Green Bushes is an

English folk song The folk music of England is a tradition-based music which has existed since the later medieval period. It is often contrasted with courtly, classical and later commercial music. Folk music traditionally was preserved and passed on orally wit ...

(

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 ...

#1040,

Laws Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. ...

P2) which is featured in the second movement of

Vaughan Williams Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over ...

's '' English Folk Song Suite'', in

Percy Grainger Percy Aldridge Grainger (born George Percy Grainger; 8 July 188220 February 1961) was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist who lived in the United States from 1914 and became an American citizen in 1918. In the course of a long an ...

's ''Green Bushes (Passacaglia on an English Folksong)'', and in

George Butterworth George Sainton Kaye Butterworth, MC (12 July 18855 August 1916) was an English composer who was best known for the orchestral idyll '' The Banks of Green Willow'' and his song settings of A. E. Housman's poems from ''A Shropshire Lad''. Early ...

's ''

The Banks of Green Willow ''The Banks of Green Willow'' is a piece of orchestral music by British composer George Butterworth. It was composed in 1913, is written in the key of A major, and is around six minutes long. Composition This is a short orchestral piece by ...

''. The melody is very similar to that of the " Lost Lady Found" movement of

's ''

Lincolnshire Posy ''Lincolnshire Posy'' is a musical composition by Percy Grainger for concert band commissioned in 1937 by the American Bandmasters Association. Considered by John Bird, the author of Grainger's biography, to be his masterpiece, the work has six ...

'', and to "

Cutty Wren "The Cutty Wren" and its variants such as "The Hunting of the Wren" are traditional English folk songs. It is also the territorial song for the British overseas territory of Tristan da Cunha. The origins and meaning of the song are disputed. It ...

". According to Roud and Bishop

This was an immensely popular song, collected many times across England, although not so often elsewhere. It was also very popular with nineteenth-century
broadside Broadside or broadsides may refer to: Naval * Broadside (naval), terminology for the side of a ship, the battery of cannon on one side of a warship, or their near simultaneous fire on naval warfare Printing and literature * Broadside (comic ...
printers.

The song first appears in broadsides of the 1820s or 1830s. Its popularity was hugely increased by a popular

melodrama A modern melodrama is a dramatic work in which the plot, typically sensationalized and for a strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Melodramas typically concentrate on dialogue that is often bombastic or exces ...

''The Green Bushes, or A Hundred Years Ago'' by William Buckstone, first performed in 1845. The heroine of the play made repeated reference to the song and sang a few verses, with the result that the

sheet music Sheet music is a handwritten or printed form of musical notation that uses List of musical symbols, musical symbols to indicate the pitches, rhythms, or chord (music), chords of a song or instrumental Musical composition, musical piece. Like ...

was published soon after.Roud & Bishop ibid

Recordings

One of, if not the, earliest recordings is a 1907 performance by Joseph Taylor, collected on wax cylinder by the musicologist

in 1907. It was digitised by the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

and made available online in 2018.

Lyrics

As I was a walking one morning in Spring, For to hear the birds whistle and the nightingales sing, I saw a young damsel, so sweetly sang she: Down by the Green Bushes he thinks to meet me. I stepped up to her and thus I did say: Why wait you my fair one, so long by the way? My true Love, my true Love, so sweetly sang she, Down by the Green Bushes he thinks to meet me. I'll buy you fine beavers and a fine silken gown, I will buy you fine petticoats with the flounce to the ground, If you will prove loyal and constant to me And forsake you own true Love, I'll be married to thee. I want none of your petticoats and your fine silken shows: I never was so poor as to marry for clothes; But if you will prove loyal and constant to me I'll forsake my own true Love and get married to thee. Come let us be going, kind sir, if you please; Come let us be going from beneath the green trees. For my true Love is coming down yonder I see, Down by the Green Bushes, where he thinks to meet me. And when he came there and he found she was gone, He stood like some lambkin, forever undone; She has gone with some other, and forsaken me, So adieu to Green Bushes forever, cried he. \relative c' \addlyrics

References

External links

* {{Authority control English folk songs Scottish folk songs