John O’ Dreams is a wonderful velvety ballad that captures perfectly the dream-like quality invoked by the song’s title:
When sleep it comes the dreams come running clear
The hawks of morning cannot reach you here
Sleep is a river, flow on forever
And for your boatman choose old John O’Dreams
And for your boatman choose old John O’Dreams
—-lyrics from Max.co.uk
One variant of the Broom O’ the Cowdenknowes tells the story of a young girl who falls in love with a man. They tend their flocks together and spend blissful hours together enjoying life’s pleasures. Somehow, she is banished forever from her lover. The pain and loss of leaving the loved ones one has known all one’s life is palpable in the lyrics:
Adieu, ye Cowdenknowes, adieu, farewell, a’ pleasures there;
Ye gods, restore me to my swain, is a’ I crave or care.
O, the broom, the bonnie, bonnie broom o’ the cowden knowes;
I wish I were wi’ my dear swain, wi’ his pipe and my ewes.
—-lyrics from TheBalladeers.com
The alternative variant used by Silly Sisters in their recording tells the tale of a man who falls in love with a young girl. Somehow, he too is banished from her and recounts to us his pain and longing for her company:
Oh the broom, the bonnie, bonnie broom
The broom o’ the cowdenknowes
Fain would I be in my own country
Herding my father’s ewes
Hard fate that I should banished be
Gone way o’er hill and moor
Because I loved the fairest lass
That ever yet was born
CHORUS
Farewell, ye cowdenknowes, farewell
Farewell all pleasures there
To wonder by her side again
Is all I crave or care
Why is it that the most mournful tunes are some of the most gorgeous and enchanting?
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