Matty Groves

 "Matty Groves", also known as "Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard" or "Little Musgrave", is a ballad probably originating in Northern England that describes an adulterous tryst between a young man and a noblewoman that is ended when the woman's husband discovers and kills them. It is listed as Child ballad number 81 and number 52 in the Roud Folk Song Index. This song exists in many textual variants and has several variant names. The song dates to at least 1613, and under the title Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard is one of the Child ballads collected by 19th-century American scholar Francis James Child.

Little Musgrave (or Matty Groves, Little Matthew Grew and other variations) goes to church on a holy day either "the holy word to hear" or "to see fair ladies there". He sees Lord Barnard's wife, the fairest lady there, and realises that she is attracted to him. She invites him to spend the night with her, and he agrees when she tells him her husband is away from home. Her page overhears the conversation and goes to find Lord Barnard (Arlen, Daniel, Arnold, Donald, Darnell, Darlington) and tells him that Musgrave is in bed with his wife. Lord Barnard promises the page a large reward if he is telling the truth and to hang him if he is lying. Lord Barnard and his men ride to his home, where he surprises the lovers in bed. Lord Barnard tells Musgrave to dress because he doesn't want to be accused of killing a naked man. Musgrave says he dare not because he has no weapon, and Lord Barnard gives him the better of two swords. In the subsequent duel Little Musgrave wounds Lord Barnard, who then kills him. (However, in one version "Magrove" instead runs away, naked but alive.)

Lord Barnard then asks his wife whether she still prefers Little Musgrave to him and when she says she would prefer a kiss from the dead man's lips to her husband and all his kin, he kills her. He then says he regrets what he has done and orders the lovers to be buried in a single grave, with the lady at the top because "she came of the better kin". In some versions Barnard is hanged, or kills himself, or finds his own infant son dead in his wife's body. Many versions omit one or more parts of the story.

It has been speculated that the original names of the characters, Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard, come from place names in the north of England (specifically Little Musgrave in Westmorland and Barnard Castle in County Durham). The place name "Bucklesfordbury", found in both English and American versions of the song, is of uncertain origin.

Some versions of the ballad include elements of an alba, a poetic form in which lovers part after spending a night together.

There are few broadside versions. There are three different printings in the Bodleian Library's Broadside Ballads Online, all dating from the second half of the seventeenth century. One, The lamentable Ditty of the little Mousgrove, and the Lady Barnet from the collection of Anthony Wood, has a handwritten note by Wood on the reverse stating that "the protagonists were alive in 1543".

Below are the first four verses as written in a version published in 1658.

As it fell one holy-day, hay downe,
As many be in the yeare,
When young men and maids
Together did goe,
Their Mattins and Masse to heare,

Little Musgrave came to the church dore,
The Preist was at private Masse
But he had more minde of the faire women;
Then he had of our lady grace

The one of them was clad in green
Another was clad in pale,
And then came in my lord Bernards wife
The fairest amonst them all;

She cast an eye on little Musgrave
As bright as the summer sun,
And then bethought this little Musgrave
This lady's heart have I woonn.

 It seems that the ballad had largely died out in the British Isles by the time folklorists began collecting songs. Cecil Sharp collected a version from an Agnes Collins in London in 1908, the only known version to have been collected in England. James Madison Carpenter recorded some Scottish versions, probably in the early 1930s, which can be heard on the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library website. The Scottish singer Jeannie Robertson was recorded on separate occasions singing a traditional version of the song entitled "Matty Groves" in the late 1950s by Alan Lomax, Peter Kennedy and Hamish Henderson. However, according to the Tobar an Dualchais website, Robertson may have learned her version from Johnny Wells and Sandy Paton, Paton being an American singer and folk song collector.

Dozens of traditional versions of the ballad were recorded in the Appalachian region. Jean Bell Thomas recorded Green Maggard singing "Lord Daniel" in Ashland, Kentucky, in 1934, which was released on the anthology 'Kentucky Mountain Music' Yazoo YA 2200. Bascom Lamar Lunsford was recorded singing a version called "Lord Daniel's Wife" in 1935. Samuel Harmon, known as "Uncle" Sam Harmon, was recorded by Herbert Halpert in Maryville, Tennessee, in 1939 singing a traditional version. The influential Appalachian folk singer Jean Ritchie had her family version of the ballad, called "Little Musgrave", recorded by Alan Lomax in 1949, who made a reel-to-reel recording of it in his apartment in Greenwich Village; she later released a version on her album Ballads from her Appalachian Family Tradition (1961). In August 1963, John Cohen recorded Dillard Chandler singing "Mathie Groves" in Sodom, North Carolina, whilst Nimrod Workman, another Appalachian singer, had a traditional version of the song recorded in 1974.

