Tag Archives: Martin Carthy

Comfort listening: five songs

Posted on December 15, 2015 by H.M. Goodchild

This started off as a blog about folk songs. I haven’t talked about them much recently but they are there still as the backdrop to my writing and so, to give you something of their flavour, here’s a post about five of the Child … Continue reading →

Posted in Child Ballad, folk music, folk song, Music | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Knights, and their impossible demands

Posted on August 23, 2012 by H.M. Goodchild

More upon knights in this post (for some reason, my readers like posts about knights and who am I to disappoint them?).  Child Ballad no. 2 is The Elfin Knight. It has a certain overlap with The Outlandish Knight (Child … Continue reading →

Posted in Allegory, Child Ballad, Dr Faustus, folk music, folk song, Imagined Village, knights, love | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

bread, beer and blood

Posted on July 1, 2011 by H.M. Goodchild

It’s summertime, in my hemisphere anyhow, and oats and beans and barley grow and thus today’s song is John Barleycorn. This is as bloody a tale of murder as any border ballad. Little Sir John is brutally slain, dragged around, … Continue reading →

Posted in Billy Bragg, folk music, folk song, Imagined Village, John Barleycorn, Music | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Love – and death – on the highway

Posted on June 6, 2011 by H.M. Goodchild

Highwaymen ride high in the popular imagination. A higher class of cutpurse and the archetype of the romantic rogue. As the type specimen I offer you Alfred Noyes’ The Highwayman (1906)*. There’s a fair few ballads about highwaymen (Salisbury Plain and Newry Town … Continue reading →

Posted in death, folk music, folk song, love, Music | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment