SONG OF THE DAY
“Felton Lonnen” by Rachel Unthank & The Winterset (The Bairns, EMI, 2007). A traditional Northumbrian Song.
INTERESTING FACTS (a la wikipedia)
– The Unthanks (previously called Rachel Unthank and the Winterset, until 2009) are an English folk group from Northumberland.
– They made their debut performance at Towersey Village Festival in August 2004 and, on 11 May 2005, launched their debut album, Cruel Sister at Holmfirth Folk Festival.
– Cruel Sister received support from a number of DJs on BBC Radio 2 and was subsequently awarded Folk Album of the Year by Mojo magazine.
– Their 2007 follow-up album, The Bairns, was nominated for the Best Album award at the BBC Folk Awards 2008 and also nominated for the 2008 Mercury Music Prize. The album debuted in the UK Top 200 Albums Chart at #178 in the week after the Mercury prize award ceremony.
– The band were nominated for three further BBC Folk Awards in 2008 (Best Band, Best Live Act, Horizon Award), and were successful in one category, receiving the Horizon Award at the ceremony in The Brewery, London.
– Their third album, Here’s The Tender Coming, was released in September 2009.
– Their fourth album, Last, is planned for release in spring 2011.
– In a departure from their usual practice of showcasing material from their studio albums, the Unthanks performed two concerts at London’s Union Chapel on 8 and 9 December 2010 consisting entirely of material written by Robert Wyatt and by Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons.
LYRICS AND HISTORICAL INFORMATION
Often spelled “Felton Lonnen”. A traditional Northumbrian Song. It is also a Northumbrian pipes air usually played with variations. The words here were taken down from the album “Northumberland Collection” by Kathryn Tickell and Friends. The Northumbrian Minstrelsy states that this song was sung as a nursery rhyme in the middle of the nineteenth century. The tune is also a northumbrian pipe tune and the arrangement reflects this.
Lyrics
The kye’s cam yame but I see not me hinny
The kye’s cam yame but I see not me bairn
I’d rather loss aal the kye than loss me hinny
I’d rather loss aal the kye than loss me bairn
Kye: cattle
Hinny: a term of endearment
Fair faced is me hinny, his blue eyes are bonny
His hair in curled ringlets hangs sweet to the side
So mount the auld pony seek after me hinny
Bring back to his mammy her only delight
He’s always oot roaming the lang summer day thro’
He’s always oot roaming away from the farm
Thro’ hedges and ditches and valleys and fellsides
I hope that me hinny will cam to nae harm
Well I’ve searched in the meadow and in the far acre
Thro’ stackyard and byre but nowt could I find
So off ye gan Daddy seek after yer laddie
Bring back tae this Mammy some peace tae her mind.
byre: cowshed
(information courtesy of this website)
BBC Review
Once in a while, an album turns up which just gobsmacks you with its originality and unexpectedness. Rachel Unthank & The Winterset’s Cruel Sister (2005) was an outstanding debut but its successor is on a different plane altogether: The Bairns inhabits some other dimension in which four young women channel the genius loci of England’s North-East into a hauntingly uplifting aural experience. The band’s unique sound revolves around Rachel and Becky Unthank’s unaffected, richly regional voices but it’s a true ensemble, with Niopha Keegan’s fiddle soaring or weeping on demand and much of the power stemming from the absolute conviction of Belinda O’Hooley’s dashingly versatile piano playing. It’s an album with a cinematic quality, huge in dramatic atmosphere. Passages of blazing grandeur switch to phrases so sparse and spooky you can see the tumbleweed blowing by. Songs both traditional and contemporary share a commonality of spirit and tone that links new and old: “O’Hooley’s Whitethorn” – a bruised tale of infant mortality – springs from the same well of human suffering as the trad “Blue Bleezing Blind Drunk”, a tipsy, whirling waltz of a song about booze and marital abuse. Terry Conway’s “Fareweel Regality” (a song of such moving lyrics and honest delivery that dry eyes aren’t an option) sits perfectly with similarly doughty northern material (jaunty segued snippets from Northumbrian Minstrelsy; the tense, dialect-laden “Felton Lonnin”). Equally epic are Robert Wyatt’s “Sea Song” (an inspired inclusion with hypnotic foot percussion and spacey harmonies) and the unearthly, improvisatory “Newcastle Lullaby” which closes the album. There’s a real rootedness to this music, a direct line to something old – mysterious, blood-and-bones old – and a constant dance between that ancient earthiness and an approach that’s totally of today. While the creative input of producer, sound engineer and manager Adrian McNally to RUTW’s work is noted, there’s a numinous quality to this album which is deeply matrifocal. Live, they’re fresh and funny and every bit as brilliant as this record. Folk song’s all about connection and communication – gifts that are second nature for Rachel Unthank & The Winterset. -Mel Ledgard