The folklorist Helen Hartness Flanders recorded many versions in New England in the 1930s and 40s, all of which can be heard online in the Flanders Ballad Collection.

Canadian folklorists such as Helen Creighton, Kenneth Peacock and Edith Fowke recorded about a dozen versions in Canada, mostly in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

A number of songs and tales collected in the Caribbean are based on, or refer to, the ballad.

To download the easy alphanotes sheet music, look here. Enjoy!

Lyrics:

A holiday, a holiday
and the first one of the year
Lord Arnolds wife came into the church
the gospel for to hear

and when the meeting it was done
she cast her eyes about
and there she spied little Matty Groves
walking in the crowd

“Come home with me little Matty Groves,
come home with me tonight
Come home with me little Matty Groves
and sleep with me till light”

“I cant come home, I won’t come home
and sleep with you tonight
By the rings on your fingers I can tell
you are Lord Arnolds wife”

“If I am Lord Arnold’s wife
Lord Arnold’s not at home
for he is out in the far cornfields
bringing the yearlings home”

And then a servant who was standing by
and hearing what was said
he swore Lord Arnold, he would know
before the sun was set

And in his hurry to carry the news
he rent his breast and ran
and when he came to the broad mill stream
he kicked off his shoes and swam

Matty, he lay down to bed
and took a little sleep
and when he awoke, Lord Arnold
was standing at his feet

“How do you like my feather bed,
and how do you like my sheets?
And how do you like my lady gay
who lies in your arms asleep?”

“Well I like your feather bed,
and well I like your sheets.
But better I like your lady gay
who lies in my arms asleep.”

The Dutchman (song)

 The Dutchman is a song written by Michael Peter Smith in 1968 and popularized by Liam Clancy, Brendan Grace and Steve Goodman. At the time Smith wrote the song, he had never visited the Netherlands.

The song is about an elderly couple living in Amsterdam, Margaret and the title character. The unnamed Dutchman is senile, and Margaret cares for him with a sadness over what has happened to him over the years. It is a story of unconditional love.

The song has been covered by Steve Goodman, Liam Clancy, Tommy Makem, Brendan Grace Bernard Wrigley, John Gorka, Suzy Bogguss, Norm Hacking, Anne Hills, John McDermott (No. 18 Canada), The New Kingston Trio, The Shaw Brothers, Gamble Rogers, Tom Russell, Jerry Jeff Walker, Robert James Waller, Cashman & West, Josh White Jr., Woods Tea Company, Keith Harkin, Celtic Thunder, David Soul, The Quiggs, Danny Doyle, The High Kings, Tom Hoglund, Del Suggs, and Bob Louisell. 

To download the easy alphanotes sheet music, look here. Enjoy!

Lyrics:

The Dutchman's not the kind of man
Who keeps his thumb jammed in the dam
That holds his dreams in
That's a secret that only Margaret knows

When Amsterdam is golden in the summer
Margaret brings him breakfast
She believes him
He thinks tulips bloom beneath the snow
He's mad as he could be
Margaret only sees that sometimes
Sometimes she sees her unborn children in his eyes

Let us go to the banks of the ocean
Where the walls rise above the Zuiderzee
Long ago, I used to be a young man
Dear Margaret remembers that for me

The Dutchman still wears wooden shoes
And his cap and coat are patched with the love
That Margaret sewed there
Sometimes he thinks he's still in Rotterdam

He watches tug-boats down canals and calls out to them
When he thinks he knows the Captain
Margaret comes to take him home again
Through unforgiving streets that trip him, though she holds his arm
Sometimes he thinks he's alone and he calls her name

Let us go to the banks of the ocean
Where the walls rise above the Zuiderzee
Long ago, I used to be a young man
And dear Margaret remembers that for me

The winters whirl, the windmills 'round
She winds his muffler tighter
And they sit in the kitchen
Some tea with whiskey keeps away the dew

And he sees her for a moment, he calls her name
And she makes the bed up
Singing some old love song
She learned it when it was very new

He hums a line or two
They hummed together in the dark
The Dutchman falls asleep
Margaret blows the candles out

Let us go to the banks of the ocean
Where the walls rise above the Zuiderzee
Long ago, I used to be a young man
And dear Margaret remembers that for me

Let us go to the banks of the ocean
Where the walls rise above the Zuiderzee
Long ago, I used to be a young man
And dear Margaret remembers that for me

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

 "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" is a song written by Robbie Robertson. It was originally recorded by his Canadian-American roots rock group the Band and released on their eponymous second album in 1969. Levon Helm provided the lead vocals. The song is a first-person narrative relating the economic and social distress experienced by the protagonist, a poor white Southerner, during the last year of the American Civil War.

