The Ancient Ballads

The Unquiet Grave

The American Folk Experience

The Unquiet Grave

by John Fitzsimmons | The American Folk Experience

Child Ballad #78

Cold blows the wind to my true love,
And gently falls the rain.
I’ve never had but one true love,
And in green-wood he lies slain.

I’ll do as much for my true love,
As any young girl may,
I’ll sit and mourn all on his grave,
For twelve months and a day.

And when twelve months and a day was passed,
The ghost did rise and speak,
“why sittest thou all on my grave
And will no let me sleep?”

“Go fetch me water from the desert,
And blood from out the stone,
Go fetch me milk from a fair maid’s breast
That young man never has known.”

“My breast is cold as the clay,
My breath is earthly strong,
And if you kiss my cold clay lips,
Your days they won’t be long.”

“How oft on yonder grave, sweetheart,
Where we were want to walk,
The fairest flower that e’er I saw
Has withered to a stalk.”

“when will we meet again, sweetheart,
When will we meet again?”
“when the autumn leaves that fall from the trees
Are green and spring up again.”

If you have any more information to share about this song or helpful links, please post as a comment.

Thanks for stopping by the site!

~John Fitz

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I am indebted to the many friends who share my love of traditional songs and to the many scholars whose works are too many to include here. I am also incredibly grateful to the collector’s curators and collators of Wikipedia, Mudcat.org, MainlyNorfolk.info, and TheContemplator.com for their wise, thorough and informative contributions to the study of folk music. 

I share their research on my site with humility, thanks, and gratitude. Please cite their work accordingly with your own research. If you have any research or sites you would like to share on this site, please post in the comment box.  Thanks!

Source: Wikipedia

Edit links
For the 1944 literary work by Cyril Connolly, see The Unquiet Grave (book). For the 1964 anthology edited by August Derleth, see The Unquiet Grave (anthology).

"The Unquiet Grave" is an Irish / English folk song in which a young man's grief over the death of his true love is so deep that it disturbs her eternal sleep. It was collected in 1868 by Francis James Child as Child Ballad number 78.[1] One of the more common tunes used for the ballad is the same as that used for the English ballad "Dives and Lazarus" and the Irish pub favorite "Star of the County Down".

Synopsis

A man mourns his true love for "a twelve month and a day". At the end of that time, the dead woman complains that his weeping is keeping her from peaceful rest. He begs a kiss. She tells him it would kill him. When he persists, wanting to join her in death, she explains that once they are both dead their hearts will simply decay, so he should enjoy life while he has it.

Variants

The version noted by Cecil Sharp[2] ends with "When will we meet again? / When the autumn leaves that fall from the trees / Are green and spring up again."

Many verses in this ballad have parallels in other ballads: Bonny Bee Hom, Sweet William's Ghost and some variants of The Twa Brothers.[3]

Return of the dead

The motif that excessive grief can disturb the dead is found also in German and Scandinavian ballads, as well as Greek and Roman traditions.[4]

In 1941 the "Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society" Vol 4 no 2 included a long essay by Ruth Harvey. She compares motifs from "The Unquiet Grave" with other European ballads, including "Es ging ein Knab spazieren (Der tote Freier)" from Germany, and "Faestemanden I Graven" from Denmark.[5] She writes: "It is only inevitable that a song which certainly goes back to pre-Christian traditions should have suffered modification during the centuries."[6]

The Danish ballad "Faestemanden I Graven" was made into a short film, "Aage og Else" (1983).[7] Though not recorded till the nineteenth century, “The Unquiet Grave,” as a folk work, may date to the same period as those two seventeenth-century ballads. On the Fresno State University website, Robert B Waltz compares "The Unquiet Grave" with an older carol, "There blows a cold wind today," in the Bodleian Library MS 7683 (dated ca. 1500), but adds: "I must say that I find this a stretch; the similarities are slight indeed."[8]

