then Some to date:
Gordon Bok, Tony Bok, Will Brown, David Dodson, Ken Gross, Jamie Huntsberger, Cindy Kallet, Carol Rohl, Forrest Sherman
The Quasimodals to date:
Marie Weferling, Holly Torsey, Matt Szostak, Susan Shaw, Carol Rohl, Bob Richardson, John Pincince, Carney McCrae, Cindy Kallet, Jamie Huntsberger, Mary Ann Hensel, Ken Gross, Anne Dodson, Will Brown, Mimi Bornstein-Doble, Tony Bok, Mary Bok, Gordon Bok
Small World Orchestra:
Gordon Bok – 'cellamba; Carol Rohl – harp; Will Brown – laud; Claire de Boer – flute; Tom Judge & Susan Groce – fiddles
With:
Will Brown – laud & vocals
Anne Dodson – vocals
Cindy Kallet – vocals
Carol Rohl – harp & vocals
You may notice a difference in room-presence between some of the songs. That's because some were done in Bruce's studio in Bayside and a few are from the 'Church tapes' – recorded in the winter of 1999 in the John Street Methodist Church in Camden.
Traditional
Years back someone gave this to me written out by hand. Recently I heard it was from the Quimby family of the Georgia Sea Islands. Dick Swain found a lovely looking version in an Applewood Books 1995 reprint of Slave Songs of the United States (originally published in 1867), so it has been around for a good while. I've never heard it sung.
Gordon – 12 string guitar;
Will, Cindy, Carol & Anne - vocals
Sail, o believer, sail over yonder
Sail, o brother sail, sail over yonder
Oh brother bear a hand
Come brother bear a hand
Come view the promised land
Come view the promised land
Oh Mary, Mary weep
Bow low Martha
Oh, my Lord's coming now
And my Lord locks the door
Now my Lord's locked the door
Carries the keys away
© 1970 David Goulder, Robbins Music
Sandwood is in the far Northwest of Scotland. Kyle is the Kyle of Lochalsh. Dave has walked, climbed, scrambled, built and repaired dry stone walls over most of it and has certainly earned the right to his opinion.
Gordon – viol
On Monday morn as I went out, the wild birds for to see
I met a man along the road and asked for charity (2x)
Come home with me and take your fill and comfort you shall find
And tell me why you walk the road that leaves the hills behind (2x)
Oh time has spent the summer, sir, and soon the leaves will fall
And I hear the change within the wind that plays around your walls (2x)
For the bird must flee the winter, sir, she cannot stay behind
To build her nest upon the snow, nor can I look for mine (2x)
But if I could have a hundred homes and dwell in each a while
I'd build them all along the coast from Sandwood down to Kyle (2x)
© Tom Judge/Gordon Bok
Tom Judge was trying to get out of my long, greasy driveway one mud season in and old Gray Ghost of a pickup truck. He made it, but as he gained the tarred road this tune delivered itself on him complete and unannounced. At the time he called it "Drive Away the Driveway Reality Reel." The second tune is one I made in thanks to another old musical friend, Alan Stanley of Prince Edward Island for taking the time to teach me "Carolan's Concerto." (I recorded this one as a jig with Cindy Kallet on Neighbors a few years ago, if you're thinking you've heard it before…)
Gordon – 12-string guitar
Traditional
I can't remember where I ran across this, but I have a note that says it was sung by John Nicholson, Jordan Mountain, near Sussex, NB, transcribed by Kenneth Peacock, October 1979.
