Form and meaning in variants of "A Week Before Easter" from the 17th to the 20th century

Norman Kuusik

Form and meaning in variants of "A Week Before Easter" from the 17th to the 20th century

            The subject of this essay is the English traditional folk song The Week Before Easter (Roud index 154) and its variants among the broadsides of two distinct time periods and in oral recordings found in the Take Six database of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. The methodology applied is a stanza for stanza comparison of the two broadsides to oral variants. The latter are a collection of 11 texts, mostly dating to early 20th century (1906/7), the latest (reference number COL/2/33) being from 1942. Geografically, a larger portion of texts originate from Sussex (AGG/8/22, AGG/8/72, GB/7d/12), others include also Oxfordshire (JHB/1A/2), Hampshire (GG/1/12/716), Gloucestershire (HAM/3/13/15), Dorset (HAM/5/35/14), and no definitive location can be found for SBG/1/7/102, COL/5/57B, COL/5/57C and COL/2/33.

            The broadsides of this song fall into two categories both content- and period-wise: those after the first iteration of the ballad from late 17th century (Douce Ballads 1(83a) & 3(32a), Pepys 3.103; the version used in here is Douce’s 3(32a)), and those printed by W. Pratt in 1850ties (the version used here is (Harding B 11(634)). The difference between two versions is considerable as the length of the song drops from 16 stanzas to 8. Both in their length and structure, the oral variants clearly lean towards the more recent Pratt’s, varying from two to eight stanzas. It can also be said that it is the middle part of the song that has survived (Douce’s V, VII, VIII, X and XII, in oral variants also I and II are the stanzas which are featured) where the central narrative lies. Additionally, two new stanzas surface from Pratt’s (III and V) which are regularly present also among oral versions, and two stanzas unique to a single version (SBG/1/7/102: V and COL/2/33: III). In the following  section , on the left are stanzas from Douce’s  3(32a) and on the right, a version of Pratt’s.[1]

I

A Week before Easter, The days long and clear,

So bright was the Sun, and so cool was the Air,

I went to the Forest,  Some Flowers to find there,

And the Forest would yield me no Posies:

                        II

The wheat and the Rye, That do grow so green

The Hedges and Trees, in their Several Coats

The small Brids do sing, In their changeable Notes,

But their grows no Strawberries or Roses.

            The results of these two initial stanzas are divided in the sense that, while in Pratt’s version four first stanzas have been dropped altogether, most oral recordings (eight of the total eleven) do retain this stanza, and the second one has been kept in three additional cases. Save perhaps for the very ending stanza, this is perhaps the most generic part of the song and the changes that have taken place are miscellaneous. A common variation, which occurs in three cases (AGG/8/72, COL/2/33, GB/7d/12), is the replacement of “posies” with “roses”. This usually coincides with a change word order of the previous line change (AGG/8/72: “I went to the forest to gather wild flowers”, others to follow this construction are HAM/5/35/14, COL/5/57B and COL/5/57C). In two cases (HAM/3/13/15 and HAM/5/35/14) considerable changes occur to the first line (“Three weeks before Easter” and “‘Twas in the month of April”) which also reveals direct correlation between first line (or the first half of the first line) and the title of the song and the two odd versions have been titled respectively. Interestingly enough, this correlation stands only for versions that include that first generic stanza (Douce's I), and no such exist for other cases (The false hearted lover, The forlorn lover, etc...) or when the first stanza has been omitted.

            As far as the second stanza is concerned, there is a uniform change of the first line to “The roses are red (and) the leaves they are green”, and it is notable that this occurs only alongside the shift from “posies” to “roses” in the previous stanza so that, in all likely-hood, the survival of this stanza is interlinked with that shift. This hypothesis is further strengthened by the fact that all three versions vary greatly in the subsequent three lines.

            As the next two stanzas have in all cases been omitted, the next verse we shall look is the fifth.

                        V                                                                                I

I love her dear, And I’d wed her well                                I courted a bonny lass many a day

I hated those People, That of her spoke ill                      I hated all people who against her did say

Many a one told me, What she once did say                  But now she’s rewarded me well for my pains

Yet I would then hardly believe them                              She has gone to be tied to another

            This is the initial stanza in all cases when Douce’s I has been lost. In addition, it follows as the second or third stanza in three cases, making the verse’s total occurrence to six times (AGG/8/22, HAM/3/13/15, SBG/1/7/102, COL/5/57B, COL/2/33 and GB/7d/12). The change of the first line to a more concrete “I (once) courted/loved...” is universal and most likely a result of its role as the first line for the song (even though the verse may be preceded by Douce’s I and II). The second and third lines are perhaps of most interest, featuring considerable variations in the narrator’s reasoning; if the general notion of these lines (as also seen in Pratt’s version) is an active protection of his ‘false lover’, the sense has transformed to a form of 'justice served' on the narrator for being a generally bad person in AGG/8/22 (“I hated all people and wished them ill/ And ain’t I rewarded fo’ what I have done”), and unwillingness to believe slanderous rumour in SBG/1/7/102 (“Unheeding what people against her did say/ I thought her as constant and true as the day”). The ending line has also been generalised and will repeat itself in one way or another throughout the rest of the song. The only exception again is version SBG/1/7/102 (“But now she is going to be married.”) where the ending lines continue their unique logic throughout the song.