Recordings

  • The composer Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote several arrangements for "How Cold the Wind doth Blow (or The Unquiet Grave)". The best known, from 1912, is for piano, violin and voice. It was recorded in 1976 by Sir Philip Ledger, Hugh Bean and Robert Tear. Catalogue It also appears on the 1989 recording Songs of Britten and Vaughan Williams by Canadian baritone Kevin McMillan.
  • Kate Rusby, Rebsie Fairholm, Carol Noonan, Joan Baez, the Dubliners, Solas, Barbara Dickson, Shirley Collins, Circulus, David Pajo, Fire + Ice and Sarah Calderwood have recorded versions of this song.
  • A single-movement viola concerto by Australian composer Andrew Ford used the melody of the ballad as its foundation. Written in 1997, the concerto is pieced together from melodic fragments of the ballad and it is only in the final few minutes that the full theme emerges.
  • Being a well-documented song and publicised by English Folk Dance and Song Society,[9] The Broadside Ballads Project,[10] and Mainly Norfolk,[11] the song was recorded by Jon Boden and Oli Steadman for inclusion in their respective lists of daily folk songs "A Folk Song A Day"[12] and "365 Days Of Folk".[13]
  • The Pennsylvania-based alternative rock band Ween recorded a version of the song (retitled "Cold Blows the Wind") on their 1997 album, The Mollusk. The liner notes jokingly describe the song as a traditional Chinese spiritual.
  • The gothic/darkwave band Faith and the Muse recorded a version on their debut Elyria in 1994.
  • It was recorded and released as a duet between Ian Read and Ysanne Spevack in 2000, distributed by Tesco in Germany, and pressed up on blue vinyl with a letterpress gatefold cover under the band name Fire + Ice.[14]
  • Papa M recorded a version for his 2001 album "Whatever, Mortal"
  • The folk-rock group Steeleye Span recorded a version on their 2009 album Cogs, Wheels and Lovers.
  • Electro noir artist Alien Skin, formerly with Real Life (of '80s "Send Me An Angel" fame), recorded a version on his 2010 album The Unquiet Grave.
  • Orcadian singer Kris Drever recorded a version of this song to music of his own on Lau's album Lightweights and Gentlemen in 2009.
  • The eleven-piece folk band Bellowhead recorded a cover of Ween's version ("Cold Blows the Wind") for their 2010 album Hedonism.
  • An electronic arrangement by Vladislav Korolev was sung by Lori Joachim Fredrics and premiered on April 13, 2013.
  • The German electronica/darkwave band Helium Vola included a rendition on their 2013 album, Wohin?.
  • British folk singer/songwriter Elliott Morris included an arrangement of "Unquiet Grave" on his 2013 EP, Shadows and Whispers.
  • British medieval folk-rock band Gryphon recorded their interpretation of the ballad using the Dives and Lazarus melody on their 1973 debut album, Gryphon.
  • English progressive rock musician Steven Wilson recorded an arrangement of the song. It was the B-Side to "Cover version IV", one of a series of six singles, each consisting of a cover of a song written by another artist as the A-side, with the B-sides consisting of original songs (with the exception of "The Unquiet Grave"). The six cover versions and corresponding B-sides were released together on a compilation album, Cover Version, in 2014.
  • Part of the song was performed by Helen McCrory in the Penny Dreadful episode "Fresh Hell", and again by Sarah Greene in "And They Were Enemies".
  • The Ghosts of Johnson City recorded a version of the song for their 2015 album Am I Born To Die?
  • Daoirí Farrell recorded a version of the song on his 2016 album "True Born Irishman"
  • Joan Baez sings it on three albums:
  • House and Land interpret the song as their final track on their self-titled 2017 album.
  • The English folk duo The Askew Sisters recorded the ballad on their 2014 album In the Air or the Earth.
  • The Spanish dark pagan folk band Trobar de Morte recorded a version of the song on their eighth studio album The Book of Shadows in 2020.
  • Irish singers Pauline Scanlon and Damien Dempsey performed a six and a half minute duet on Scanlon's 2022 album, The Unquiet.
  • American Pine Barrens folk band Jackson Pines recorded their interpretation for their album Pine Barrens Vol. 1 in 2023. The ballad was connected to a lost town called Colliers Mills in their hometown of Jackson, NJ by song-catcher Herbert Halpert in 1936. Allen Clevenger of Wrightstown sang it to him and said his mother-in-law Mrs. Grover nee Cotter sang it in Colliers Mills as a girl.
  • Canadian Celtic/Polka Punk Band The Dreadnoughts released a version of the song on March 14, 2023.

References

  1. ^ Francis James Child, Scottish and English Popular Ballads, "The Unquiet Grave"
  2. ^ Cecil J. Sharp (Ed) (1975) One Hundred English Folksongs (For Medium Voice), Dover, ISBN 0-486-23192-5
  3. ^ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, v 2, p 234, Dover Publications, New York 1965
  4. ^ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, v 2, p 234-6, Dover Publications, New York 1965
  5. ^ Zachcial, Michael (13 February 1856). "Herr". Deutsche Volkslieder. Müller-Lüdenscheidt-Verlag. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
  6. ^ Matteson, Richard. "Mr". Bluegrassmessengers. Blugreass Messengers. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
  7. ^ Thomsen, Knud Leif. "Aage og Else". IMDB. ImdbPro. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
  8. ^ Waltz, Robert. "Unquiet Grave, The [Child 78]". Traditional Ballad Index. Fresno State University. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
  9. ^ "Captain Ward, a Pirate Song". 3 September 2014. Retrieved 9 January 2024.
  10. ^ "Captain Ward". Retrieved 9 January 2024.
  11. ^ "Captain Ward and the Rainbow". Retrieved 9 January 2024.
  12. ^ "Captain Ward". 6 January 2015. Retrieved 9 January 2024.
  13. ^ "Captain Ward And The Royal Rainbow". Retrieved 9 January 2024.
  14. ^ "Death in June / Fire + Ice - We Said Destroy". Discogs. 2000.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unquiet_Grave

Source: Mainly Norfolk

The Unquiet Grave / Cold Blows the Wind

[ Roud 51 ; Child 78 ; Ballad Index C078 ; Bodleian Roud 51 ; Wiltshire Roud 51 ; trad.]A.L. Lloyd sang The Unquiet Grave in 1956 on his and Ewan MacColl’s Riverside album of Child ballads, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads Volume I. Editor Kenneth G. Goldstein wrote in the album’s booklet:

Aside from its exquisite poety and music, this ballad is notable for its exhibition of the universal popular belief that excessive grief on the part of mourners disturbes the peace of the dead.

It is possible that this is only a fragment of a once popular longer ballad. In the form we have it today, no text has been reported earlier than the 19thcentury. The ballad is little known in Scotland and is quite rare in America. It is still current in England, however.

The text and tune sung by A.L. Lloyd were collected by Cecil Sharp from William Spearing of Ile Bruers, Somerset, excepting the last two stanzas, which were from Mrs. William Ree of Hambridge, Somerset.

See Child (78), Volume II, p. 78ff; Coffin, p.82; Dean-Smith, p.113.

Shirley Collins recorded this ballad in 1959 for her second LP, False True Lovers, a second time for her Collector EP English Songs Vol. 1, and a third time in 1967 for her album The Power of the True Love Knot. She commented in the first album’s notes:

From Cecil Sharp’s English Folk Songs. This is one of the classic pieces of English folk song literature. From one point of view it is a feminine fantasy or a wish, perhaps for the death of a lover, perhaps for a way of arranging a night visit by the lover, perhaps for a way of showing how strong her love is, perhaps of a feeling of guilt. Certainly, it is a ghost story designed to delight the imagination of young women. Finally, it shows the survival of ancient and widely distributed primitive beliefs about the treatment of the dead.

The rowdy Irish wake is the only one example of the common folk custom of a gathering in which ceremonial banqueting and games were indulged in to show honour to the dead person. The shade was given a great send-off to the other world. Sometimes guns were fired to send him skittering away in fear. Sometimes a special door was cut in the side of the wall so that the coffin could be taken out by that route; and then this hole was walled up so that the ghost could not find his way back into the house again.

In Scotland and Ireland it was believed that excessive grief prevented the dead from resting; that the tears shed by the mourners pierced holes in the corpse. In Persia they held that the tears shed by humanity for their dead flowed into a river in which the souls floated and drowned. Similar beliefs were held by the Greeks and Romans, and from mediaeval times throughout Germany and Scandinavia.

Sharp says that in England a belief was current that if a girl was betrothed to a man, she was pledged to him if he died, and was bound to follow him to the spirit world unless she solved certain riddles, or performed certain tasks, such as fetching water from a desert, blood from a stone, milk from the breast of a virgin…

and in the The Power of the True Love Knot album notes:

This song is a tender and magical expression of an ancient community belief: a very proper belief that when the mourning of a lover’s death started to drain life from the living, love was being misused. Tears flowed into the Styx, and the river swelled and became impassable, so the dead come back and warn the quick. On this track and elsewhere I play an instrument made for me by John Bailey, which is a dulcimer with a five-string banjo neck.

The Ian Campbell Folk Group with Dave Swarbrick sang The Unquiet Grave in 1963 on their album This Is the Ian Campbell Folk Group. This track was included in 2005 on their anthology The Times They Are A-Changin’.

Alex Campbell sang The Unquiet Grave in 1966 on his album Yours Aye, Alex; this track was included in 1966 on his compilation CD Been on the Road So Long.

Hedy West sang an American version The Unquiet Grave in 1967 on her Topic album Ballads. Her (or A.L. Lloyd’s) sleeve notes commented:

There’s widespread and ancient belief that excessive grieving over the dead disturbs their rest. The Greeks and Romans thought so, and the idea is as common in the Far East as in Western Europe. In Ireland as in Rumania it was thought that inordinate tears would burn a hole in the corpse, and in several ballads the dead complain that they cannot sleep because the tears of the living have wet their winding sheet. This ballad, of a restless ghost who confronts and reproaches the mourner, is probably a fragment broken off some longer, more complicated narrative. Though it’s been relatively common in England till recent times, it seems very rare in America, and has turned up only in a scattered handful of versions from Newfoundland, Virginia and North Carolina (which is where the present version comes from, collected by the indefatigable Frank C. Brown).

Jon Raven sang The Unquiet Grave in 1968 on the Broadside album The Halliard : Jon Raven.

Dave & Toni Arthur sang this ballad as Cold Blows the Winter’s Wind in 1969 on their Topic album The Lark in the Morning. The sleeve notes commented:

The ballad, usually called The Unquiet Grave, concerns a person who feels bound to sit and mourn by his (sometimes, her) lover’s grave for a period of time. In nearly all versions, the corpse complains of being disturbed, illustrating the ancient belief that excessive grief interferes with the peace of the dead. In archaic folklore, a constant concern, when faced with a death, is to try to ensure that the corpse makes a pleasant and reassured transit from the land of the living to the world of the dead. Otherwise the dead may return, uneasy and vengeful, to plague the living. Hence for instance the jollification at Irish wakes, intended to cheer and embolden the dead. Singers have ended our ballad in various ways, sometimes heartbroken and disconsolate, sometimes more or less lightheartedly as: “But since I have lost my own true love, I must get another in time.” Our tune is from Fred Hamer’s collection Garners Gay. The words are from Alfred Williams’s Folk-Songs of the Upper Thames.

