Roanoke | Take It Easy

Illustration by Arthur Rackham in Some British Ballads, c.1919

If you have seen my posts before you will know that I have a great love of folk music, which was instilled in me from an early age – singing songs around the piano while Mum played – and then slightly later when I found my way into local folk clubs. These were usually held in rooms at local pubs, but somehow they didn’t seem to care too much that some of their audience – i.e. me – were below the legal age for being in the hostelries: you had to be 18, and I wasn’t! One of the things which attracted me was the way the songs told stories which had been handed down through generations over the centuries, and I have posted a couple of times previously about this, featuring a particular song each time. As the last of those was back in summer 2024 I don’t think I can be accused of overloading you by playing another today!

You’ll have seen from my title that today’s song is Lord Randall. Wikipedia tells us that Lord Randall, or Lord Randal, is an Anglo-Scottish border ballad consisting of dialogue between a young Lord and his mother. Similar ballads can be found across Europe in many languages, including Danish, German, Magyar, Irish, Swedish, and Wendish (from eastern Germany). Italian variants are usually titled L’avvelenato (The Poisoned Man) or Il testamento dell’avvelenato (The Poisoned Man’s Will), the earliest known version being a 1629 setting by Camillo il Bianchino, in Verona.

There are two main collections of folk songs in this country, by Steve Roud and Francis James Child, the latter of which is subsumed into the first. This song, and many variants, are in both, and they are thought to date back to at least the eighteenth century. Over the course of time the song’s origins have become unclear – did this really happen, or is it a folk tale? No doubt historians will have been able to find instances which can be taken as a source, though, and violent deaths have been a mainstay of English folk music for centuries!

The synopsis of the song is that Lord Randall returns home to his mother after visiting his lover. He explains that she gave him a dinner of eels boiled in broth and that his hunting dogs died after eating the scraps of the meal, leading his mother to realise that he has been poisoned. In some variants, particularly the Italian ones, Randall dictates his last will and testament in readiness for his impending death, dividing his possessions among family members and wishing damnation on his lover. Her motive for poisoning him is never discussed, leaving an air of mystery, as in all good murder stories!

There are loads of recorded versions of the song which, in the true tradition, is often sung unaccompanied. Some have different titles: Lord Donald, Lord Rendal, Buried In Kilkenny, Henry My Son, are just a few. My usual sources of folk music are a little light on this: of the big three here only Steeleye Span have recored a version which, as it is only an album track, is only available via YouTube’s dreaded “Topic” range, which renders it useless for sharing across much of the world. But I have found three versions to play you, taking you down the route of obscurity. The first of these is by an English duo, Vicki Swan and Jonny Dyer, who go by the name of Seriouskitchen:

I’ll admit to having not heard of them before I began researching this piece, but they have been playing and recording together from the end of the 20th century, and this performance from 2013 is a good example of just how lovely their harmonies are. I’m adding them to my Apple Music library!

The second version I’m playing uses the Lord Randal title, and is by another new band for me, Roanoke. Though they are singing this in English they are actually Italian, and are Ilaria Paladino (voice and synth) and Nicola Alianelli (guitars), joined here by Alessandro Alei (bass) and Leonardo Spina (drums). Again, I think this is rather nice:

The fact that Ilaria is absolutely gorgeous had nothing to do with my choosing to play that, honest! It intrigued me, though, that being Italian they didn’t go down the usual Italian route of the last will and testament bit, unlike Seriouskitchen. That for me is one of the beauties of folk music: it can be so much for so many. The song was released in 2014 on an EP titled Black Cat: I’ve tried to find more by them, but there doesn’t seem to be much. A pity, as I think they have something.

I said I’d play three versions of this song, and couldn’t resist this one by my favourite German pagan folk band. Faun released their version of Lord Randal on their 2023 album, Pagan, and I’m playing this because I love the band. The fact that they treat the song in the traditional style of being almost unaccompanied is a bonus, but you’ll have to trust me for the lyrics, as they sing it in German:

That is so atmospheric, and I think their treatment really suits the dark nature of the song: it is about someone being murdered, after all!

That would be where I’d take my leave, but there is something I’d like to ask before I do: has the call and answer style of this song reminded you of anything? Several of the recorded versions of this date back to the US in the Fifties, including one by Pete Seeger. A certain latter day troubadour by the name of Robert Zimmerman must have heard these, and used the format and the lyrics as a basis for a song of his own. That song became A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall, which was on his second album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, released in May 1963. I thought I’d play you that to close, by way of comparison, but at the risk of upsetting Dylan purists I’m going with my favourite cover version of it – entirely in keeping, I think, with the spirit of songs being handed down! This is Bryan Ferry: