Lovely on the Water
Notation:
Standard Notation
ABC Notation
Mandolin Tablature
traditional
PDF Files:
--- choose file type ---
Standard Notation
Mandolin Tablature
Song Sheet
English
Play
MIDI
No audio
available
Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
View
notes
Lyrics:
As I walked out one morning
In the springtime of the year,
I overheard a sailor boy
Likewise a lady fair.
They sang a song together,
Made the valleys for to ring,
While the birds on the spray in the meadows gay
Proclaimed the lovely spring.
Said Willy unto Nancy,
"Oh we soon must sail away,
For its lovely on the water
To hear the music play."
"For our Queen she do want seamen,
So I will not stay on shore.
I will brave the wars for my country
Where them blund'ring cannons roar."
Poor Nancy fell and fainted
But soon he brought her to,
For it's there they kissed and there embraced
And took a fond adieu.
"Come change your ring with me my love
For we may meet once more,
But there's one above that will guard you love
Where them blund'ring cannons roar."
"For pounds it is our bounty
And that must do for thee
But to help the aged parents
While I am on the sea."
"For Tower Hill is crowded
With mothers weeping sore
For their sons are gone to face the pall
Where them blundering cannons roar."
"Lovely on the Water" was collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams from the singing of Mr Hilton at<br> South Walsham on April 11, 1908 and published in the Journal of the Folk Song Society vol. 4 (1910).<br> It was included in the Topic compilation of traditional songs of sailors, ships and the sea,<br> Round Cape Horn. The sleeve notes commented:<br> <br> "'Lovely on the Water', with a gorgeous melody and significant words, has been found only once,<br> by Vaughan Williams at South Walsham, a few miles from Norwich. The song starts idyllically and<br> ends ominously, like a sunny day that clouds over. The singer, a Mr. Hilton, had fourteen verses,<br> but Vaughan Williams, often a bit careless about texts, mislaid some. Missing verses probably<br> concerned the familiar situation in which the girl volunteers to disguise herself as a seaman,<br> in order to sail with her lover, but is hurriedly dissuaded."<br> The song seems to be the front end of the "broken token" situation where the sailor returns but<br> is not recognized by his lover. It is also related to the "female sailor/soldier" motif songs.<br> <br> Vaughan Williams included this melody in his Six Studies in English Folk Song.<br> Steeleye Span recorded "Lovely on the Water" in 1971 for their second album, Please to See the King.<br> Other singers have recorded it but I have not heard any of those recordings.<br>
Click
here
for a full page view.