Frankie Armstrong sang The Unquiet Grave in 1971 on her Topic album Lovely on the Water. A.L. Lloyd commented in the sleeve notes:

A woman laments long over the grave of her sweetheart, till he speaks from the grave and reproaches her for disturbing his rest. Usually in the ballads the setting and the characters are named, but here we know neither the who nor the where, and the supernatural climate is further charged with mystery on that account. The tale is old, like the belief that too much grief disturbs the dead, though to this day, in Eastern Europe, some peasants believe that mourner’s tears make an unhealing burn if they chance to light on a corpse. In some versions the dead person threatens to tear the living one to pieces (the favourite revenge of ghosts!) unless absolute fidelity can be sworn to. But Frankie’s version is milder, more consolatory, as fits her gentle character. By and large, the tune she uses is one recorded by Vaughan Williams at Dilwyn, Herefordshire.

John Kirkpatrick and Sue Harris sang this ballad as Cold Blows the Wind in 1976 on their Topic LP Among the Many Attractions at the Show Will Be a Really High Class Band and John Kirkpatrick did it again in 2007 on his Fledg’ling CD Make No Bones. He commented in the latter album’s sleeve notes:

When I moved to Shropshire in 1973 and started looking at the local folk music, the singing of May Bradley was a glorious revelation. I never saw her in the flesh, but Fred Hamer’s recordings of her in Ludlow during the 1960s proved to be a real treasure chest of wonderful songs wonderfully sung. She was the daughter of Ester Smith, a gypsy singer that Vaughan Williams had collected from in Herefordshire at the beginning of the century, and had some of her mother’s songs as well as plenty of others. This is her tune for what is sometimes known as The Unquiet Grave—Child Ballad no. 78. I’ve sung this before in a past life, but in revisiting the song I have added a few lines from other versions to fill out the sense of the words.

Two books of the songs Fred Hamer collected were published by EFDS Publications Ltd., and you can see this in the first one from 1967, Garners Gay. Or a much better option is to hear [May Bradley] singing it herself on the EFDSS LP Garners Gay issued in 1971, EFDSS LP 1006.

May Bradley’s version can also be found on her Musical Traditions anthology Sweet Swansea (2010).

Jo Freya sang The Unquiet Grave in 1992 on her CD Traditional Songs of England.

Sandra Kerr sang The Unquiet Grave in 1970 on the Argo Voices anthology series, Second Book, Record One (Argo DA96). Her daughter Nancy sang it in 1993 on the CD Eliza Carthy & Nancy Kerr. She referred in her sleeve notes to Evelin Wells’ The Ballad Tree, and to her mother singing this version onVoices.

Louis Killen learnt The Unquiet Grave from Brian Ballinger and sang in on his 1993 CD A Bonny Bunch.

Steeleye Span sang One True Love in 1998 on their CD Horkstow Grange, and they recorded The Unquiet Grave in 2009 for their CD Cogs Wheels and Lovers. Tim Harries commented in the former album’s notes:

The sources for [One True Love] are The Unquiet Grave, (spooky old English song), Lovely Joan, and a small fragment of Lowlands of Holland. The inspiration came largely from Borrowed Time by Paul Monette, a book you may be familiar with.

Kate Rusby couldn’t let the dead sleep on her 1999 CD Sleepless.

Like John Kirkpatrick, Jon Boden learned Cold Blows the Wind from the singing of May Bradley. He sang it with Bellowhead in 2010 on their CD Hedonism, and he sang it unaccompanied as the December 29, 2010 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day.

Rachel Newton sang The Unquiet Grave on The Furrow Collective’s 2015 EP Blow Out the Moon. She commented in the album’s notes:

I took the words for the well known ballad The Unquiet Grave from Child no. 78a; and the melody I use is based on a version I learned from the singing of Shirley Collins.

Siobhan Miller sang The Unquiet Grave on her 2017 album Strata.