All my sacred thoughts I will unfold to all young men are here
Young women they are good company to make the boys appear
Young women they are good company but I will wed with none
And if all young men were of my mind, the girls would walk alone
Oh if I were to marry a pretty girl, how happy I would be
And if I were to marry a grey old one, the boys would laugh at me
And if I were to marry a great big one she'd surely knock me down
And small women they are peevish… drink round, my boys, drink round
Drink round, my boys, drink round – until it comes to me
For the longer that we drink and chat the merrier we'll be
Oh here's to the faggot-maker, he sits at home at ease
And he goes to work at six o'clock, knocks off whenever he please
And he takes his faggot and binds it and throws it on the ground
And he takes his twine and twines it; drink round my boys, drink round
I owe no debts, I pay no rent, I have none to repine
I have no cradle for to rock, no babies for to mind
My parents dear they need not dear, for they are laid low down
And I mean to lead a single life; drink round, my boys, drink round
Oh, the girls they all do wink at me at every town and fair
But I never pay any mind to them as though they were not there*
I mean to lead a single life wherever I may roam
And there's none in life may kiss my wife when I am not at home
*this line obscured in original text
Traditional – Irish from Sister Richard, Boyle County Roscommon 1993
When my wife Carol crossed the Atlantic in a small sailing yacht, she stayed at a B & B in Boyle, County Roscommon. When she brought Tom Judge, Susan Groce and me back there, Bridie Gallagher (the proprietor) remembered her. Bridie called her friend Sister Richard (a music teacher across the street), in hopes to borrow a harp.
Alas, the harp was on loan, but Sister Richard came over to join us. We made some music anyway, and Sister gave us this lovely song.
I have arranged the verses to sing it myself, but we print it here the way she wrote it out for me.
Gordon – vocal & laud;
Cindy, Carol & Anne - vocals
On wings of the wind, o'er the deep rolling sea
Angels are coming to watch over thee
Angels are coming to watch over thee
So list' to the winds coming over the sea
Hear the wind blow, love, hear the wind blow
Lean your head over, hear the wind blow
Oh, winds of the night, may your fury be crossed
May no one that's dear to our island be lost
Blow the wind gently, calm be the foam
Shine the light brightly to guide us back home
The currachs are sailing way out on the blue
Laden with herring of silvery hue
Silver the herring and silver the seas
And soon they'll be silver for my love and me
Eric Bogle © 1980 Banksiaman Press/Larrikin Records
Eric Bogle is said to have said (sounds like the Internet, eh?) that he got talking with a cocky in a bar one night, who sketched out this working-life's story over the course of a few hours. And what a beautiful job Eric did of sketching it for us. A cocky (or cockie) is usually a poor, small farmer.
Gordon – Spanish guitar
It's nearly sixty years I've been a Cocky
Of drought and fire and flood I've lived through plenty
This country's dust and mud have seen my tears and blood
But it's nearly over now, and I'm easy
I married a fine girl when I was twenty
She died in giving birth when she was thirty
No flying doctor then, just a gentle old black gin
But it's nearly over now, and now I'm easy
She left me with two sons and a daughter
And a bone-dry farm whose soil cried out for water
So my care was rough and ready, but they grew up fine and steady
It's nearly over now, and now I'm easy
My daughter married young and went her own way
My sons lie buried by the Burma Railway
So on this land I've made my own, I've carried on alone
But it's nearly over now, and now I'm easy
City folk these days despise the Cocky
They say with subsidies and all we've had it easy
But there's no drought or dying stock on a sewered suburban lot
But it's nearly over now, and now I'm easy
Traditional - Irish
Our friend Mary Lincoln called us in off the street to her pottery in Ardmore, County Waterford, to hear a recording of Nollaig Casey and Arty McGlynn playing this old Irish tune. It comes from the Patrick Weston Joyce Collection (written down in 1844). I sketched it down, and two nights later Carol and Tom and Susan and I played it for Mary and her husband Dick in the pub nearby.
Small World Orchestra
© 1985 Bill Gallaher SOCAN
Mary Garvey of Vancouver, Washington introduce to the music of this amazing Canadian songwriter. Bill says this was one of the first songs he wrote; and while he always knows whereof he writes, luckily this song did not become autobiographical.