                                   VII                                                                 II

But when I did see, My Love to the Church go,                Then I saw my love to the church go,

With all her Bride-Maidens, They made such a show       With the bride and the bridegroom they cut a fine                                                                                                                                                         show,

I laugh’d in Conceit, Though my heart was full low,          Then I followed after with a heart full of woe,

To see how much she was regarded.                             To see my love tied to another.

            The frequency of this stanza seven times (GG/1/12/716, AGG/8/22, AGG/8/72, HAM/3/13/15, HAM/5/35/14, SBG/1/7/102, GB/7d/12) and several obvious tendencies occur in the variations. One of the more interesting points is the continuation of the narration in the beginning first line; the broadsides’ construction is followed only by HAM/3/13/15, HAM/5/35/14 and - with certain reservations - SBG/1/7/102 (“O when to the church...”) and all other versions apply a construction “The next/ first time I saw...” which - if present the first time - repeats itself throughout the song. Additionally, if the numerical value is used the first time, there is a chance of it continuing (in AGG/8/22 this goes as up as “the third time” by verse IV although most versions start using “the next time” after the initial use) and also the construction “last time” has been used for the penultimate stanza (GG/1/12/716). The only exception to this consistency are Pratt’s III (and the respective oral variants of this stanza) and the two stanzas unique to particular versions which would hint back at the singularity of these verses. Another fascinating aspect is the ending line which in most cases reflect back to the 17th century version as either “For to see my false lover regarded” (AGG/8/72) or the more frequent “To see how my false love was guarded” (GG/1/12/716, AGG/8/22, HAM/3/13/15, GB/7d/12). SBG/1/7/102 again uses a construction unique only to it (“To see how my suit had miscarried”) and only HAM/5/35/14 stays to true to Pratt’s version.

                                                                                                          III

The parson that married them aloud he did cry,

                                                                                  All that you forbid it I’d have you draw nigh,

                                                                                  I thought to myself I’d a good reason why,

                                                                                  Though i had not the heart to forbid it.

            Pratt’s III is the first stanza not to exist in the 17th century version. As such it occurs only three times in among oral recordings GG/1/12/716, HAM/5/35/14, GB/7d/12), and remains relatively the same in all versions. The largest divergence takes place in the narrator’s reasoning of the ultimate line; in GG/1/12/716 it is the same as Pratt’s, HAM/5/35/14 essentially asserts the previous line (“A good reason have I to forbid it”) and GB/7d/12 it is has become a generic “And now she is gone to some other”. As for the existence of this stanza itself, it possible it had emerged from the back end of the 17th century version and the narrator’s plaintive reasoning, the closest common ground being Douce's XV (“Two Husbands she hath, By this wild Miscarriage/ The one by a contract, The other by Marriage/ She doth her whole Family, Grosly disparage/ But I will not plot to misuse her”).

                                   VIII                                                                 IV

But when I saw my Love, within the Church stand,          When I saw my love in the church stand,

Gold Ring on her Finger, Well sealed with a Hand;          With a ring on her finger and glove in her hand

He had so endu’d her, With both House and Land,          I might have enjoyed her with houses and land

That nothing but Death could them sever.                                   But now she is tied to another.

            Occurring eight times (AGG/8/22, AGG/8/72, HAM/3/13/15, HAM/5/35/14, SBG/1/7/102, COL/5/57B, COL/5/57C, GB/7d/12), the first two lines remain relatively the same throughout (a notable exception being the change of construction in HAM/5/35/14 “Then when I saw my love in the church stand/ With the glove pulling off and the ring putting on”). The latter two, however, feature an array of semantic changes; only AGG/8/22 stays true to broadsides in the narrator offering economic stability (“She might have been mistress of houses and land/ But now she’s the bride of another”) whereas in a majority of cases (AGG/8/72, HAM/5/35/14, COL/5/57B, COL/5/57C, GB/7d/12) a more generic sentiment of regret is expressed (AGG/8/72: “Thinks I to myself, I might have been that man/ But I never once mentioned to ever”). SBG/1/7/102 follows a similar sentiment to the lot but in a more confident tone (“I thought that for certain ‘twas not the right man, / Although ‘twas the man she was taking”), and the most fascinating exception to all this is HAM/3/13/15 which does follow the original construction found in the broadsides but wholly reversed, placing the narrator into a position of economic uncertainty (“Thinks to myself, “You have houses and land, And I that am here have got neither””).

                      V

When I saw my love sit down to meat,

                                                                                  I sat myself by her but nothing could eat;

                                                                                  I thought her sweet company better than meat

                                                                                  Although she was tied to another.

            The second stanza not found in the 17th century broadside is somewhat more frequent (GG/1/12/716, AGG/8/22, AGG/8/72, SBG/1/7/102, COL/2/33, GB/7d/12) and that is also perhaps the reason why the initial construction (“The /---/ time”), which had been omitted from Pratt’s III, is prominently featured in most cases (the exception being SBG/1/7/102 which follows a different structure as already discussed). The first two lines are again more uniform after Pratt’s mode, the most notable variation being “I took my sweet cider but nothing could eat” in GB/7d/12 In the latter two lines, the main variation is the substitution of “meat” with “wine” which occurs in three cases (AGG/8/22, AGG/8/72, GB/7d/12) and another noteworthy variation is the connotation arising from “sweet” to “sad” in “I loved her sad company better than meat” (GG/1/12/716). In two cases however (AGG/8/22, COL/2/33) the entire stanza has undergone radical changes and the otherwise relatively stable structure of four lines per stanza itself is altered.

