"The Banks of Sweet Primroses", "The Banks of the Sweet Primroses", "Sweet Primroses", "As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning", "As I Rode Out" or "Stand off, Stand Off" (
Roud
The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of around 250,000 references to nearly 25,000 songs collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. It is compiled by Steve Roud (born 1949), a former librarian in the London ...
586) is an English folk song. It was very popular with traditional singers in the south of England, and has been recorded by many singers and groups influenced by the folk revival that began in the 1950s.
Synopsis
The narrator goes out into the countryside on a midsummer morning. He sees an attractive young woman "down by the banks of the sweet primroses". He asks her where she is going and why she is distressed. He tells her he will make her "as happy as any lady" if she will grant him "one small relief". She tells him to go further away and says he is false and deceitful. She says he is responsible for making her "poor heart to wander" and that it is pointless to comfort her. She says she will go to a desolate valley where no one will be able to find her. The narrator then offers this advice to romantically-inclined young men (or, in many versions, to young women): "There's many a dark and dusky morning, turns out to be a most sunshiney day".
Versions
Versions collected from traditional singers
The
Roud Folk Song Index contains 329 examples (though the same version may be reprinted or distributed in more than one publication or recording and therefore generate more than one entry in the index). 92 examples were collected in England, largely in Southern England (17 versions collected in Sussex in contrast with 2 in Yorkshire). 2 were collected from singers in Wales, 2 from Scotland, and the only examples from outside Britain were from 2 singers in the same part of Nova Scotia. The earliest recorded version was by the Welsh singer
Phil Tanner
Phil Tanner (16 February 1862 – 19 February 1950) was a traditional singer from Llangenith in the Gower Peninsula ( South Wales).
Songs and singing style
Tanner was an invaluable source of several once popular English language folk songs, ...
, recorded in 1937.
Broadsides
In the nineteenth century many publishers of
Broadside ballads
A broadside (also known as a broadsheet) is a single sheet of inexpensive paper printed on one side, often with a ballad, rhyme, news and sometimes with woodcut illustrations. They were one of the most common forms of printed material between th ...
printed versions of "The Banks of Sweet Primroses".
Recordings
Peter Kennedy's recording of Gloucestershire singer Emily Bishop, made in 1952, is on the GlosTrad website.
Two versions by Phil Tanner are available on the CD "The Gower Nightingale". Several versions by traditional singers have been published by
Topic Records
Topic Records is a British folk music label, which played a major role in the second British folk revival. It began as an offshoot of the Workers' Music Association in 1939, making it the oldest independent record label in the world.M. Brocken, ...
in the ''
Voice of the People'' series.
Seamus Ennis
Seamus may refer to:
* Séamus, a male first name of Gaelic origin
Film and television
* Seamus (''Family Guy''), a character on the television series ''Family Guy''
* Seamus, a pigeon in '' Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore''
* Seamus Mc ...
recorded Bob, John, Jim and Ron Copper of the
Copper Family
The Copper Family are a family of singers of traditional, unaccompanied English folk song. Originally from Rottingdean, near Brighton, Sussex, England, the nucleus of the family now live in the neighbouring village of Peacehaven. The family first ...
of
Rottingdean
Rottingdean is a village in the city of Brighton and Hove, on the south coast of England. It borders the villages of Saltdean, Ovingdean and Woodingdean, and has a historic centre, often the subject of picture postcards.
Name
The name Rotting ...
, Sussex singing their family version in April 1952. The song has also been recorded by
Shropshire
Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to ...
singer Fred Jordan,
and the Suffolk singer Bob Hart. A rendition by Bob Hart recorded by
Reg Hall
Reg Hall (20 March 1932 – 6 August 2013) was a former Australian rules footballer who played with Richmond in the Victorian Football League (VFL) and for East Perth in Western Australian Football League (WAFL)
While playing football for ...
is available online at the British Library Sound Archive.
Many singers involved in or inspired by the second
ritish Folk revivalhave performed and recorded versions of "The Banks of Sweet Primroses", including
Shirley Collins
Shirley Elizabeth Collins MBE (born 5 July 1935) is an English folk singer who was a significant contributor to the English Folk Revival of the 1960s and 1970s. She often performed and recorded with her sister Dolly, whose accompaniment on ...
on her LP Sweet Primeroses,
The Dubliners
The Dubliners were an Irish folk band founded in Dublin in 1962 as The Ronnie Drew Ballad Group, named after its founding member; they subsequently renamed themselves The Dubliners. The line-up saw many changes in personnel over their fifty-ye ...
Fairport Convention,
Martin Carthy and
Dave Swarbrick
David Cyril Eric Swarbrick (5 April 1941 – 3 June 2016) was an English folk musician and singer-songwriter. His style has been copied or developed by almost every British and many world folk violin players who have followed him. He was ...
,
June Tabor
June Tabor (born 31 December 1947 in Warwick, England) is an English folk singer known for her solo work and her earlier collaborations with Maddy Prior and with Oysterband.
Early life
June Tabor was born and grew up in Warwick, England. As ...
,
Martin Simpson
Martin Stewart Simpson (born 5 May 1953) is an English folk singer, guitarist and songwriter. His music reflects a wide variety of influences and styles, rooted in Britain, Ireland, America and beyond. He builds a purposeful, often upbeat voi ...
, and
Eliza Carthy
Eliza Amy Forbes Carthy, MBE (born 23 August 1975) is an English folk musician known for both singing and playing the fiddle. She is the daughter of English folk musicians singer/guitarist Martin Carthy and singer Norma Waterson.
Life and ca ...
.
Discussion
Steve Roud writes that this song was so popular with traditional singers at the beginning of the 20th century that some collectors did not bother to note down every example. He also comments that the story seems incomplete and mysterious, in that we don't know what the narrator had done to so distress a young woman he doesn't appear to know, or why the ending is so upbeat.
Ralph Vaughan Williams and
A. L. Lloyd make the observation that "Tune and text have shown remarkable constancy" through many collected versions, and conclude that "Clearly, singers have found the song unusually memorable and satisfactory, for the process of oral transmission seems to have worked little change on it".
[The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs. Harmondsworth, 1959]
Literary influence
The first line of the song was the inspiration for the title of
Laurie Lee's autobiographical travel memoir
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning
''As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning'' (1969) is a memoir by Laurie Lee, a British poet. It is a sequel to ''Cider with Rosie'' which detailed his early life in Gloucestershire after the First World War. In this sequel Lee leaves the securit ...
.
References
English folk songs
English broadside ballads
Songwriter unknown
Year of song unknown
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