Magnificent Transgression

Listening Post 179. Sex, death and rebellion are the stuff of tavern gossip and folk music, and they reach their fullest resonance when delivered with a healthy dose of irreverence. This is the payload of When All Is Still, a rollicking album of comedy and calamity, mischief and mayhem, by Rachael McShane and her band. Yorkshire-born and Newcastle-based, McShane is a singer-composer-musician and veteran of the British folk group Bellowhead. Led by her dulcet, vivacious voice, she and new bandmates Matthew Ord (guitar, vocals) and Julian Sutton (melodeon), plus a world-class roster of guest musicians, rework traditional songs—starring characters dashing, daring and dastardly—with sparkling arrangements. In her album notes, McShane is a tad sheepish about the inclusion of a straightforward love song, but Ploughman Lads, in which she declares a preference for farm workers over other country types, is an irresistible blend of insouciance and pastoral pageantry (video 1). A cheeky romp, The Molecatcher features a cuckold who busts his transgressing wife in flagrante but still comes up short (video 2). Sylvie, determined to know if her lover is faithful and brave, disguises herself—naturally—as a highwayman and robs him (video 3). The album reaches a Gilbert & Sullivan-worthy crescendo of exaggerated (and magnificent) pomp-with-frivolity in Green Broom, the saga of a lazy, lucky youth (video 4). So much more: Cropper Lads, a Luddite tribute to cloth cutters who lost livelihoods to technology, also provides the album title—as workers take “hatchet, pike and gun” to their factory’s job-killing machinery at night, “when all is still.” On the darker side, Two Sisters is a story of sibling rivalry (homicidal kind); while the starry-eyed Lady Isabel turns the tables on a serial killer. More than enough here for a night in the tavern or an extraordinary collection destined for the record book. (Topic Records)

Ploughman Lads
Down yonder glen there’s a ploughman lad/And some summer day he’ll be all my own
Singing laddie-I, and sing laddie-O/Ploughman lads are all the go.

I’ll love his face and I’ll love his skin/Love the very cart he harrows in
Singing laddie-I, and sing laddie-O/Ploughman lads are all the go.

Down yonder glen, could’ve gotten a miller/But all of his dust would have made us choke
Singing laddie-I, and sing laddie-O/Ploughman lads are all the go.

Down yonder glen, could’ve gotten a merchant/But all of his goods weren’t worth a groat
Singing laddie-I, and sing laddie-O/Ploughman lads are all the go.

I see him coming down from the town/With all of his ribbons all a-hanging down
Singing laddie-I, and sing laddie-O/Ploughman lads are all the go.

The Molecatcher
In old Tawney Common there’s a pub and a cow/And there lives a molecatcher and I’ll tell you how
Well, he goes a-molecatching from morning till night/While the jolly young farmer goes playing with his wife

Singing, o-ho-ho all day and all night/Singing, o-ho-ho till the moon it shone bright.

Oh the molecatcher jealous of the very same thing/So he hid in the alehouse and watched him come in
And when that young farmer jumped over the stile/Well, it caused the molecatcher to laugh and to smile.

He knocked at the door and this he did say“/Oh where is your husband? Good woman, I pray”
“Well, he’s gone a-molecatching so you need not fear”/But little did she think the molecatcher was near.

Singing, o-ho-ho all day and all night/Singing, o-ho-ho till the moon it shone bright.

She went upstairs and he followed the sign/But the molecatcher followed them closely behind
And when they got into the middle of their sport/Well, the molecatcher grabbed him quite fast by his coat.

Singing, o-ho-ho all day and all night/Singing, o-ho-ho till the moon it shone bright.

He clapped his hands and he laughed at the sight/Saying, “Here’s the best mole that I’ve caught in my life
And I’ll make you pay well for ploughing my ground/And the money it shall be no less than ten pound”

“Very well,” said the farmer, “the money I don’t mind/For it only works out about tuppence a time”
So come all you young farmers and mind where you’re at/Don’t you ever get caught in a molecatcher’s trap

Singing, o-ho-ho all day and all night/Singing, o-ho-ho till the moon it shone bright.

Sylvie
Young Sylvie on one summer’s day/She dressed herself in man’s array
With a sword and pistol all by her side/To meet her true love, to meet her true love, away did ride

As she was riding o’er the plain/She met her true love and bid him stand
“Your gold and silver, kind sir,” she said/“Or else this moment, or else this moment, I’ll shoot you dead”

And when she’d robbed him of all his store/She said, “Kind sir, there’s one thing more
A golden ring that I see you have/Oh hand it over, oh hand it over
And your life I’ll spare”

“That ring,” he said, “my true love gave/My life I’ll lose, but the ring I’ll save”
Being tender-hearted just like a dove/She rode away, she rode away, from her own true love.

Next morning in the garden green/Just like true lovers they were seen
He spied his watch hanging by her clothes/It made him blush then, it made him blush just like any rose

“Why do you blush, you foolish thing/I thought to have that golden ring
It was I who robbed you all on that plain/So here’s your gold watch, so here’s your gold and your watch and chain”

“I only did it for to know/Whether you were a man or no
For if you did give me that ring,” she said/“I’d have called the traitor, I’d have called the traitor and shot you dead”

Green Broom
There was an old man and he lived in the woods/His trade was the cutting down broom, green broom
He had a son and his name it was John/And he laid in bed until noon, bright noon
Laid in his bed until noon.

So the old man he rose and up to his son goes/And he swore he’d set fire to his room, his room
If he would not arise and unbutton his eyes/And away to the woods to bring broom, green broom
Away to the woods to bring broom

So Johnny did rise and did sharpen his knives/And he went to the woods cutting broom, green broom
To market and fair and he cried everywhere/“Oh, fair maids do you want any broom, green broom
Maids do you want any broom?”

The lady sat up at her window so high/She heard Johnny crying, “Green broom, green broom!”
She ran for her maid and unto her she said/“Oh, go fetch me that lad that cries broom, green broom
Fetch me that lad that cries broom”

So Johnny went into this lady’s fine house/And he entered this lady’s fine room, her room
“Oh Johnny” she said, “Will you come to bed?/Will you marry a lady in bloom, full bloom?
Marry a lady in bloom?”

John gave his consent, and to church they both went/He married this lady in bloom, full bloom
He blessed the day that he traveled that way/And they stay in their bed until noon, bright Noon
Stay in their bed until Noon