Bill says, "Back in '72, Jaye* said to me 'Why don't you write a song?' I asked, 'What kind of song?' And without skipping a beat she said 'A cowboy song.' Not knowing much of anything about cowboys, I eventually settled on the idea of 'Sufferin'' when I recalled the old gent whose groceries I used to carry home when I was a kid of 7 or 8 years old. He was well into his eighties and would regale me with tales of his life. I remember him saying he'd been a cowboy, a prospector, a railroad worker, among other things, and the addendum would always be, 'People today have it real easy. Now, when I was a young man…'"
*Bill's wife
Gordon – 12-string guitar
When I was young and in my prime
I had a woman and her future by my side
But the four winds blow and the grass don't grow
'Round the feet of a man with travelin' in his hide
So I threw off all the shackles and the chains
Said goodbye to what's her name
And I suffered through the cold September rain
Heading back to freedom once again
Well, I tried my luck on a fiery buck
In back of ramblin' two-room ranchin' shack
There ain't nothing worse than a buckskin horse
With a mind of his own and a saddle on his back
For riding he just didn't seem to care
So he left me there in the dusty air
And I suffered through the insults and the pain
Of landing on my backside once again
Well, I broke my back laying down the track
For the railroad that was making its way out West
But I had no feel for the cold hard steel
And a job that gave no time for a man to rest
So I said goodbye and headed North for gold
Staked my claim on a salted* vein
And I suffered through the hunger and the cold
All I found was a young man growing old
I drank my fill of the barroom swill
Danced 'til the sun was a jewel in the morning sky
I used my fist for a goodnight kiss
On the face of a man with evil in his eye
Then I stumbled through the morning feeling ill
Till I fell with a thud in the rain and the mud
And I suffered through a day or two in jail
Then I headed back to the freedom of the trail
Well, the years have flown but the times I've known
Were better than a poke in the eye with a rusty nail
If a man will try and a man don't lie to himself
Then his life can be a hell of a tale
To change my life I wouldn't give a dime
And when I go the books will show
That I suffered from my birth right through my prime
Now I'm heading back to freedom, one last time
*someone had spread a little "good news" around
(The Hard Black Rope)
Traditional
This is a song from the Khalmyk (Buryat Mongol) people who came to live in Philadelphia and New Jersey beginning in the 1950s. I learned it from my friends Sara Stepkin Goripow and Nadja Stepkin Budschalow during the winters that I worked in Philadelphia and sang with them and played in their dance-orchestra.
They told me it was "a very young song song (less than 200 years old, probably) and very Russian." It came from a time when they were hauling boats up rivers – by hand. Nadja said, "You could call it our 'Volga Boat Song.'" Many of the words are lost to present day Khalmyk, but (loosely) it goes: "I pull the hard, black rope (and I sing) Mother/ Father/ my People/ my Country: I do not forget you." I have the 3rd verse in Nadja's writing : "While this river runs, while you work here, don't forget your people."
Ordinarily I would never harmonize a Khalmyk song, but wherever the Stepkin sisters sang this one, they sang it in harmony… so I have it a Russian flavor here for the Quasimodals, and have tried to teach them the Khalmyk sounds that are not so easy to remember from all those years ago.
The Quasimodal Chorus
Hatuya khara olsigen
Hakurun badje tatulav
Hakurun badje tatulav
Hakurun badje tatushen
Harm stele edje minye sanugdna
Harm stele edje minye sanugdna
Idjelinye irgede kudlagen
Izhe lan biche martite
Izhe lan biche martite
Idjelinye irgede kudlushen
Inyegem ondzin nandan sanugdna
Inyegem ondzin nandan sanugdna
Poem © Shel Silverstein
Music © Gordon Bok
Shel was an astounding poet (and singer too, I am told) whose works would enrich any library, any life. I wish I had met him.
Gordon - viol
Oh what do you do, poor Angus
When hunger makes you cry
I fix myself an omelet, sir
Of fluffy clouds and sky
Oh what do you do, poor Angus
When the winds blow down the hills
I sew myself a warm cloak, sir
Of hope and daffodils
And who will you love, poor Angus
When Catherine's gone from the moor
Ah then, sir, then's the only time
I think I'm really poor
Traditional - Scots
I must have learned this in the 1960s, when I started hanging out with other folksingers. I hear it in a lowland Scots dialect, and sometimes sing it that way – I heard it sung a number of different ways here in the States.
Gordon - laud
"Why weep ye by the tide, lady
Why weep ye by the tide?