                        AGG/8/22: IV                                                               COL/2/33: II[2]                

The third time I saw my love, in the house we did meet,               Last time that I saw her, she was sitting

I sat down beside her and nothing did eat                                                                           down to dine

I picked up the bottle, and poured out the wine:                          I poured out  a glass o’ the very best                                                                                                                                             wine

“Here’s good health to the young girl that ought t’ a’ been            Drank health to the lassie that should

           mine -                                                  have been mine

Here’s adieu to the false hearted lover.”                                      Altho’ she’s got wed to another.

X                                                                    VI

When she was laid in Bed, And dress’d all in White        But when I saw my love all dressed in white,

My Eyes gush’d with Water, That drowned my Sight;      The ring on her finger it dazzled my sight,

I put off my Hat, And bid them good Night,                      I picked up my hat and wished them good night

And adieu my fair Sweetheart for ever.                            Here’s adieu to all false hearted lovers

                                   XI                                                                   VII

Oh! dig me a Grave, That’s wide large and deep,             Then dig my grave, long, wide and deep,

With a Turf at my Head, And another at my Feet;                       And strew it all over with flowers so sweet,

And there will I lie, And take a long sleep,                      That I may lay down and take a long sleep,

And bid the World adieu for ever                                    And that’s the best way to forget her.

            The penultimate stanza in Pratt’s broadside occurs three times in oral recordings (GG/1/12/716, AGG/8/72, GB/7d/12). GG/1/12/716 is the uniquest of these as the position of the stanza has shifted from fifth to second. This in return has induced the addition of a whole new line (“As I was coming back all late in the night”) in the beginning and has dissolved the one that would otherwise be the second. In both AGG/8/72 and GB/7d/12, the transformation from the previous verse has been accomplished with the usual “The /---/ time” construction. In the second line, both versions also reflect back to the older 17th century broadside and its image of  crying (“My eyes ran of water quite dazzled my sight” and “The tears in my eyes quite dazzled my sight” respectively).

            The final verse is the most generic of the entire song, found in every version except for HAM/3/13/15. In Douce’s version, five additional five verses to follow but in later versions, this stanza is exclusively the last one. The most considerable variation here occurs in the ultimate line which for most part agrees with Pratt’s, but in two cases (HAM/5/35/14, COL/5/57B), it is rather “(And) Adieu to false(-hearted) lovers for ever.” This has possibly to do with the disappearance of the previous (Pratt’s VI) stanza  where this line would usually be.

            In two cases, a completely original stanza has cropped up in oral recordings. These are, from SBG/1/7/10

V

O woe be the day that I courted the maid,

That ever I trusted a word that she said,

That with her I wander’d along the green glade

Accurs’d be the day that I met her.

and from COL/2/33.

                        III

Haud your tongue, haud your tongue/ And I’ll tell you a guise

I’ve lain wi’ your bonny bride/ oftener than thrice

In thi bed where she lay/ And she dare na deny

She’s but my old shoon when you’ve got her

In both cases, the position of the new stanza is penultimate. SBG/1/7/10 in itself is relatively unusual throughout, both in adding completely original lines as well as having its own variants of generic constructs (The “O when...” in the beginning of first lines for example). If for most part the verses’ ultimate line are accidental, in SBG/1/7/10 they have obviously organized to pairs in terms of rhyming (I: “But now she is going to be married”, II: “To see how my suit had miscarried”). These things in mind, this version has clearly undergone deliberate artistic revision.

            The same could not be said about version COL/2/33; with only four stanzas in total (barring generic the first and last, this makes it two verses of importance), a significant portion of the song has been lost. This is well illustrated by the fact that the previous verse (II) is parallel to Pratt’s V and begins with the construction “[The] Last time...” and III itself is an expansion of that scene. There is also some confusion from the transcriber’s part on how the song be noted structurally, and thus II has been put down in five lines, III in six (much like it is seen in Douce’s version) although it is still possible to depict the stanzas as rhyming triplets with a final line.

            Both in SBG/1/7/10 and COL/2/33 the contents of the new stanza, as well as from other changes in the larger body, considerably changes original sense and emotion of the song. If generally one of the essential aspects of the song has always been the narrator’s continued empathy towards her (an example in Pratt’s III: “Though I had not the heart to forbid it”), the tone approached in these cases is far less understanding. Essentially COL/2/33’s III expresses sentiments of the direct opposite.

            Tristam P. Coffins mentions three stages in a ballad’s life-cycle: a stage 1 when “a poem, created by an individual, enters or is retained in oral tradition, /---/ has three major parts: an emotional core, details of action, frills of a poetic style that are too “sophisticated” for the folk /---/ [and] is frequently not for singing and may well be closer to literature than musical expression”; a stage 2 when “the frills of subliterary style have been worn away by oral tradition [and] some of the action details have been lost”; and a stage 3 when “either unessential details drop off until lyrics emerges, or essential details drop off until only a meaningless jumble, centered about a dramatic core, is left.” (1957: 248-249)

            Clearly, Douce’s 3(32a) and its variations belong to Stage 1 and the fundamental changes that have happened by the Pratt’s broadside correspond to Stage 2. Would however a further transformation exist among oral recordings to stage 3? The process of forgetting usually takes place in whole stanzas and among versions which have lost the most, only fractions of the original song remain (in the most extreme case, JHB/1A/2, comprising of only the first and the last stanza, the song has essentially been forgotten altogether). Yet it is almost always possible to connect the stanza with a 17th century counterpart, and the stanzaic and syntactic constructions present in Pratt’s are followed rather faithfully. With that in mind, AGG/8/22: IV and COL/2/33: II & III are probably furthest away from literary influence.

