Gwilym Bowen Rhys – “Yr Eneth Gadd ei Gwrthod” (The Rejected Maiden) & Siwsan George – “Yr Eneth Gadd Ei Gwrthod”.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

For today, I’d like to share with you an extremely poignant and heartbreaking song. It’s really beautiful, despite its very dark theme, and there are a lot of amazing renditions of it, therefore I decided to share two of them in one post, and it’s possible that I’ll share some other versions of it in the future too, who knows. The first of these two versions is by Gwilym Bowen Rhys, from the first album of his Detholiad o Hen Faledi (Selection of Old Ballads) album series. This is the very first version of this song that I heard, and I love Gwilym’s expressive a capella interpretation of it very much. THe other is by Siwsan George, from her album Traditional Songs of Wales – Caneuon Traddodiadol Cymru. – I was introduced to Siwsan’s music earlier this year. She was from Rhondda and sang both as a soloist as well as part of a folk group called Mabsant. Siwsan was also a harpist. Sadly, she passed away in her forties due to cancer. 

 

As we can read on Gwilym’s Bandcamp page,, this song tells the story of a poor girl called Jane Williams, from a village in Denbighshire called Cynwyd, who was raped at 23 and fell pregnant in 1868. Predictably, she was shamed and disdained by her community as a result, and eventually committed suicide by drowning herself in the river Dee. The lyrics were written by John Jones, also known under his bardic name of Llew o’r Wern, and set to a traditional tune called There’s Love Among the Roses.

 

I’ve taken the translation below from  Gwilym’s website, where you can also find the original words in Cymraeg. 

 

On the banks of the old river Dee
A pure maiden sits
Whispering quietly to herself
“I’ve been left lonely
Without a love or a friend in the world
Nor a home to go to,
the door of my father’s house is locked,
tonight I am rejected.

The finger of shame is after me
Highlighting my weakneses
And the tide of my life has turned
And is buried under the waves.
On the alter of lust I was sacrificed,
Yes, I lost my virginity,
And that’s the reason why
I’m rejected tonight.

You little trout that plays joyfully
In the pure waters of the river,
You have many friends
And shelter from enemies
You may live and die under the water
With no one having to know you,
Oh if I could only be like you
I could die, and that would be the end.

But my sorrowfull mind flies away
To a world that’s yet to come,
And you, my harsh traitor, remember,
You must meet me there!
I need only think of your name
And living is too much for me.
Oh, deep river, accept me,
Your bed shall be my bed.”

And the next morning she was found
In the cold water of the river,
With a piece of paper in her hand
And on it, these words:
“Dig me a grave in a lonely place,
Don’t raise a stone or write an ephigy,
To denote the place where lies the dust
Of the rejected maiden.”

 

Gwilym Bowen Rhys: 

 

 

Siwsan George: 

 

Richard and Linda Thompson – “Did She Jump or Was She Pushed?”

Hiya people! 🙂

A very interesting song I have for you today. I got first fascinated and hooked on British folk rock I guess some time in 2015 and it was around then that I first became familiar with this couple’s music, both what they have recorded together and separately. My favourite British folk rock artist from the 70’s is unquestionably Sandy Denny (who almost managed to become one of my major faza people but even though it didn’t happen due to Vreeswijk still standing strong in the dominant faza position I still love her music very much) and thus all of the bands that she was a member of. One of those bands and probably one with which she’s most strongly associated was Fairport Convention, through which I’ve also become acquainted with Richard Thompson’s music, as he was one of the founders of the band, as well as the lead guitarist and songwriter for it. I think he’s a really good lyricist and there are a fair few songs by him that I like mostly because of interesting or otherwise captivating lyrics.

This is one of the very first songs by them as a duo that I’ve ever heard, thanks to Last.fm where I’d made my first British folk rock discoveries, and aside from appreciating Linda’s vocals and the arrangement in general, I got intrigued immediately by the lyrics and every time I listened to these lyrics afterwards I kept wondering, did she jump, or was she pushed? 😀 I don’t like crime novels, detective fiction books, I don’t even read a lot of mystery, I think a lot of it is horribly overrated and just not my thing, but I like lyrics which are like stories. Then later on I was wondering whether “she” was someone specific so I did a bit of research, and no, she’s not, I don’t think so, although in one interview Richard Thompson said that, after writing this, he realised that

“it could be about Sandy Denny”,

or some other people he knew. He didn’t say specifically that it IS, and I doubt he had a clear intention of writing a song about her specifically, also I haven’t heard of her death ever being suspected to be a murder, but, thinking about it in general, the similarity is a bit eerie. Sandy Denny had a lot of mental health issues, a lot of it sounds like she could be bipolar, and one way in which she regularly self-harmed, or, as some people say, tried to get attention, was by throwing herself down from stairs, which was supposed to be something like a party trick. She also abused alcohol and drugs so she experienced a lot of accidental falls due to that as well. One time she hit her head on concrete when falling down a staircase during holidays in Cornwall. She had a lot of headaches afterwards and was prescribed a painkiller which can potentially be fatal in combination with alcohol. In April 1978, she stayed at her friend’s house alone, and was eventually found unconscious at the foot of the stairs. She went into a coma due to brain haemorrhage and died in hospital a few days later. So upon discovering this connection, albeit so dark and eerie, between this song and Sandy, I grew to appreciate it even more.

