Today’s installment I’ll reserve for a solid introduction and a first volley of recordings.  Real variety out there was harder to dig up than it was for “Two Sisters” or “Matty Groves“, at least in terms of professional recordings; and particularly so on YouTube.  You’re pretty much going to need Spotify to get the most out of this post (note, we have no connection to them; it’s just the most convenient way for us to link to full recordings.)  But I’ve turned out a respectably diverse selection for your listening pleasure and we’ll go heavy with it in this post.  We should get started with that first, then, no?

“Edward” –  Jean Ritchie (Spotify)

Lyrics for Ritchie’s version (note Jean’s interesting commentary before the printed music and lyrics)

My introduction to this ballad came from Jean Ritchie.  It was one of those songs that I just happened to be listening to as part of an album I’d sought out for a different tune.  In the background it played, but I turned it up as I began to grasp just how truly weird and powerful it was.  I was mesmerized.  And even now, after digging deeply into its confused history, this one has an odd and powerful hold on me.

How came that blood…? 

What about that history then?  I’ll keep it streamlined for now.  Francis Child wrote about this ballad in the 1880’s as his #13.  Of it he enthused “Edward is not only unimpeachable, but has ever been regarded as one of the noblest and most sterling specimens of the popular ballad.” He collected though only two complete versions and a verse of a third. However, the Roud Folksong Index today identifies it as #200, and catalogs nearly 300 versions thus far.  Besides the typical dispersal in the English speaking world, there are also many Scandinavian versions, some of which Child used in his work.  I’ll do more with the scholarship on this ballad in my second post.

Amps for Christ – “Edward” (Spotify, different than the YouTube version)  

Amps For Christ’s Lyrics

In all of these American versions, the animals (like the sapling when named) are native or commonly known in the areas of ballad collection.  As many before have noted, the hawk we’ll see in Percy’s version is rarely seen; not because of its native range but probably because keeping birds of prey was not hobby of the disappearing gentle class in America.

(For art’s sake I should link you as well to the version by Muleskinner Jones – also with two voices/singers.  The treatment he gives the ballad is not my cup of tea, but it’s clearly good work and may appeal to you.)

I was fishing and a-fowling the whole day through…

Irish versions of the ballad, known usually as “What Put the Blood?” or “Who Put the Blood?”, are perhaps the most popular today; they seem to account for the most recent professional recordings.  They also differ from the American versions we sampled in a few key ways.  First though, let’s listen to some.

Karan Casey gives us a musically modern version with traditional lyrics.  I can’t find a copy on Spotify or YouTube, but you can go to her homepage and use her ‘widget’.  It’s song number 8, and worth the extra clicking to hear!

Karan Casey – “Who Put the Blood?” – Lyrics

Al O’Donnell recently recorded a similar version, with on old-time banjo accompaniment that is both jarring and haunting.  This became one of my favorite recordings of this ballad as soon as I heard it!  (Al doesn’t have much of a web presence, but this comment on Mudcat gives us a start.)

Al O’Donnell – “What Put the Blood?” (Spotify)

Lyrics for O’Donnell’s version

Two recorded versions from the 1970’s, now available in the Voice of the People series, can shed a bit more light. One is from Paddy Tunney and the other Mary Delaney.  Both perform in the traditional manner but each of course brings their own style and voice to it, and they’re both well worth hearing.

“What Put the Blood” – Paddy Tunney (Spotify)    Lyrics for Tunney’s version

What Put the Blood” – Mary Delaney (Spotify)     Lyrics for Delaney’s version

Granting that this is only a sliver of the Irish representatives of the ballad, we can nonetheless see some patterns that differentiate it from the American variants.  Three of the four versions have it as a homicide, of an unrelated boy specifically; only Delaney’s makes it fratricide.  Like the American versions, all still have the sapling as the spark for violence.  All of the Irish versions here, and those others I’ve listened to but left out, have the killer as a man of means.  This is not the case in the American variants that I know, and it probably explains the difference in structure.  The Irish versions focus more on what the man has to lose as a consequence, whereas the American versions tend to linger on the man’s lies to his mother.

Percy’s version, we’ll see, also has the son as a gentleman like the Irish versions, though I don’t mean to suggest that they are directly derived from Percy’s.  Interestingly, Tunney’s version introduces the idea that the mother plays some part in all this, which we’ll also explore in more depth with Percy’s version.  You’ll see then though that Tunney’s version doesn’t really work the same way with regard to the mother’s involvement.

Coda

Let me close today then with an exciting version of this ballad from an energetic artist who is establishing his name in folk music today; Sam Amidon, from Vermont.  I post his version here mainly because it rocks, but also because lyrically to my ear it seems like a combination of both American and Irish versions, with a bit of Percy thrown in for good measure. (Here are his lyrics.) Musically, it’s compelling and delightfully eclectic.  It seems to be derived from Cordelia’s Dad’s version, which you’ll hear later this week, but when you hear the performance you probably won’t care all that much about that ‘origins’ stuff anyway.