Lyrics

A.L. Lloyd sings The Unquiet Grave
“Cold blows the wind to my true love,
And gentle drops the rain,
I never had but one true love
And in Greenwood she is lain.
“I’ll do as much for my true love
As any young man may,
I’ll sit and weep all on her grave
For a twelve month and a day.”
When the twelve month and one day was o’er,
Her ghost begun for to speak,
“Why sit you here all on my grave
And will not let me sleep?”
“There’s one thing more I want, sweetheart,
And one thing more I crave,
And that’s a kiss from your lily-white lips
And then I’ll go from your grave.”
“My lips are cold as clay, sweetheart,
My breath smells heavy and strong,
And if you kiss my lily-white lips,
Your time would not be long.”
Shirley Collins sings The Unquiet Grave Nancy Kerr sings The Unquiet Grave
“Cold blows the wind tonight, true love,
Cold are the drops of rain,
I only had but one true love
And in Greenwood he lies slain.		 “The wind doth blow today, my love,
And a few small drops of rain;
I never had but one true love
And in Greenwood he is lain.
“I’ll do as much for my true love
As any young girl may,
I’ll sit and mourn all by his grave
For a twelve-month and a day.”		 “I’ll do as much for my true love
As any young girl may,
I’ll sit and mourn all on his grave
For twelve months and a day.”
Now the twelve-month and a day being gone,
The ghost began to greet:
“Your salten tears they trickle down
They wet my winding sheet.”		 The twelve months and a day being done,
The dead began to speak:
“Oh, who sits weeping on my grave
And will not let me sleep?”
“It’s I, my love, sits by your grave
And will not let you sleep.
For I crave one kiss from your clay-cold lips
And that is all I seek.”		 “’Tis I, your love sits on your grave
And will not let you sleep.
For I crave one kiss of your clay-cold lips
And that is all I seek.”
“But lily, lily are my lips,
My breath comes earthy strong.
If you have one kiss from my clay-cold lips,
Your time will not be long.”		 “Your breath is as the roses sweet,
Mine as the sulphur strong.
And if you get one kiss from my lips,
Your time will not be long.“
“’Twas down in yonder garden green,
Love, where we used to walk.
And the fairest flower that e’er was seen
Has withered to the stalk.”		 “’Tis down in yonder garden green,
Love, where we used to walk.
The finest flower that e’er was seen
Is withered to a stalk.”
“The stalk is withered dry, true love,
So must our hearts decay.
Then rest yourself content, my dear,
Till God calls you away,
Till God calls you away.”		 “The stalk is withered and dry, sweetheart,
And the flower will never return.
And since I lost my own true love
What can I do but mourn?”“Mourn not for me, my own true love,
Mourn not for me I pray.
For I must leave you and all the world
And go into my grave.”
Bellowhead sings Cold Blows the Wind Steeleye Span sing One True Love
“Cold blows the wind over my true love,
Cold blows the drops of rain,
I never had but one true love
And in Greenwood he lies slain.“I’ll do as much for my true love
As any young girl may,
I’ll sit and weep down by his grave
For twelve months and a day.”But when twelve months they were up and gone
This young man he arose:
“What makes you sit by my grave and weep?
I can’t take my repose!”“One kiss, one kiss from you lily-white lips,
One kiss is all I crave.
One kiss, one kiss from you lily-white lips,
Then return back to your grave.”“These lips they are as cold as clay,
My breath is heavy and strong.
if you were to kiss these lily-white lips
Your life would not be long.“Oh, don’t you remember the garden grove,
Where once we used to walk?
Go pick the finest flower of them all,
It will wither to a stalk.“Go fetch me a flower from the dungeon deep,
Bring water from a stone.
Bring white milk from a virgin’s breast
That baby never bore none.”“Go dig me a grave both wide and deep,
Dig it as quick as you may.
That I may lay down and take a long sleep
For twelve months and a day.”		 Cold blows the wind o’er my true love,
Cold blows the drops of rain,
I never had but one true love
And never will again.I’ll do as much for my true love
As any lover may,
I’ll sit and weep down by his grave
A twelve-month in one day.One kiss, one kiss from your sweet lips,
One kiss is all I grave.
One kiss, one kiss from your sweet lips,
And sink down in your grave.And your lips, they are not sweet my love
Your kiss is cold as clay,
My time be long, my time be short,
Tomorrow or today.And down beyond the garden wall,
Where we both used to walk,
Are finest flowers that ever grew
All withered to a stalk.(repeat first verse)

Acknowledgements

Transcribed from the singing of Nancy Kerr by Kira White.

Source: Traditional Songfacts

  • “The Unquiet Grave” is both a poem and a song. Intensely sad, and written in the first person singular, the mourner laments the love of his life sitting weeping at her graveside for a year and a day, at which point her ghost rises up and asks who will not allow her to sleep. He identifies himself and asks for “one kiss of your clay-cold lips”. She disavows him of that notion, and tells him to put his grief behind him and enjoy the rest of his life “Till God calls you away”.

  • Like most traditional songs there are many variations, of the title as well as the lyrics in this case. Extensive research on its origin and development can be found in Volume II of The Traditional Tunes Of The Child Ballads With Their Texts, according to the Extant Records of Great Britain and America, by Bertrand Harris Bronson, which was published by Princeton University Press in 1962.
    According to this book, none of the extant texts of the ballad is older than the early 19th Century but it probably dates from about the end of the 15th. A version was recorded by [ie sung to] musicologist Cecil Sharp on January 23, 1907 by Mrs Ware of Eley Over Stowey. The same day, Sharp recorded “Cold Blows The Wind” by James Chedgey of Bincombe Over Stowey.
    Sabine Baring-Gould (who is best known for writing the lyrics to “Onward Christian Soldiers”) collected a version, from J. Woodrich, a blacksmith of Wollacot Moor, Thrushleton, in 1889.
    Probably the earliest recorded version is “Cold Blows The Wind” which was sung by Elizabeth Doidge, a nurse of Brentnor, and collected by Mrs Gibbons, the daughter of W.L.Trelawney, Bart, c1830. This version had the tune usually associated with “Childe The Hunter”.There is also “How Cold The Winds Do Blow”, sung by Mrs Rugman of Dunsfold, Surrey, 1896; “Cold Blows The Wind To-night, Sweetheart”, sung by Mrs Bowker, of Sunderland Point, Lancashire, in September 1909, and further afield, “The Auld Song From Cow Head” sung by the Reverend Mr Gibbs Bull of Newfoundland in 1929.