This song comes from the couple’s last collaborative album before their breakup – “Shoot Out The Lights” – and is the only song on the album and I guess also the only or one of very few songs of the duo to which the lyrics weren’t written solely by Richard but co-written with his then-wife.

Declan Galbraith – “Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)”.

Hi guys! 🙂

I don’t think I’ve ever shared with you a song from Declan Galbraith’s (currently known as Child of Mind) second album called Thank You, so I thought I’d do it today. It was released in 2006 when he was 15, and, what’s typical of his music at the time, contains mostly covers of popular classics of genres like pop, folk and rock. And one of the pieces he covered on that album was Don McLean’s “Vincent” often referred to as “Starry, Starry Night” from its first lines, and that’s also how it’s called on Declan’s album. Somehow despite this is a very weighty song in my opinion, tackling quite an intense topic like mental illness or suicide, I’ve seen a lot of children and teens cover it, Chloe Agnew and Jackie Evancho to name a few.

Despite it clearly shows that while recording this song, Declan was already undergoing voice change, so it impacts the quality of the piece a bit, and so does the autotune here unfortunately, which is not the case with the whole album because in some other songs he sounds a lot different, I still think his version is absolutely great! And the lyrics are just amazing but that’s obviously Don McLean’s merit.

Question of the day.

Should governments make laws to protect people from hurting themselves?

My answer:

I don’t think it should be a matter of “should” and of protecting people from themselves, because that actually seems quite patronising or has a potential to be received as such. I think it would be best if such things would always be considered based on a specific case, but since that’s not really possible, I think for people as a whole, such law wouldn’t be a good idea. Adult people are responsible for their own actions. What I think would be wiser would be some discouraging, or providing them a lot of support and practical help if possible, in situations when they are at risk of hurting themselves or when they’re already doing it. It could also be prevented in advance, I mean rather than protecting someone directly from killing themselves by doing everything that will make it more difficult/impossible, we could implement some measures to make it less likely that people will want to try doing it. Either case doesn’t seem to be very realistic though.

What do you think about this? 🙂

Olivia Chaney – “False Bride”.

Hello people! 🙂

I have another beautiful folk ballad for you today, and an English one as well. In any case, at least this version is English, the ballad itself apparently comes from Scotland. It is also known as “I Once Loved A Lass” and is told from a man’s perspective.

I know a few versions of this song, but I guess Olivia Chaney’s is my favourite, although I love Sandy Denny’s version too.

And, again, it strikes me how easy it seemed to be for people in the past centuries to die. You only needed an unrequited love, and then you could just lay down and die. I guess, looking at it objectively, it’s good that mankind has grown out of this strange ailment. 😉 At the same time, as someone who has struggled with passive suicidal thoughts for most of my life, I have to admit that I often thought that this ability must have been really handy. I remember listening to “Annachie Gordon” for the first time as a tween or so, and I was so utterly amazed that one can just die in a matter of seconds solely because of love.

Working On Us.

This week, I’m again participating in Beckie’s mental health prompts series Working On Us over at

Beckie’s Mental Mess. 

This week’s topic is suicide, which is a very difficult and often triggering topic for so many of us, so please read this post carefully or do not read it, if you feel like it might affect you in any negative way.

I am going to participate in the prompt #1, which consists of the following questions.

1. Have you ever experienced suicidal thoughts? – Yes. I’ve been experiencing suicidal thoughts and ideations since about the age of 9-10, which is also roughly when I was diagnosed with my first depressive episode by a psychologist. Back then, and throughout my early teenage years, my suicidal thoughts were the strongest.
2. Have you ever attempted suicide? – No, but I was very close to attempting a few times. There were a few things that were holding me back back then. First of all, I am Christian, so I always felt like I needed to be strong for the sake of that, and that if I’d die by suicide, it wouldn’t necessarily mean things would become better for me. Another thing is that I was always scared of overdosing, which would be in practical terms the easiest way to attempt suicide. I’m scared of that because of emetophobia, I mean the consequences I’d have to face if my attempt would fail, being cleared and all that. Also I’ve heard some awful stories as a kid, of people who overdosed on meds and ended up as pretty much vegetables with very damaged brains. If I am to live in this world, I want to have my brain working at least, as it is my shield and weapon. When my suicidal ideations were particularly severe – that is when I was 10 and recovering from an Achilles tendons surgery – looking back on that time I think that if I was given a chance, I could very likely make an attempt, but I had my both legs in huuuge plasters and was very immobile and relied on others for a lot of things, so, although I had plenty of ideas, fortunately they weren’t that easy to undertake. Besides, so many people say suicide is a sign of weakness. I think you actually have to be a strong person to be determined enough to do it. I don’t consider myself particularly strong.
3. Were you ever hospitalized for a suicidal attempt and/or ideation? – No. I rarely even talk to people in my surroundings about such things in a serious way, so back then no one actually knew I was suicidal, just that I was depressed, and now things are better in that respect so I wouldn’t need to be hospitalised at this point.
4. When you were hospitalized, what was your experience like? – N/a.
   1. 1. 1. Do you ever feel suicidal ideation since your release? – As I said, I’ve never been hospitalised for being suicidal, but yes, even though I’m doing better than I did in the past, at least in terms of suicidality, I still do experience suicidal thoughts. They’re usually of a passive kind though, unlike in the past, unless I feel really depressed and overloaded, then sometimes I can still feel really bad active suicidal ideations. But it’s just a mere echo of what it was like for me when I was younger, that was hellish.