"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" was ranked number 245 on Rolling Stone magazine's 2004 list of the 500 greatest songs of all time. The song is included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll" and in Time magazine's All-Time 100.

Joan Baez's version of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" peaked at No. 3 on the Hot 100 on October 2, 1971; it did likewise on the Cashbox Top 100 chart. On the Record World Top Singles chart for the week of September 25, 1971, the Baez single hit No. 1 for one week.

The song was written by Robbie Robertson, who spent about eight months working on it. Levon Helm performed lead vocals on the song. Robertson said he had the music to the song in his head and would play the chords over and over on the piano but had no idea what the song was to be about. Then the concept came to him and he researched the subject with help from the Band's drummer Levon Helm, a native of Arkansas. In his 1993 autobiography, This Wheel's on Fire, Helm wrote, "Robbie and I worked on 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down' up in Woodstock. I remember taking him to the library so he could research the history and geography of the era and make General Robert E. Lee come out with all due respect".

The lyrics tell of the last days of the American Civil War, portraying the suffering of the protagonist, Virgil Caine, a poor white Southerner. Dixie is the historical nickname for the states making up the Confederate States of America. The song's opening stanza refers to one of George Stoneman's raids behind Confederate lines at the end of the Civil War in 1865:

Virgil Caine is the name, and I served on the Danville train
'Til Stoneman's cavalry came and tore up the tracks again
In the winter of '65, we were hungry, just barely alive
By May the tenth, Richmond had fell, it's a time I remember, oh so well ...

A mainstay of the Band's repertoire, the song was included in every compilation covering the Band's recording career from 1968 to 1977. The Band frequently performed the song in concert, and it is included on the group's live albums Rock of Ages (1972) and Before the Flood (1974). The song was also included in the Band's Thanksgiving Day concert in 1976 (which was the subject of Martin Scorsese's documentary film The Last Waltz,) and on that film's soundtrack released in 1978.

The last time the song was performed by Helm was in The Last Waltz. Helm refused to play the song afterwards. Although it has long been believed that the reason for Helm's refusal to play the song was a dispute with Robertson over songwriting credits, Garth Hudson said that the refusal was caused by Helm's dislike for Joan Baez's cover version.

"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" is considered one of the highlights of The Band, the group's second album, which was released in the fall of 1969.

"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" was ranked number 245 on Rolling Stone magazine's 2004 list of the 500 greatest songs of all time. Pitchfork Media named it the forty-second best song of the 1960s. The song is included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll" and Time magazine's All-Time 100.

In the October 1969 U.S. edition of Rolling Stone, critic Ralph J. Gleason explained the song's impact on listeners:

Nothing I have read … has brought home the overwhelming human sense of history that this song does. The only thing I can relate it to at all is The Red Badge of Courage. It's a remarkable song, the rhythmic structure, the voice of Levon and the bass line with the drum accents and then the heavy close harmony of Levon, Richard and Rick in the theme, make it seem impossible that this isn't some traditional material handed down from father to son straight from that winter of 1865 to today. It has that ring of truth and the whole aura of authenticity.   

 Writing for Time in 2012 about the Band's performance of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" during The Last Waltz, Nate Rawlings said, "Helm was the only southerner in The Band—the rest were Canadian—and he wears the pain and suffering of ordinary people in the South late in the Civil War on his face from the song’s beginning until the final strike of his drum stick".

In 2023, Dan Rys of Billboard wrote the following about "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down":

In some ways, it’s ironic that one of the greatest songs about the American Civil War was written by a Canadian. And while sometimes criticized due to its lyrics coming from the viewpoint of a defeated Confederate soldier, the song is anything but a glorification of the Confederacy, instead a wide-eyed grappling with the aftermath of war and the devastation of the land, and of countless families, that it wrought. Levon Helm’s vocals drip with emotion, while the hook is one of the most memorable in the classic rock canon, with backing vocals that only reinforce the rawness of the subject matter at hand. It's a true testament to Robertson's songwriting ability that he was able to conjure such a nuanced song from such a brutal piece of another country's history.