  • Another musicologist who researched “The Unquiet Grave” in some depth was the aforementioned Cecil Sharp. Volume I of the 1994 Oxford University Press edition of his …Collection Of English Folk Songs, Edited by Maud Karpeles records no less than seventeen different versions, the oldest of which was sung to him by Mrs Ree at Hambridge, Somerset, on April 4, 1904.

  • “The Unquiet Grave” has been recorded by many artists, including Joan Baez and Karen Mall (suitably amended for gender) and by Luke Kelly. >>

Performances, Workshops,
Resources & Recordings

The American Folk Experience is dedicated to collecting and curating the most enduring songs from our musical heritage.  Every performance and workshop is a celebration and exploration of the timeless songs and stories that have shaped and formed the musical history of America. John Fitzsimmons has been singing and performing these gems of the past for the past forty years, and he brings a folksy warmth, humor and massive repertoire of songs to any occasion. 

Festivals & Celebrations
Coffeehouses
School Assemblies
Library Presentations
Songwriting Workshops
Artist in Residence
House Concerts
Pub Singing
Irish & Celtic Performances
Poetry Readings
Campfires
Music Lessons
Senior Centers
Voiceovers & Recording

““Beneath the friendly charisma is the heart of a purist gently leading us from the songs of our lives to the timeless traditional songs he knows so well…”

 

Globe Magazine

Join Fitz
at The Colonial Inn

“The Nobel Laureate of New England Pub Music…”

Scott Alaric

Adventures in the Modern Folk Underground

On the Green, in Concord, MA
Every Thursday Night
for over thirty years…

“A Song Singing, Word Slinging, Story Swapping,
Ballad Mongering, Folksinger, Teacher, & Poet…”

Theo Rogue

Songcatcher Rag

Fitz’s Recordings

& Writings

Songs, poems, essays, reflections and ramblings of a folksinger, traveler, teacher, poet and thinker…

Download for free from the iTunes Bookstore

Now Available on iTunes!

“A Master of Folk…”

The Boston Globe

Fitz’s now classic recording of original songs and poetry…

Download from the iTunes Music Store

Now Available on iTunes!

“A Masterful weaver of song whose deep, resonant voice rivals the best of his genre…”

Spirit of Change Magazine

“2003: Best Children’s Music Recording of the Year…”

Boston Parent's Paper

Fitz & The Salty Dawgs
Amazing music, good times and good friends…

Listen here

TheCraftedWord.org

Writing help

when you need it…

“When the eyes rest on the soul…that’s Fitzy…”

Lenny Megliola

WEEI Radio

Redefining Literacy

by | August 8, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

 My life is the poem I could have writ, But I could not both live and utter it ~Henry David Thoreau    The common man goes to an orchard to taste the fruit. The rich man man learns how to plant his own orchard. The poet, however,  grows an even better fruit and gives...
Read More

Essex Bay

by | August 12, 2014 | Fires in the Belly, Songs | 0 Comments

This house makes funny noises
When the wind begins to blow.
I should have held on and never let you go.
The wind blew loose the drainpipe.
You can hear the melting snow.
I’ll fix it in the morning when I go.
I’ll fix it in the morning when I go.

Read More

Practicing What I Preach

by | April 10, 2014 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

It is not where you go. It is how you go. ~Fitz Is there any value in coming to the page this late at night after three hours of singing in a pub, just because I said I would? I expect you to go to the empty page and pry tired and stubborn thoughts and lay them on the...
Read More

Nurture Passion

by | December 10, 2013 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

How about we all take the bull by the horns and make this blog thing work! Your job this week is to do something with your blog that is powered by the passion that is in you. Passion is the one thing you have some control over. There are plenty of smarter, more...
Read More

China Journal: Part One

by | July 23, 2015 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

I           The dull staccato throb in light rain on a dark night. Unseen barges make their way up the QianTian River—concrete shores marked by the arch of the bridge, the spans of beam stretched on beam, the impeccable symmetry of the street-lights broken by a stream...
Read More

Get Back in the Game

by | January 16, 2022 | Journal | 0 Comments

Out on the back porch, not as cold as earlier today, waiting for the storm to arrive in a few hours--curious if I will get that call at 2:00 AM to head out and plow the Concord streets. Most of me hopes for the call; another side of me wants a day stuck at home,...
Read More

Fenn Speaks…

by | May 11, 2019 | Essays, Journal, Poetry, Teaching | 0 Comments

I am You, and You are me... Give a damn & figure it out        I feel like one of my students: it’s the night before my big presentation at All-school-meeting, and I still don’t know what I am going to talk about. I just know I am supposed to talk about me......
Read More

What Christmas Is

by | December 25, 2015 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

  I am not sure what Christmas really is anymore. I am almost afraid to think of what Christians are going through in the lands of the original Christian faith. By dint of place and time, I grew up in the Catholic faith, and try as I might, I can’t ever escape the...
Read More

