We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.
/

about

I used to play this with my friends Paul Sartin and Callum Baird in around 2016. It’s a traditional song collected in Whitchurch, Hampshire, where we lived. I forgot all about it until shortly after Paul died, when Jackie Oates and I resurrected it and worked on it again. Paul’s fiddle part was never taped, so I hummed what I could remember to Jackie, and she is playing my aural recollection. I hope we got it right.

lyrics

‘Twas was in the merry month of may
In the springtime of the year
When down in yonders meadow
There runs a river clear
To see those little fishes
How they do sport and play
Calling many a lad and many a lass
All there to making hay

Then in come both Will and Tom
With pitchfork and with rake
And likewise black-eyed Susan
The hay all there to make
With sweet jug and sweet jug
How the nightingale does sing
From the morning to the evening
As we go haymaking

Then just as Bright Phoebus
The sun was going down
Along came two piping men
Approaching from the town
They pulled out their tabor and pipes
Which made those pretty girls to sing
Then they all put down their forks and rakes
And left off haymaking

credits

from Before I Knew What Had Begun I Had Already Lost, released May 5, 2023
Trad, arr Oates/ Sartin/ Wilks. Roud 153
Produced by Jon Wilks
Mastered by Nick Cooke

Jon Wilks - acoustic guitars, bass, percussion, steel drum, keyboards, vocals
Jackie Oates - viola, vocals

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

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
... more

shows

contact / help

Contact Jon Wilks

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this track or account

If you like Jon Wilks, you may also like: