Appalachian Celtic Consort: Music

• MP3 short clip, hi-fi play (broadband)
• MP3 short clip, lo-fi play (modem)

Songs were often used as a vehicle to express things which could not be verbalized in polite company, especially sexual relations. This song about an undesired birth has many variations and would probably be seen on the evening news in today’s society.

There was a woman lived in York alone and lonely ☼ She fell in love with her father’s clerk down by the Greenwood Sidie ☼ She loved him up she loved him down alone and lonely ☼ She loved him till he filled her arms down by the Greenwood Sidie ☼ She leaned her back against an oak alone and lonely ☼ First he bent it and then it broke down by the Greenwood Sidie ☼ She leaned her back against a thorn alone and lonely ☼ There she had two fine babes born down by the Greenwood Sidie ☼ She pulled down her yellow hair alone and lonely ☼ Tied it round their feet and hands down by the Greenwood sidie ☼ She pulled out her wee pen knife alone and lonely ☼ Stabbed those two babes through the heart down by the Greenwood Sidie ☼ She laid them ‘neath a marble stone alone and lonely ☼ Then she turned as a fair maid home down by the Greenwood Sidie ☼ One day she was sitting in her father’s hall alone and lonely ☼ Saw two babes come playing at ball down by the Greenwood Sidie ☼ Babes oh babes if you were mine alone and lonely ☼ I’d dress you up in scarlet fine down by the Greenwood Sidie ☼ Mother oh mother well we were yours alone and lonely ☼ The scarlet fine was our own heart’s blood down by the Greenwood Sidie ☼ You wiped your pen knife on your shoe alone and lonely ☼ The more you wiped the more red it grew down by the Greenwood Sidie ☼ You laid us neath a marble stone alone and lonely ☼ Now you sit as a fair maid home down by the Greenwood Sidie ☼ Babes oh babes its heaven for you alone and lonely ☼ Mother oh mother its hell for you down by the Greenwood Sidie ☼