I'll wed ye to my youngest son
And ye shall be his bride
And ye shall be his bride, lady
So comely to be seen"
But aye she's let the tears downfall
For Jock O'Hazeldean
"Now let this willful grief be done
And dry your cheek so pale
Young Frank is chief of Errington
And Lord of Langleydale
His step is first in peaceful hall
His sword in battle keen"
But aye she's let the tears downfall
For Jock O'Hazeldean
"A gown o' gold ye shall not lack
Nor braid to bind your hair
Nor mettled hound nor managed hawk
Nor palfrey fresh and fair
And ye the foremost of them all
Shall ride, our forest queen"
But aye she's let the tears downfall
For Jock O'Haeldean
The kirk* was decked at morning tide
The tapers glimmered fair
The priest and bridegroom wait the bride
And dame knight are there
They've sought her both by tower and hall
The lady was not seen
She's o'er the border and awa †
With Jock O'Hazeldean
*church
† away
Traditional – Tarascan Indian
One of the legacies my folks left was an off collection of folk music from all over the world. My brother and I though nothing of learning songs in other languages when we were kids; it was all around us and our relatives did it (mostly because they had lived there). I believe this one came from an early Folkways LP of Trascan Indian music and was played on a "guitarra bajita", which I've never seen but loved the sound it made. I couldn't imagine how a 2-legged type could make this rhythm work, until someone who had seen the dance told me it was usually performed by old men with cane who were supposed to be somewhat less than sober. I've played it since I was a teenager and have never tired of it, nor ever been satisfied that I had it right.
Gordon - laud
Irish Poem/ music by Gordon Bok
A short, anonymous poem that Kate Barnes sent me. (Plenty of room for short songs in the world.)
Gordon & Carol – vocals
Ogh, long life to the moon for a
fine noble creature
Who serves us for lamplight each night
in the dark
While the sun only shines in the day,
which by nature
Needs no light at all as yez all may
remark
Traditional
Another song I got about 40 years ago from a young shipmate, Harold Williams, from South Caicos. I had asked him how folks in the British Virgin Islands felt having their country owned by people so far away who never even saw it, and he said "Oh, we got a song about that." And sang this.
I can't find that I ever wrote it down, even in the logs I kept.
Gordon – Spanish guitar
Small Island, go back where you come from
Small Island, go back where you come from
O when you come by the one and the two and the three
You taking our food and you leaving us hungry
Small Island, go back where you come from
Number one: no rice in this land
Number two: no rice in this land
Now when you come by the one and the two the three
You taking our food and you mash down the jungle
Small Island, go back where you come from
Winston Churchill going 'cross through this English Channel
Winston Churchill going 'cross through this English Channel
Now when you got no guns and got no revolver*
Bottle and stick kicking hell in Gibralter
Small Island, go back where you come from
*refers to a speech Churchill made during WWII
Words © 1998 Megaera Vittum Fitch
Music & Arrangement © 1999 Gordon Bok
Meg lives in Vermont on the family farm; her house is the barn they used to store extra hay in. She has been writing since the teacher in her school encouraged her in the third grade. She is a member of VIBES!, a poetry and performing group working out of Vermont.
These are two of the many poems Meg has swapped with me over the years, part of an ongoing conversation. I took them on tour with me one fall, and during a 3-day layover in New Hampshire, wrote the music to them.
Our chorus has no director; when we need one we coerce one from the ranks. My thanks to Mimi Bornstein-Doble for guiding this particular song through all the work it took to get it there.
The Quasimodal Chorus
I.
Oh, I am calling, I am calling
My calling cross the waters
Cross the mighty waters
Downfolding clouds enfold me
Enclosing fears behold me
Oh, I am calling, I am calling
O, Nester cross the waters
Cross the mighty waters
Bring down your wings about me
To shield from them who'd rout me
Oh, I am calling, I am calling
O Mother, cross the waters
Cross the mighty waters
Storm between me and my fears
They prickle the hills with spears
Oh, I am calling, I am calling
O Flame-heart cross the waters
Cross the mighty waters
Circle me with fire now
Enfold me in your pyre now
Oh, I am calling, I am calling
O Child come cross the waters
Dance me down the silver shore
And lead me from the River's roar
Oh, I am calling, I am calling
O Singer, cross the waters
Cross the mighty waters
Ring me round with sacred song
And pull me from the darkened throng
Oh, I am calling, I am calling
O I will cross the waters
Cross the mighty waters
Lay my feet on the flaming foam
And ride my song through darkness home
II.
