THE HOBBLEDEHOY prefers Swarb’s lead vocal on this song to Sandy’s. What say you?
Ashley Hutchings
Morris On “Cuckoo’s Nest”
TRADITIONAL LYRICS
From the recording Morris On, by Ashley Hutchings, Richard Thompson, John Kirkpatrick, Barry Dransfield and Dave Mattacks.
- As I was a-walking one morning in May,
I met a pretty fair maid, anon to her did say,
“For love I am inclined, and I’ll tell you me mind,
That me inclination lies in your cuckoo’s nest.” - “Me darling,” says she, “I am innocent and young,
And I scarcely can believe your false deluding tongue;
Yet to see it in your eyes and it fills me with surprise,
That your inclination lies in me cuckoo’s nest.”
Chorus:
Some like a girl who is pretty in the face,
And some like a girl who is slender in the waist;
But give me a girl that will wriggle and will twist.
At the bottom of the belly lies the cuckoo’s nest. - “Then me darling,” says he, “if you see it in me eyes,
Then think of it as fondness and do not be surprised,
For I love you, me dear, and I’ll marry you I swear
If you let me clap me hand on your cuckoo’s nest.” - “Me darling,” says she, “I can do no such thing,
For me mother often told me it was committing sin,
Me maidenhead to lose and me sex to be abused,
So have no more to do with me cuckoo’s nest.”
Chorus - “Me darling,” says he, “it is not committing sin,
but common sense should tell you it is a pleasing thing,
For you were brought into this world to increase and do your best,
And to help a man to heaven in your cuckoo’s nest.” - “Then me darling,” says she, “I cannot you deny,
For you’ve surely won me heart by the roving of your eye.
Yet to see it in your eyes that your courage is surprised,
So gently lift your hand in me cuckoo’s nest.”
Chorus - So this couple they got married and soon they went to bed,
And now this pretty fair maid has lost her maidenhead;
In a small country cottage they increase and do their best,
And he often claps his hand on her cuckoo’s nest.
Chorus
Watch this lost performance footage of Steeleye Span from 1970
This clip of Steeleye Span adtes back to when the band’s very first lineup included Maddy Pryor, Ashley Hutchings, Tim Hart, Peter Knight and a very youthful Martin Carthy.
‘I’m Afraid She Didn’t Make It’: Richard Thompson Recounts Harrowing Accident in New Memoir
British singer-songwriter Richard Thompson recounts the 1969 van accident that almost destroyed Fairport Convention in excerpt from new book
By David Browne
In the spring of 1969, Fairport Convention had every reason to be hopeful. Dubbed the British version of Jefferson Airplane, Fairport boasted a lineup that included a brilliant, husky-voiced lead singer, Sandy Denny, and a guitarist, Richard Thompson, who was beginning to blossom into one of his country’s finest and often gloomiest songwriters. The band, which also included guitarist Simon Nichol, drummer Martin Lamble and bassist Ashley Hutchings, had just completed its third album, Unhalfbricking; among its tracks were Denny’s soon-to-be standard “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?”, several Bob Dylan covers from his Basement Tapes era, and Thompson originals like “Autopsy” and “Genesis Hall.” The music fused rock and roll with age-old British traditional music, sounding like nothing that had come before.
All that forward momentum halted, as least temporarily, one night in northern England. The band had just performed a show and were on their way home, with Thompson’s American girlfriend Jeannie Franklyn joining them. In this excerpt from Thompson’s Beeswing: Losing My Way and Finding My Voice 1967-1975 (Algonquin Books, April 6th), Thompson writes about that harrowing ride — the worst nightmare for any touring band, including Fairport Convention in 1969.
Life seemed good, and things were going well with Fairport. Our new album was due out soon, and the word was that we would tour America for the first time later that year. On May 11th, Jeannie came with the band to one of our regular haunts, Mothers in Birmingham, a club we played every couple of months. We shared the bill that night with Eclection, another folk rock band with a female singer, Kerrilee Male. Sandy’s boyfriend Trevor Lucas was also in Eclection. Like Kerry, he had come to the UK from Australia. He stood out in a crowd, being tall with a mass of red hair, and he was a fine singer of traditional British and Australian songs. The show went well, with both bands getting a good reception. Sandy rode back to London with Trevor, while the rest of us piled into the Transit van and headed south down the A6 to the M1. Continue reading
The Story Behind The Album: Unhalfbricking, by Fairport Convention
1969 was a roller coaster year for Fairport Convention, full of triumphs and tragedies. One of its highlights was their brilliant third album. This is its story.
1969 was a roller-coaster year for Fairport Convention. In January of that year they released their second album What We Did On Our Holidays, the first one to feature singer Sandy Denny. In May they hit rock bottom with a tragedy that killed two people including one of its members. Miraculously they recovered and released the album that defines the British folk rock revival of that period, the iconic Liege and Lief. By December Sandy Denny and bass player Ashley Hutchings left the band to form Fotheringay and Steeleye Span and the classic Fairport Convention lineup was no more. And that was not all, for these events book-ended one more album that the band managed to record and release during that prolific period, one of my favorite records from that era, Unhalfbricking. Continue reading