Thanksgiving

by | July 30, 2014 | Poetry | 0 Comments

I am surprised sometimesby the suddenness of November:beauty abruptly shedto a common nakedness--grasses deadenedby hoarfrost,persistent memoriesof people I’ve lost.It is left to those of us dressed in the hard barky skin of experienceto insist on a decorumthat rises...
Read More

Dealing with Ether

by | August 12, 2014 | Journal, Poetry | 0 Comments

Trying to only see what is in front of me my eyes are continually drawn away from this page and the work left to be done— my labored words etched and scratched away like fleeting mosaics in dry sand. I need a windowless cell to work the alchemy that shapes the...
Read More

The Gift Unclaimed

by | February 27, 2018 | Journal, Poetry | 0 Comments

I have an old lobster buoy Hanging dully from A wrought-iron basket hook— A rough cutaway Filled with suet, Clabbered in wire mesh. . I had imagined chickadees Squabbling with angry jays And occasional sparrows, finches— Maybe even cedar waxwings tired of scrounging...
Read More

Trawler

by | August 12, 2014 | Fires in the Belly, Songs | 0 Comments

Leave the fog stillness
of a cold harbor town;
cup our hands
in the warm diesel sound—
leave while the children
are calmed in their dreams
by light buoys calling:
“Don’t play around me.”

Read More

A New Hearth

by | December 7, 2013 | Journal | 0 Comments

It has been a long time since I wrote a simple old "this is what I am going to do today" post. So this is what I am going to do today: [and trust me, it will have nothing--absolutely nothing--to do with school work:)] Before the true winter settles in, I am going to...
Read More

Thanksgiving

by | November 28, 2013 | Journal, Poetry | 0 Comments

I am surprised sometimes by the suddenness of November: beauty abruptly shed to a common nakedness— grasses deadened by hoarfrost, persistent memories of people I’ve lost. It is left to those of us dressed in the hard barky skin of experience to insist on a decorum...
Read More

Don’t Let Go of Your Soul

by | August 11, 2014 | Fires in the Belly, Songs | 0 Comments

Sometimes yeah.
Sometimes no.
Sometimes it’s somehow somewhere in between.
Sometimes it’s somewhere that no one has been–
no, nobody, nowhere, no nothing can end.
So don’t you let go and hope you’ll find it again.
Don’t you ever let go–

Read More

A Monday Ramble

by | August 25, 2014 | Journal | 0 Comments

There is always a hard shift for me at the end of the summer, and today is that day for me. I miss the freedom of last week: I'd wake in the morning, come out to the deck to write poetry or work on my novel--but now today, I feel like I should be preparing for school,...
Read More

Doing What Needs To Be Done

by | February 16, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

The rain falls;The grass grows:Nothing is done.Nothing is left undone~Buddha        Sometimes you just do what you got to do, and that never changes from the first time you take out the trash as a kid until the time in life where you are taking care of little chores...
Read More

Dad

by | December 4, 2013 | Poetry | 0 Comments

Moaning like a lost whale the thin ice bellowed behind us then cracked and rang as if spit from a whip. The sharp steel of my over-sized skates etched unspeakable joy into the slate-grey, reptilian skin of Walden Pond. Our mismatched hands gripped together in the...
Read More

Writing Iambic Dimeter Poetry

by | February 19, 2018 | Journal, Poetry, Teaching | 0 Comments

I am sitting here realizing how hard it is to ask you--a bunch of fifteen-year-old boys--to write iambic dimeter poetry, a form of poetry that is more or less ignored nowadays. I (literally) played around for a couple of hours penning these poems, which are at least...
Read More

If you don’t stand, you cower…

by | July 19, 2019 | Journal | 0 Comments

     Maybe it is time to be less forgiving. I have rarely agreed with our president, but I held on to the shreds of truth that shore up his arguments: we can’t welcome every immigrant who makes it to our border; we cannot bow to the audacity of corrupt governments in...
Read More

The Farmer, The Weaver & the Space Traveler

by | June 26, 2020 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

     Words matter. Words carefully crafted and artfully expressed  matter infinitely more. There is something compelling in a turn of phrase well-timed, arresting image juxtaposed on arresting images; broad ideas distilled into clear, lucid singular thought. For the...
Read More

When the same thing happens again

by | October 7, 2017 | Crows and Swallows, Journal, Poetry | 0 Comments

I wonder if God is testing me, giving Me some affable warning Or, perhaps, a more Stern rebuke, replaying A foolish mistake, Rehashing and reminding me Of a harsher possibility. It is only a small 10 mm wrench tightening A loose bolt on the throttle body, slipping...
Read More

Marriage & Magnanimity

by | September 6, 2015 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

If we want to have the freedom to marry whom we want to marry, why is it so important that the state (government) recognise that marriage? Is it simply the expediency of dispensing the entitlements of a marriage certificate: tax benefits, employment benefits, or the...
Read More

No Dad To Come Home To

by | August 26, 2014 | Dawghouse, Songs | 0 Comments

Rain’s falling outside of Boston—
Thank God I’m not working tonight.
I’ve got six of my own,
And a stepdaughter at home,
And a momma keeping things right.
I wonder if they’re at the table
With their puzzles, their papers and pens?
When I get off the highway
And pull in that driveway,
Will they run to the window again?