Chickadee of the clutching toe
Nutchatch of the creaking voice
Blackbird of the twirling song
Redtail of the longing fall
Birds all of marsh and meadow
I hear you, you
Am I yours – now? yours?
Ancient tree on the mountain brow
Windy curled, tough and small
Dead elm in the singing swamp
Summer home of bug and bird
Nut bearers, seed trailers
I hear you, you
Am I yours – now? yours?
Leaf meal, snake trail
Crow call, fox squall
Toad song, ant throng
Tree quiet, peeper riot
Duck nesting, beaver tasting
I hear you, you
Am I yours – now? yours?
Sudden cliff and long lake
Hard thin dirt, shaling stone
Glacial waste on the northern land
Spill of meadow, stream tumble
Stone walls of lost borders
I hear you, you
Am I yours – now? yours?
Running through the cold dew
Hunting cows in the misty swamp
Leaning on their warm sides
Trailing spring, green sour sweet
To summer stubble, dry and sharp
My ears loved, skin loved
Eyes loved, thick skinned feet
Loved their way over
Farm lands, up thawed brook
Through air of song and silence
Do you hear me, me?
Are you mine – now? mine?
Garden dust and roses bloom
Grape green to misty blue
Every berry of wood and pasture
Split sweet on lip and tongue
Do you hear me, me?
Are you mine – now? mine?
Coming here, homing here
Standing here on loved ground
The ground curves, rocks and sings
I rock and sing my home to heart
My heart to home to hope
To long, long, long hope
To wing and root and stone and stream
And sky and wind and star
And small, bright eye in naked wood
Laughing, laughing, laughing
Do you hear me, me?
Are you mine – now? mine?
Traditional – Scots (Hebrides)
I heard this song perhaps thirty years ago. The closest test to my version seems to be in Peter Kennedy's Folksongs of Britain and Ireland.
Despite kind efforts by Margaret Bennett of Edinburgh and Holly Torsey of Whitefield, Maine, I haven't located my original source, so I rely on my memory and may the Gods of Gaelic be kind on me.
I was told it was sung by one who had been stolen by the fairies. "Little sister, my love, my sister, can't you pity my grief tonight? My bothy now is low and narrow, without thatch nor rope holding the thatch, and the rain of the hills down through it like a running stream."
If you've ever had a loved one in the grip of depression or addiction or grief, you've heard this song.
Gordon - viol
Words: © 1984 J.B. Goodenough
Music: © 1990 Gordon Bok
Judy sent this to me many years ago, as we were trading poems. It worked on me until I found this tune and harmony for it. I used to play the bass part on the 'cellamba and sing the upper part, but it took the January Men to give it the freedom it wanted. Cindy added the harmony on the last chorus.
The January Men
The candle's at the window and the sun is in the West
And the baby's in the cradle and the bird is on the nest
The young man's gone a-courting but the old man's home to stay
And in the fire's failing light we heard the old man say
Bless ye the setting of the sun, the candle set at foot and head
And bless ye fair maids, every one, that never came to warm my bed
Farewell whatever salty seas I never sailed upon
Farewell whatever roads that go where I have never gone
Farewell a hundred fallow fields that never did I plow
Farewell a hundred distant hills that I shall not climb now
Farewell to every tree whose fruit I never gathered up
Farewell to every jug in town that never filled my cup
Farewell the rivers fair and far that never I have crossed
And farewell the gold I never found and the silver I have lost
© 1997 Steven Sellors, Grand Bay NB, Canada
From a Master of the Irreverent comes another heartwarmer and a great song to sing in life's many changes, to remind us why we hung on so long in the first place. This one, he told me, had little bits and pieces of his friends in it. For another lovely version, Anne Dodson (Esteemed Producer) has also recorded this song on Against the Moon on Beech Hill Music.
Gordon – 12-string guitar
I hear the thunder, its tender noise
I'm standing under the moving skies
I will not be bothered by this world when it's gone
I will not be bothered by this world when it's gone
The rain is falling on fields of stone
A hunger's calling to beasts of bone
The birds are waking in time to flee
The winter taking their greening tree
The sea is rushing away too soon
The tide is pushing against the moon
The day is turning and looking back
At sunset burning the sky to black
This season's dimming is nature's will
The world is brimming with beauty still
I love the thunder