Some commentators in the 21st century have questioned whether the song's original lyrics were an endorsement of slavery and the ideology of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. In 2009, writing in The Atlantic, African-American author Ta-Nehisi Coates characterized the song as "another story about the blues of Pharaoh," stating that he "can no more marvel at the Band than a Sioux can marvel at the cinematography of They Died With Their Boots On." In an August 2020 interview in Rolling Stone, contemporary singer-songwriter Early James described his changes to the lyrics of the song, while covering it, to oppose the Confederate cause – for example, in the first verse, "where Helm sang that the fall of the Confederacy was 'a time I remember oh so well', James declared it 'a time to bid farewell'". A 2020 editorial in The Roanoke Times argued that the song does not glorify slavery, the Confederacy, or Robert E. Lee, but rather tells the story of a poor, non-slave-holding Southerner who tries to make sense of the loss of his brother and his livelihood. Jack Hamilton, of the University of Virginia, writing in Slate, said that it is "an anti-war song first and foremost", pointing to the references to "bells ringing" and "people singing" in the chorus. 

The most successful version of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" was Joan Baez's version, which became a RIAA-certified Gold record on October 22, 1971. In addition to chart action on the Hot 100, the record spent five weeks atop the easy listening chart. Billboard ranked it as the No. 20 song for 1971. Baez's version of the song reached number six in the pop charts in the UK in October 1971.

On the Record World Top Singles chart for the week of September 25, 1971, the Baez version of the song ranked No. 1 for one week.

The Baez recording contained slightly different lyrics than the Band's version of the song. Baez later told Rolling Stone's Kurt Loder that she initially learned the song by listening to the recording on the Band's album, and had never seen the printed lyrics at the time she recorded it, and thus sang the lyrics as she had (mis)heard them.

To download the easy alphanotes sheet music, look here. Enjoy!

Give Yourself To Love

 Give Yourself To Love was originally released in 1983 and awarded NAIRD Best Folk Album of the year. Accompanied by longtime band members Nina Gerber and Ford James, Kate Wolf produced this album to accurately reflect her concerts. 

Kate Wolf (born Kathryn Louise Allen; January 27, 1942 – December 10, 1986) was an American folk singer and songwriter. Though her career was relatively short, she had a significant impact on the folk music scene.

Kate Wolf composed over two hundred songs during her fifteen-year folk music career. About a third appear on her albums; those and another third are in her songbooks.

To download the easy alphanotes sheet music, look here. Enjoy!

Lyrics:

Kind friends all gathered 'round, there's something I would say:
That what brings us together here has blessed us all today.
Love has made a circle that holds us all inside.
Where strangers are as family, loneliness can't hide.

You must give yourself to love if love is what you're after;
Open up your hearts to the tears and laughter
And give yourself to love, give yourself to love.

I've walked these mountains in the rain and learned to love the wind;
I've been up before the sunrise to watch the day begin.
I've always knew I'd find you, though I never did know how;
Like sunshine on a cloudy day stand before me now.

So give yourself to love if love is what you're after;
Open up your hearts to the tears and laughter
And give yourself to love, give yourself to love.

Love is born in fire; it's planted like a seed.
Love can't give you everything, but it gives you what you need.
And love comes when you're ready, love comes when you're afraid;
It'll be your greatest teacher, the best friend you have made.

So give yourself to love if love is what you're after;
Open up your hearts to the tears and laughter
And give yourself to love, give yourself to love.

Give yourself to love if love is what you're after;
Open up your hearts to the tears and laughter
And give yourself to love, give yourself to love

Across The Great Divide

 “Across the Great Divide” is a beautiful folk song written by singer-songwriter Kate Wolf in the early 1980s. Since then, it has been covered by many artists—perhaps most notably by folk-country singer Nanci Griffith with Emmylou Harris on Griffith's 1993 album, Other Voices/Other Rooms.

Kate Wolf (born Kathryn Louise Allen; January 27, 1942 – December 10, 1986) was an American folk singer and songwriter. Though her career was relatively short, she had a significant impact on the folk music scene.

Kate Wolf composed over two hundred songs during her fifteen-year folk music career. About a third appear on her albums; those and another third are in her songbooks.

To download the easy alphanotes sheet music, look here. Enjoy!

Lyrics:

I've been walkin' in my sleep
Countin' troubles 'stead of countin' sheep
Where the years went I can't say
I just turned around and they've gone away

I've been siftin' through the layers
Of dusty books and faded papers
They tell a story I used to know
And it was one that happened so long ago

It's gone away in yesterday
Now I find myself on the mountainside
Where the rivers change direction
Across the Great Divide

Now, I heard the owl a-callin'
Softly as the night was fallin'
With a question and I replied
But he's gone across the borderline

He's gone away in yesterday
Now I find myself on the mountainside
Where the rivers change direction
Across the Great Divide

The finest hour that I have seen
Is the one that comes between
The edge of night and the break of day
It's when the darkness rolls away

And it's gone away in yesterday
Now I find myself on the mountainside
Where the rivers change direction
Across the Great Divide
And it's gone away in yesterday
Now I find myself on the mountainside
It's where the rivers change direction
Across the Great Divide