Read More

Evolution

by | August 19, 2014 | Journal, Poetry | 0 Comments

The coyotes and fisher cats seem intent on striking some new deal with each other to toy with our fears in this gentleman's wilderness— patches of dense woods dotted with overgrown fields, riven and intersected by highways, powerlines and quiet, suburban...
Read More

A Late Night Metacognition

by | April 13, 2014 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after ~Henry David Thoreau           When you need something done, find a busy person to help you get it done. My mother loved repeating that to me all the way to her dying day,...
Read More

Practice Doing

by | April 26, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

Someday, someone might fire you for not doing what you should have done.    There are some days when a teacher might wonder whether it is worth giving the extra effort if the students are not giving the extra effort. I am lucky--and cursed--that I get to live and...
Read More

Kampuchea

by | July 14, 2014 | Poetry, Raccoon | 0 Comments

I stutter for normality across the river from black men fishing for kibbers and horned pout. Barefoot children rounded bellies curled navels stalk the turtle sunning on a log. lonely in the field grass lonely on the curbstones I stutter for normality. Not a mother...
Read More

Out of the Forge: March 30, 2017

by | March 31, 2017 | Journal, Out of the Forge | 0 Comments

Every Thursday Night at The Colonial Inn On the Green, in Concord, Massachusetts This is my first attempt at trying to record a night at the inn, so please forgive my engineering errors as a producer. I simply used the Bose Tonematch into Garageband and called it good...
Read More

The Litter in Concord

by | July 12, 2016 | Journal | 0 Comments

I have been following a Facebook thread about the movement in my beloved hometown of Concord to ban plastic water bottles, plastic bags and styrofoam cups. I am trying to discern whether or not my initial responses are pure and true and not simply reactionary and...
Read More

Somewhere North of Bangor

by | August 12, 2014 | Fires in the Belly, Songs | 0 Comments

Somewhere north of Bangor
on the run from Tennessee.
Lost in back scrub paper land
in section TR-3.
It’s hit him he’s an outlaw
a Georgia cracker’s son,
who killed a man in Nashville
with his daddies favorite gun.
It’s hit him with the loneliness
of wondering where you are
on a long ago railway
stretched between two stars.

Read More

Weekend Custody

by | August 21, 2014 | Out of the Forge, Songs | 0 Comments

Jesse calls up this morning—
“You can come downstairs now;
You see the grapefruit bowl?
Well, I fixed it all;
I fixed everything for you.”

Everything’s for you…

“Let me help you make the coffee,
Momma says you drink it too.
I can’t reach the stove,
But I can pour it, though—
What’s it like living alone?”

Read More

The Silver Apples of the Moon.

by | January 29, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

Stories are a communal currency of humanity. ― Tahir Shah, In Arabian Nights The most powerful and enduring connection we share as a human race is our desire and need to share stories. We engage in the art of storytelling more than most of us ever realize; whether we...
Read More

Joshua Sawyer

by | August 11, 2014 | Fires in the Belly, Poetry | 0 Comments

I doubt I’d ever have taken this road
had I known how fallen it really was
to disrepair: driving comically,
skirting ruts and high boulders, grimacing
at every bang on the oil pan.
I tell you it’s the old road to Wendell —
that they don’t make them like this anymore.

Read More

Waiting for a Poem

by | August 8, 2014 | Journal, Poetry | 0 Comments

  It’s not like a poem to come curl by my feet on this morning too beautiful to describe, though I am looking and listening and waiting: A rooster crows above the low hum of morning traffic; the trash truck spills air from brakes and rattles empties into bins; my...
Read More

The Mystery Within

by | August 15, 2014 | Journal, Poetry | 0 Comments

EJ wanted a banana tree for Christmas so that early morning brought a plastic bag, a few meager roots and no directions. I bought some potting soil and a square cedar box EJ placed deliberately by a westward window. He gently splayed the roots, pressed the soil, and...
Read More

The Teacher’s Couch

by | October 11, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

It’s not just a couch; it’s a sofa, too ~Fitz           I remember my first year teaching at Fenn—and it was really my first stint as a true worker with responsibilities outside of what I already had in my wheelhouse—and on this day, some twenty something years ago, I...
Read More

Grandma’s Words

by | April 24, 2018 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

In the beginning was the word... ~Genesis       We do not live in Grandma’s world of words, and neither did grandma live in her grandma’s world of words and on and on and so on in a downwards devolution through untold millennia. From primal grunts, whistles and...
Read More

Wisdom

by | May 13, 2016 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

Wisdom starts in non-action… The doing and non-doing are the equal balance. Without the luxury of contemplation there would not be a prioritizing of need versus want. Wisdom balances physical reality… Wisdom does not shuffle tasks out of view but finds a way to...
Read More

Out of the Forge: April 13, 2017

by | April 23, 2017 | Journal, Out of the Forge, Songs, The American Folk Experience | 0 Comments

In my forty years or so of actively singing and playing folk music and writing songs, I have played together with a remarkably narrow list of musical partners: Rogue, Wally and Barry with camp songs and Hatrack and Seth with literally everything. These last few years...
Read More

Contact Fitz!