            As for the relation of the song’s plot with Coffins concept of emotional core, the definitive change again lies in the shift from one broadside to the other; Douce’s stanzas lost in Pratt’s involve (in III and IV) concrete details about the narrator’s discovery of his ‘false lover’s’ marriage and (in the later XII-XVI) and the moral implications of her (implied) adulterous betrayal. All this is lost among oral recordings and the variations there are rather contradictions to the initial storyline itself (most fascinating examples here would be AGG/8/22: I, HAM/3/13/15:IV).

List of references:

Primary Sources:

Baring-Gould, Sabine [Collector]. The False lover. n.d. Available at Take Six [Reference no. SBG/1/7/102]

Blunt, Janet Heatley [Collector]. The Week A'fore Easter. 15 Apr 1916. Available at Take Six [Reference        no. JHB/1A/2]

Butterworth, George [Collector]. Week Before Easter. 1907 – 1911. Available at Take Six [Reference no. GB/4/40]

Collinson, Francis M. [Collector]. A Week Before Easter. n.d. Available at Take Six [Reference no. COL/5/57B]

Collinson, Francis M. [Collector]. A Week Before Easter. n.d. Available at Take Six [Reference no. COL/5/57C]

Collinson, Francis M. [Collector]. I Once Had a Lass. August 1942. Available at Take Six [Reference no. COL/2/33]

Gardiner, George B. [Collector]. Oh! The Week Before Easter. June 1907. Available at Take Six          [Reference no. GG/1/12/716]

Gilchrist, Anne Geddes [Collector]. The False-Hearted Lover. n.d. Available at Take Six [Reference no.          AGG/8/22]

Gilchrist, Anne Geddes [Collector]. The Week Before Easter. n.d. Available at Take Six [Reference no.           AGG/8/72]

Hammond, Henry Edward Denison [Collector]. The False Bride. n.d. Available at Take Six [Reference            no. HAM/3/13/15]

Hammond, Henry Edward Denison [Collector]. The False Bride. September 1907(?). Available at Take           Six [Reference no. HAM/5/35/14]

Pratt, W. The false hearted lover. c.1850        . Available at Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads [Harding B 11(634)]

The Forlorn Lover. n.d. Available at Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads [Douce Ballads 1(83a)]        

Secondary Sources:

Tristram P. Coffin. The Journal of American Folklore. 1957. "Mary Hamilton" and the Anglo-American Ballad as an Art Form. Vol. 70: No. 277 (Jul. - Sep.,), pp. 208-214

In addition a full transcript.

---

[1]              Note that there is a difference on how the two versions are position in the original manuscripts; whereas Pratt’s follows the same four line system applied here, older versions have the first three lines split in two, so that the total amount of lines per stanza is seven. As most oral versions have also been put down in four lines (a few exceptions do exist), I have, for clarity’s sake, adopted Douce’s 3(32a) to a similar manner. 

[2]              In COL/2/33 “she was sitting down to dine” is written as a separate line, but based on the rhyming scheme it is still possible to depict the verse with four lines. AGG/8/22 has been left unaltered.

Mu Kannatus Katkeb Kohe - Mu Kannatus Katkes 19.04.2011

http://www.mediafire.com/?qvtcsntw810iiis

http://www.purevolume.com/MuKannatusKatkebKohe/albums/Mu+kannatus+katkes+19.04.2011

Mu Kannatus Katkeb Kohe - Mu kannatus katkes 11.03.2011

...markeerimiseks, siis Tartus saab mõnikord kokku selline rühmitus ja on lindistanud ülalmainitud demo, mis on nüüd ka avalikult saadaval.

Purevolume

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Mediafire

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Declan de Barra - Song of a Thousand Birds

Today I will briefly discuss this man and album I recently (re)discovered. Declan de Barra used to be the central member of the now defunct Melbrunian group called Clann Zú. Chances are, that name won't say you much, but I can safely say the 2004 Black Coats & Bandages will stay up there as one of the most creative emotive album I ever will have come about. Song of a Thousand Birds was actually released on the same year so CZ was very much alive at the time of its conception (Wikipedia marks the band's end to 2005). As such, the two outlets are hardly alike (though Declan's handwriting is distinctly present in both cases) and the album is pretty straightforwardly acoustic. Lyrically, likewise, Declan has takes a more mellow approach, but the shift is also for a more personal experience; the album's political songs (such as Welcome & Curfew) are now firmly rooted in Ireland's context, though you won't be hearing any Gaelic this time and that's sincerely a loss. I do miss the fervour of, say, One Bedroom Apartment but the subtlety can ultimately win you over. I'd say that the emotional palette has also expanded somewhat culminating with the afore-mentioned Welcome in its hopeless naivety but the core emotion pretty much remains the same, one which I think best reflects in Blackbird Song.

In short I hope Declan de Barra profits incredible future success in his musical endeavors. There is hardly another voice in Ireland quite like that.  

HibOO d'Live : Declan de Barra "Throw your arms around me" from Le-HibOO.com on Vimeo.

Anathema – Resonance

In autumn 2006, when ongoing a brief visit to Scotland, I picked from retail several albums by Anathema  (a name I had repeatedly heard in relation with Paradise Lost which at the time had reached its pinnacle in my listening habits). The first album for me to listen, still abroad and on the road, was by chance Resonance – a compilation of odd B-siders, covers and acoustic rearrangements from a period when the band was predominantly still that mid-1990ties death-doom act. Many albums have come between the now and then, and I have on occasions halted the Anathema-experience, but I will say, never forgot, and with the benefit of a retrospect some 4.5 years long, I will give this compilation the comprehensive attention it would not receive otherwise.

It all starts with Scars of the old stream  - a 1:10 minute long ambiance made from looping the guitar, its feedback and whatnot, and serves an “intro” for the disc, even though its original context is nothing like this at all, being placed as the 7^th track of the 1993 Serenades. A listener of that earlier album might hardly even notice track as it functions as something of a transition between the longer Sleep in Sanity and Under a Veil (of Black Lace). By bringing this track to the very front of the disc, Scars of the... very honestly sums up what to expect from much Resonance: a series dislocated soundscapes and short musical ideas that have now been brought to the foreground.

The first bulk of the compilation features three short tracks – Everwake, J'ai fait une promesse and Alone. Each comes from a different release, but the musical similarities make it obvious why the three come together. Adding a fully acoustic track with female vocals on a metal album is perhaps the first early sign of Anathema's inclination for new boundaries genre-wise, but it also allows a clearer vision of the band's development between 1992 (the time Everwake was released on their first EP Crestfallen) and 1996 (Alone coming out on The Silent Enigma album, J'ai fait... was released on the afore-mentioned Serenades). Alone clearly stands apart from the previous two tracks in being more complex but the minimalism of the sound is brought to the extreme, moving further away from what the band was intending to do in the future. If so, it is clear why it remained the last of its kind and perhaps it is only in AND's Electricity in 2003 that an Anathema song again entails a similar introspective reservedness (although the tone there is hardly cold).

Then follow three songs taken from the band's last truly (doom) metal album, Eternity, although in tone with the nature of Resonance, none of the pieces presented are particularly metal. Both Far Away and Eternity Part III are acoustic renditions of their heavier counterparts in the original album (the same acoustic versions did appear as bonus songs on Eternity's limited edition). Between the two retains its original form Eternity Part II - again one of the shorter pieces that originally stood as a transition in the centre of Eternity. All-in-all the altered songs stand well in comparison to their more metal counterparts – as neither has undergone any extensive changes like that would happen with acoustic remakes in the 2008 Hindsight compilation, they fully retain their gloominess, but being stripped to the bare essentials proves a refreshing change and works particularly well with Et. Part 3.

Onwards, there are a series of covers the band made for the Peaceville X compilation – Better Off Dead  (originally by Bad Religion), One of the Few and Goodbye Cruel World (both by Pink Floyd). Better Off Dead is the greatest point of interest here, as it radically changes the upbeat punk rock original to a solemn piano-driven ballad. The two Pink Floyd adaptations are more faithful, though neither the originals or the covers have much content to work with and in the Peaceville's compilation, the two tracks serve as an intro and an outro for the album.

Finally, there are two tracks from Anathema's post-doom period – Inner Silence and Destiny from the  Alternative 4 album. Inner Silence is perhaps the only track of the compilation that fits the definition of being one of the “best of” in Anathema's catalogue. Unchanged in any way, its effects are all the more devastating now that the song is one the heaviest on the album and grand culmination among the laid-back nature of the rest of the compilation. With Destiny, Resonance could very well come to its logical conclusion (in which case the track would retain its original position as the very last song), and for a moment we are led tso believe so, but then the album continues for three more additional tracks that in whole form a sort of an “epilogue” to it.

Thirteenth on the songlist is an orchestral version of The Silent Engima, the title track of the band's second album. Next to the rendition of Better Off Dead, this is probably the second largest alteration, completely reversing the sombre aesthetics of the death-doom original. In essence, the track could be seen looking ten years into Anathema's future, but a certain lushness of sound is lacking for the result to be truly superb. Then a live version of Angelica – one of the key tracks on Eternity. The rough quality of the recording almost destroys the song but the very experience is fascinating in itself – with the frantic cheering and singing from the crowd, the track is probably the most honest example of an Anathema concert (up to the point where the band is asking the overly rowdy audience to “calm down”) and very much in contrast with the rest of the songs.

And lastly, the 15^th track, Horses, which is not a song in its own right. Outside Resonance, it is not even separate track but rather a hidden segment you would reach after twelve minutes into the Memento Mori on the Pentecost III EP. So there would not have been an obscurer thing the band could have put to end a best-of compilation.

In total, the Resonance compilation is the sum of all the material that in its original context would largely pass unnoticed due to their insignificance, limited accessibility or both. As such, it gives new life to all these odd experimentations of early Anathema, although the independent value of the songs may be questionable. It all comes down to how much of a fan the listener is - as a collection of rare songs, Resonance is exemplary, but a broad overview of (early) Anathema it certainly is not.       

 

The Mythology of Current 93 and David Tibet

Norman Kuusik

The Mythology of Current 93 and David Tibet

The subject of this paper is the Current 93 frontman David Tibet, rather as a poet than artist as I attempt an analysis of his texts and mythology. As such, there will be less to do with Current 93's music, although I do not remove the lyrics from their original musical context. The scope of this paper is by no means absolute, entailing only a fragment of pieces of my own subjective choice and whereas a difference is made between earlier and later work, it does not cover Tibet's full chronology. In spite of these initial shortcomings, I hope this paper to give way for further discussion.

