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The Constant Lovers / Blow the Wind Southerly

from Tom Oakes - Water Street by Tom Oakes

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about

The song air is a wonderful thing. A melodic interpretation of a song that has (ideally) to somehow carry the same weight of emotion instrumentally as it does with the most emotive lyrics.

These are two of the most utterly beautiful love songs that I have ever heard. The first from the singing of old friend and Sussex folk singer Gavin Bird and the second originally heard as my Grandad sung me to sleep with it. I learned this 'Mazurka' version from the Northern Irish flute tradition but the lyrics and song are pure Geordie.

Both songs speak of the sea and its power to take love away for ever or to return it safely. I have never been able to live far from it.

Flute HS

lyrics

The Constant Lovers - Trad English

As I was a walking down by the sea shore,
Where the wind and the waves and the billows did roar,
There I heard a strange voice make a sorrowful sound,
'Twas the wind and the waves and the echoes all round.

Chorus (after each verse):
Crying, “Oh, my lover's gone,
He's a youth I adore,
He's gone and I never shall see him no more.”

She'd a voice like a nightingale, skin like a dove,
And the song that she sung it was all about love.
I asked her to marry me, marry me, please,
But the answer she gave, “My love's drowned in the sea.”

I told her I'd gold and I'd silver beside,
In a coach and six horses with me she could ride.
“No I never will marry nor yet make a wife,
I'll stay constant and true all the time I've got life,”

She threw out her arms and she took a great leap
From the cliffs that were high to the billows so deep,
Crying, “The rocks of the ocean shall make me a bed
And the shrimps of the sea shall swim over my head.”

And now every night at six bells they appear
When the moon it is shining, the sky it is clear,
These two constant lovers with all their young charms,
Rolling over and over in each other's arms.


Blow the Wind Southerly - Trad Northumbria

Blow the wind southerly, southerly, southerly,
Blow the wind south o'er the bonny blue sea;
Blow the wind southerly, southerly, southerly,
Blow bonny breeze my lover to me.

They told me last night there were ships in the offing,
And I hurried down to the deep rolling sea;
But my eye could not see it, wherever might be it,
The bark that is bearing my lover to me.

Blow the wind southerly, southerly, southerly,
Blow the wind south that my lover may come;
Blow the wind southerly, southerly, southerly,
Blow bonny breeze and bring him safe home.

I stood by the lighthouse the last time we parted,
Till darkness came down o'er the deep rolling sea,
And no longer I saw the bright bark of my lover.
Blow, bonny breeze and bring him to me.

Is it not sweet to hear breezes blowing,
As lightly they come o'er the deep rolling sea?
But sweeter and dearer by far when 'tis bearing
The bark of my true love in safety to me.

credits

from Tom Oakes - Water Street, released December 7, 2021

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Window Weather Records Edinburgh, UK

Edinburgh based 'not for profit' label focussing on the Hinterlands of Traditional Music, Sound Design and Sonic Art.

Releasing mainly EP's we aim to build a discography based on though diverse linked by threads wether geographic, musical or cultural.

Initially a birthplace to our 'Streams' series of in the moment EP's by Tom Oakes we will be adding new artists and curated collections soon. ... more

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