This album was another step in my own odyssey from
whatever i was to dedicated folk-rock fan.
I was drowsing along one day in 1973 or so, headphones on while i did some
homework so as not to disturb my Techwood dorm roommate, when WREK played
"The Weaver and the Factory Maid".
I remember thinking that it was rather pretty... and then it came to the
bit near the end where Maddie multi-multi tracks a capella vocals of the
final chorus. That's pretty and a little spooky on ordinary speakers, when
you're familiar with it. Hearing it for the very first time, on headphones,
with All! Of! Those! Voices! inside my head, as it were, was almost an epiphany.
After contacting the station to discover just who the heck that was and what
the title was, i proceeded to buy a copy the next day, and discovered that
i liked Steeleye Span as much as i liked Fairport Convention, who i had
discovered in a similar fashion... and it was another step on that long road
for me...
As to the content of the album -- "Misty Moisty Morning" makes lovely use
of Maddie's voice. "Alison Gross" is a nicely spooky story about a witch
who craves a young lover. I'm still not sure what it means when one "...lives
at the sign of the Ups and Downs...", but it's a neat little song.
"Cam Ye O'er Frae France" is a bit of scurrilous anti-Hanoverian propaganda,
accusing King George of whore-mongering, and "Rogues In a Nation" is a heart
felt lament by a Scots patriot at the anticlimactic union of Scotland with
England fro economic reasons: "What force or guile could not essay, O'er
many warlike ages/Is wrought now by a coward few, for hireling traitors'
wages..."
And "The Weaver and the Factory Maid" is Simply Lovely.
((As a footnote -- when i got to speak
to Maddie at a show she did here in Atlanta a few years ago and asked her
just how many tracks she laid down on that last chorus, she couldn't
remember...))
Another Note: I recently chanced upon the original poem by Burns, lamenting
the Union of the Parliaments of England and Scotland in 1707, that provides
the album title and the lyric of the final song:
Fareweel tae a' wir' Scottish fame, fareweel
oor ancient glory,
Fareweel e'en tae wir' Scottish name that's praised
in martial story,
Noo Sark it runs tae the Solway sands, Tweed it runs
tae the ocean,
Tae mark where England's province stands,
Sic' a parcel o' rogues in a nation.
What force nor guile could not subdue, in many warlike
ages,
Is wrought now by a coward few, for hireling traitor's
wages,
The English steel we could disdain, safe in valour's
station,
But English gold has been oor bain,
Sic' a parcel o' rogues in a nation.
Oh would or could I hae seen the day, that treason
thus befell us,
My auld grey heid hae lien in clay, wi' Bruce and
loyal Wallace,
Wi' pith and power 'til my last hour, I'll mak' this
declaration,
We were bought and sold for English gold,
Sic' a parcel o' rogues in a nation.
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