Early life & work

Born in 1960 as David Michael Bunting in the Malaysian town of Batu Gajah, Tibet spent the first 14 years of his life in the region, and this early experience of mixed cultures and religions he admits and open and deep influence himself:

"I was in Malaysia for about 14 years," he recalls. "I loved it. My childhood in Malaysia was practically perfect and I really miss it a lot. I dream about it a lot, it echoes in my soul always. It reverberates, and as you get older and you lie in bed and you think, the rain sounds like it's the monsoon coming. I was always interested in religion so I used to spend a lot of time in the temples, Buddhist temples, Taoist temples, Hindu temples, I remember all of it." (Keenan 1997)

Arriving in England in 1973, and attending a university in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne from 1978 onwards, Tibet would ultimately start creating music as a part of “the then nascent Industrial scene” joining first with Psychic TV and then forming the separate Current 93 with John Balance and Fritz Haaman. The change from this industrial/ambient Current 93 of 1980ties to the “apocalyptic folk” of the 1990ties would occur in several transitions and as “Tibet sees an obvious link between his early music and the subsequent Collins-influenced recordings” (Keenan 1997), the least of things to do is to look a few examples of the band's early material before looking onwards

The first track under the name of Current 93 was released in 1983 as a split with Nurse With a Wound named Mi-Mort. This 18 minute long ambient piece titled Maldoror est mort does in ways reflect the many future developments of Tibet's writing – firstly, the persona of Maldoror itself, taken from the French surrealist poet Comte de Lautréamont (who is already featured in the adjacent industrial scene in Nurse With Wound's Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella in 1979) that remains a recurring, though a minor, character of Current 93 (Maldoror is revisited in Maldoror is Ded Ded Ded, a track recorded of the new folk style during the Thunder Perfect Mind session, and as a separate compilation CD titled Maldoror Is Dead in 2002) and secondly, the absoluteness of death which even a supernatural creature is unable avoid. As such, Maldoror stands as the first death in Current 93's long list of obituaries. Being an instrumental track, Maldoror est mort does not elaborate the image beyond the initial title, but in a “chance meeting” some ten years later Maldoror Is Ded Ded Ded (1992) returns to the concept in all straightforwardness:

Maldoror is dead\Little brick\Buried in the earth\Maldoror is gone\Was I a man?\Was I a stone?\Maldoror is dead\Chance meetings, Maldoror\You are gone now, Maldoror\The ship that sunk, Maldoror\Dispatched by bullets, Maldoror

Perhaps one of the more influential tracks of early Current 93 is Falling Back in Fields of Rape (album Dogs Blood Rising 1984) – 15 minute looped track after the industrial fashion. Unlike other similar tracks of the time, the loops are mostly extracts of intelligible human speech, combined to create a coherent narrative. Remaining vague on specific details (“In a foreign town/ in a foreign land”), the subject matter is narrowed down on the crimes of modern wars – perhaps the image proposed is that a foreign army advancing on defenceless women and children in the final war of mankind (“In this last summer the Rapture descends...”). In the songs long list graphic violence, much is also to do with the double meaning of fields of Brassica napus and sexual abuse.

Never eating/ Bags of bones dying quietly/ Homeless/ Drinking foul water/ Sorting garbage/ With flies in heat/ Raped/ Axed/ Burned with acid/ Locked away for thirty years/ Thrown out of a helicopter/ Forced to labour endlessly/ Castrated/ Burned alive/ Killed so easily by firing squads” (10:28 – 10:48)

Like Maldoror, the field covered with rapeseed is an image lasting well into the band's work in early 90ties. The song itself undergoes a reincarnation as a short Death in June's piece in 1989 (album 93 Dead Sunwheels), an acoustic composition reusing some of the lyrics, and as a Current 93 live track thereafter. One of its later occurrences is in Nature and Organization's Bonewhiteglory (album Beauty Reaps the Blood of Solitude 1994), the mellow musical context almost reversing the tone of the image

The lovely coppercoloured mountain of flesh and starres./ In my hands I cup my decline as it flowers into them - /this is the rippling of the ages: our lives like rain, the small shower, the downfall, the thunderous pouring... in some greenfield of rape we lie...

Later work

Thunder Perfect Mind is perhaps the first 'classical' Current 93 albums that would define a central sound and emotion of Current for decades to come. Released in 1992, Tibet describes it as the album “I started writing about friends of mine, about how I felt about things.” Whenceforth Current 93 “became a lot purer for me.” (Keenan 1997) The title of the album comes from the poem The Thunder, Perfect Mind found in the Nag Hammadi library in 1945 and direct quotations of the English translation are used in the thirteenth track Thunder Perfect Mind I, the narration ending abruptly in the middle of the line “I am war [and peace]”, thus paving a way for further culmination of tension in Hitler as Kalki (SDM). This is also perhaps the furthest Current 93 gets in to the flirtation with fascist aesthetics common for the genre. In a poem of over 130 lines and a song of over 16 minutes, Tibet proposes the idea of Hitler as the tenth and final incarnation of Vishnu who will come to end the present age of darkness and destruction known as Kali Yuga, according to the tradition of Hinduism. Although Tibet's commentary on the song has always been that “I am in no doubt: Hitler was Antichrist” (sleeve notes from DURTRO014 CD) and dedicated to his father who fought in WWII, the voice of the song is of gloating and jeering on the mortal man.

Where's your God now?/ I'll point out his varied forms to you/ One, he hangs on the end of a tree/ Two, he's nailed to the arms of this selfsame tree/ And three, he spins, he spins and soars and laughs through space/ Ah, one day the world sees/ Oh, one day the world sees/ Hitler as Kalki/ Hitler as Kalki

As said, the new direction of Thunder Perfect Mind was personality. The subject matter may have continued to be the apocalypse, but no longer would it take place in the abstract distance of time and space and rather being centred around Tibet himself. Perhaps the most direct manifestation of Tibet's new focus on his personal life is A Song For Douglas After He's Dead – a dedication to Douglas Pearce of Death in June in a satiric mingle of both Current 93s aesthetics of death and Death in June's aesthetics of totalitarianism.

There's a swastika carved, in the palm of his hand./ There's a crooked cross, that is caught in his mind./ There waits a falling sun, in his eyes./ There's the honor, of violence, on his lips./ His father waits for him, at the towers of silence./ Where they worship the fires, so long ago cringed.

This transformation is not, however, absolute and more than once Thunder Perfect Mind retains a degree of distance even if the new mode of folk music has been adopted. The latter is true for A (Sad) Sadness Song which, as if standing still in time, paints a sluggish picture of the world around in a complete state of inertness.

Where the sanddunes stretch unbroken/ And the dry wind bends and sighs/ And the geese are running harmless/ And our desires are running wild/ Then we're looking at the smoke/ That's rising from the incense/ Neither coming here nor going/ Neither heaven here nor hell/ Neither borning here nor birthing/ Neither dying here nor death

The other new aspect to come with Thunder Perfect Mind is the prevalence of Christian thought. Although religiosity has always been an inseparable part of Current 93 – and Christianity has never been a marginal part of the mix – “everything from Thunder Perfect Mind has been pretty overtly Christian to me.” (Pitchfork 2006)

The succeeding Of Ruine or Some Blazing Starre (1994) takes both these aspects further, and the album “became a specifically autobiographical record (The Wire 1997).” The album's entire essence is best expressed on The Cloud of Unknowing – a nod towards the medieval work Christian mysticism of the same name. If the 14^th century text argues that “reason can never 'know' God” and “advises moral reform, humility and asceticism as a way of preparing a life of contemplative prayer” (Sanders 2004:79), Tibet's poem can be seen admitting a failure to achieve such goal:

And then when then I die/ I feel I shall say/ I have not understood/ I have not understood any of this/ My eyes are still coaldark.

What succeeds is a journey of 'unknowing' across the world (“Under the gorgon grinned arches / Of London's great vaults /---/ Under the sunpuckered roofs of Kathmandu /---/ Along the soulstoned streets Of Lower And of Higher Germanie”), through time (“I rested at the temple of Great Black Time – Her”) and religious pursuits (“I bend the pages of yet another book/ And in its lines Great Black Lines”). But up until the closing on death, Tibet remains as ignorant as ever, save perhaps only of God's violence:

Now you are all fading/ All fading/ As my age creeps on/ As This Age stumbles on/ Fires in the earth/ Fires in the sky/ Fires in our hearts/ Fires everywhere/ The black eyes/ Already blacken/ And this I have not understood

Not peace/ But a sword/ This and He/ Unfortunately/ I have understood

The places and events mentioned in The Cloud of Unknowing serve to create a form of map of Tibet's mythology. Additional topography is given in All The World Makes Great Blood, which goes to recollect a time when he “was not yet dressed Tibetan red” and of “the twig-smashed landscape /---/ rolling and waving”, and in the succeeding The Great, Bloody And Bruised Veil Of The World. Among other things, the latters expresses that quintessential of emotions in neofolk – a nostalgic introspection of one's nationality (“The trees wave in England/ The streams flow in England/ The poor halt in England/ The poor heart of England”) but in Let Us Go To The Rose, Tibet's nostalgia taken beyond these England's sad boundaries through Pierre de Ronsard's Mignonne, allons voir si la rose to enforce the facet of Tibet's mythology rooted to the French culture. One could even indulge the thought of the underlying metaphor of Let Us Go To The Rose to be of the indivisibility of the two cultures

The old willows wrecked again and again in the hold of the woods held in close confinement all round into the struggle for existance where the streams were constantly taken from their course by the roots of the old trees in the woods allowing no mill stream the free course through until the whole of these fine old trees had got their whole water course directed by their own roots into each others roots in their own devious ways & so each time the bad weather conditions came the dell of the old popular willows received the whole rainfall & gave the roots of the old popular trees the worst conditions they could not recover from.

