Get all 11 Jon Wilks releases available on Bandcamp and save 20%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Before I Knew What Had Begun I Had Already Lost, The Cruel Mother, Up The Cut, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Mary Ashford's Tragedy, Tell Old Bill, The Jovial Hunter of Bromsgrove [Roud 29], Toryanse - 通りゃんせ, and 3 more.
1. |
Mary Ashford's Tragedy
07:28
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Mary Ashford’s grim ghost proclaims the sad tale
“I’m ravish’d and murdered,” she cries
“Tho’ it can’t be denied
Chastity denied
Yet will no friend weep
And must justice still sleep
Must my cause then be never more tried?”
“I was a pure virgin, young blooming and gay.
Went blithely with health to a dance
Where a villain stood by
And on me cast an eye
Resolved to try
To debauch me or die
With flat’ry and smiles did advance”
“To the fields then with him I with innocence went
Where his flat’ry did all prove in vain
While the moon herself shrouds
Behind the black clouds
And the screech-owl did scream
A most ominous theme
But I left him to go home again”
“With an innocent heart I went tripping along
It was morn, yet looked gloomy around
Tho’ the month is was May
Yet no lark on the spray
Nor from the green bushes
Nor linnets, nor thrushes
Did send fourth as usual a sound”
“My path it lay near to an old blasted oak
From when seem’d to issue a groan
When from near the tree
The villain seized me
I struggled with screams
Cold sweat ran in streams
And I made the fields ring with my moan”
“I struggled and got myself free from his hold
And ran o’er the rough plowed ground
But my running was vain
For he caught me again
I sorely did cry
None to help me was nigh
So his lewdness my heart-strings did wound”
“He effected his will while I fell in a swoon
But I arose from the ground
I vowed that he
Should hang on a tree
For ravishing me
To no bribe would agree
So he threw me right into the pond”
“I breathed cold water instead of sweet air
‘Til my soul from my body did part
Now by heaven I’m urged
‘Til my sins are all purged
To hover beside
The pond where I died
Then to glory flew with a pure heart”
“All of you that have breasts, that have feelings for me
Pray pity my poor murdered fate
See my blood on the ground
How it’s scattered around
See the footsteps I made
My fate to evade
And revenge the dire cause I relate”
“Exterpate the wretch, if the laws won’t revenge
And him from society spurn
May remorse gnaw his soul
And his time quickly roll
‘Til without a reprieve
Hell doth him receive
And no human breast for him mourn”
“Now all you young virgins that bloom as I bloom’d
Keep at home in your proper employ
Ne’er in dancing delight
Nor to be out at night
Nor in the fields roam
With a stranger from home
Lest you meet a fate wretched as I”
“And I beg for my sake that you’ll visit the pond
Once a year, dressed in mourning array
In the fine month of May
Drop a tear and then say
Mary Ashford died here
By a villain severe
Who could not her virtue betray”
“If a stone as a shrine should be raised in my name
And a verse put my mem’ry to keep
Let the words by but short
Only this to import
Mary Ashford lies here
Whose fate was severe
Was ravished and murdered – laws sleep”
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2. |
The Sausage Man
04:25
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There’s a town called Birmingham
The population’s great
The toyshop of the world, it’s said
With artisans elate
There’s New Street and a street called High
You can see the fashions stroll
And one who always greets the eye
He calls out sausage roll
Sausage roll, sausage roll
He calls out sausage roll
His apron is as white as snow
His whiskers, they’re all red
To all he makes a courteous bow
It’s how he earns his bread
He’s capped, white shirted and polished shoed
As black as any coal
His jacket striped in pink and blue
He calls out sausage roll
A pretty missus with her mama
She cannot help the whim
However courteous they are
Their fancies will begin
To take a slice or a jelly tart
Her mama can control
But nothing pleases this maiden fair
Like this man’s sausage roll
I cannot tell if quantity
Effects so much his sale
Or if, indeed, the quality
Or perhaps his pleasing tale
I cannot tell you the reasons why
This man he will not stroll
To male or female passers by
And present his sausage roll
If mamas will fastidious be
And papas will be blessed
If daughters do not always see
Their truest interest
I cannot tell you what can be right
For ladies on the whole
But I’d say don’t stay out late at night
And sigh for sausage roll
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Jon Wilks Whitchurch, UK
'The sort of performer folk circles mean when they talk of the living tradition' - Mike Davies,
Folking.com
“One of the best of the New Wave of Folk Blokes. As a guitar player and arranger of traditional songs, Jon Wilks already deserves speaking of in the same breath as your Simpsons and your Morays.” – Ian A. Anderson, fRoots Mag
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