Yet there is an air of lightness hovers about the album, and despite the dark natured lyrics as usual, Of Ruine Or Some Blazing Starre is actually one of the few Current 93 records to conclude in a more positive tone as the conclusions of The Cloud of Unknowing are ultimately reversed. Hence, the final motif of the album, echoing through Dormition and Dominion, So: This Empire Is Nothing and This Shining Shining World, express Tibet's Christian persuasion in its most powerful:

We have slept before and shall sleep again/ We have danced through the shallow pools/ And shall rejoice once again/ To those who say there is no hope/ I say liars/ Liars/ Liars you are/ Over the starry dancing stars/ There is a land/ Under the sweatribbed brow/ There is a land/ And this is the globed world of the Pantocrator/ Finally I have understood/ I have understood/ I have understood (Dormition and Dominion)

No doubt the most telling example of Tibet's mythology is The Seahorse Rears To Oblivion. Recorded in 1999 and released in 2003 as a separate demo, the subject of the song is essentially Tibet's retelling of the creation and the destruction of the Universe. The narrator's voice remains his own and this fact he also reinforces by claiming: “the first thing He [God] created, I believe, though the Bible does not tell us so”. Thus the perspective of the poem remains omniscient, although of the four essential characters (these being: God, Lucifer/Satan, the Stars, and the Human) Tibet's sympathy as well as the central progression of the poem remains with the Stars. So the Stars are first introduced as one part of God's creation (“The fifth thing was to create/ one Star, one animal, one fish, one bird, one human /---/ The stars he sent to fly and lie in space”) and become an object of aspiration for both the Human (“the human lies, dies, destroys, creates, and seeks the stars that He sent up in space”) and Satan (“The Devil creates black holes/ Sucks them out of the visible universe/ to create decorations”).

Yet Tibet attributes an aspiration for the Stars themselves and thus the prevailing theme of the poem is not a conflict between God and Satan, God and the Human or Satan and the Human, but rather of the Stars against the Universe. Hence, like Lucifer, the Stars are driven to rebel, held fast by the tyranny of God:

The stars try and try and try to fly away from earth/ But God has caught them in a large sling that holds them from falling too near or flying too far

Yet if Lucifer's rebellion takes place in the Beginning of Time, that of the Stars gains its momentum only at the eve of the Apocalypse

Then God decides that it is time to blow the final trumpet and call all chickens home to roost in every way and meaning

/---/

The roost begins/ The stars are withdrawn from their heavenly holder/ An attempt to rush away from the stinking world

and coincides with Satan's own design to posses all the Stars of the Universe, this falling short from the final goal as a portion of Stars still manage to flee for their freedom:

Satan simultaneously tries to snatch all of them at once to all his infernal kingdom/ Itself now doomed to his unknowledge

The stars are taken half by Satan/ dragged though an ever increasing black dent in the night sky/ The other half run towards 

the Pleiades and Aldebaran

 /---/

Even Satan in his great power and great fury and great greed cannot stop them

 

Ultimately both Satan's power and the Star's flight is only illusionary 

and as a punishment for their rebellion, the 

Stars are cast down on Earth as the final part of the Apocalypse

in the poem's culmination:

But God knows all, sees all/ And is prepared for all/ He creates a huge net made of spit/ and throws it further than the 

furthest star

/---/

The stars are ordered by God to return to the sling or betorch his mercy/ raining down like rain on the earth/ And all of those 

that are unfortunate enough to have been born in and of it

Tibet's choice to include the Stars as the central character for his 'genesis' has its predecessors in Christian tradition. According to the Ptolemaic system of the Universe, fixed stars form the penultimate eighth celestial sphere beneath the Empyrean Heaven, so that when God “made the Starrs,/ [He] set them in the Firmament of Heav'n” (Paradise Lost: Book VII, lines 348:349). His handling of both the order of the Universe and the processes from its creation to the end are entirely anthropomorphic – this can be seen in the motivations of different characters, reasoning in terms of “great power and great fury and great greed” when speaking of Satan, of fear and sadness when of the Stars, and of cruelty and anger when of God. Anthropomorphic images are also manifest in the realization God's will and the manner of punishment – the Stars are caught in “a huge net made of spit”, after which “God lectures them with a whip” and “the stars are given great scars with the whip”. Ultimately, the Universe of The Seahorse Rears to Oblivion is in its entirety imbued with the lowly human experience, and the human nature, Tibet's argues, is not directly after God's image, but rather of animal for both the best and worst of it, because “the animal he made to be our base nature and our state of nature and our innocence, and our memento mori on earth.”

David Tibet as a phenomenon of exoticism

It is not altogether difficult to define David Tibet in terms of exoticism - a childhood spent in distant Malaysia, explicit fascination with spirituality, and self-expression as a public artist. As such, the core essence of Tibet would be the joining of Dharmic religions (this aspect literally written in the man's name) with Christian tradition and European nihilism of the 19^th century. Ultimately, the dominating Christian aspect may for the modern audience seem equally, if not more, alien than Buddhist philosophy or the writings of French surrealists, placing Tibet strongly at odds with the spirit of the age even if the latter should be transformed into an era (anti)religious fanaticism. Hence, for Tibet's work to become a source for a larger cultural movement has so far been barred by the very premise of its nature, as the ultimate underlying philosophy rejects the commonsensical public a possibility for an harmonious paradise (neither in the mundane or the spiritual), offering instead the personal nightmare of chaos.

List of references:

Primary Sources:

For all quotations of lyrics, LyricWiki was used

www.lyrics.wikia.com/Current_93

Secondary Sources:

Keenan, David. 1997. Current 93. The Wire. Issue #163.

Available at: http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/88/

Milton, John. Paradise Lost. 1674.

Available at: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Paradise_Lost_(1674) (accessed 15.01.2011)

Sanders, Andrew. 2004. English Literature. New York: Oxford University Press.

Stosuy, Brandon. 2006. Current 93.

Available at: http://pitchfork.com/features/interviews/6426-current-93/ (accessed: 15.01.2011)

www.brainswashed.com. n.d. Hitler As Kalki.

Available at: http://brainwashed.com/common/htdocs/discog/durtro014.php?site=c93 (accessed 15.01.2011)