#canticle

Scarborough Fair / Canticle by Simon and Garfunkle

Genre: Northern English ballad/American anti-war song/Folk rock

Year: recorded 1966, released 1968 (scarborough fair itself dates back to at least the 19th century. earliest example of this specific melody for Scarborough Fair however may go back to at least the late 1800s, though it was printed in 1960 Ewan MacColl after being sung to him by Mark Anderson from Teesdale in 1947, and the specific arrangement is credited to Martin Carthy, who released it in 1965)

Featuring: N/A

Produced by: Bob Johnston

Label: Columbia Records

Type: Single (April Come She Will on the B side)

"oh, it's just a riff off a folk song," i said. "how complicated could the history of it be?" i said. i am a fool. there is so much. i'm dividing this blurb into two parts.

1. Scarborough Fair is a ballad that dates back to roughly the 19th century, being related to the Scottish ballad The Elfin Knight (1670) and the English ballad Riddles Wisely Expounded (1450). It follows a lover being given a series of impossible tasks.

Most people focus on MacColl's collection from Mark Anderson in 1947 as the first collection of the melody, however, a version called Cambric Shirt sung by Georgia Ann Griffin in Florida was released by John Lomax in 1939. That aside, the version by Simon and Garfunkle is influenced by the 1947 version, considering they learned the arrangement from Martin Carthy, who learned it from MacColl's book of folk songs. Simon and Garfunkle originally didn't credit Carthy, who was upset but did not sue, and they settled things in 2000 with a joint performance. Carthy's publishing company contacted Columbia for royalties, but Carthy never saw any of the money from that.

2. Canticle, thank fucking god, has a less complicated history. Garfunkle reworked Simon's 1963 anti-war song The Side of a Hill. It was composed to go over Scarborough Fair.

keep in mind, this was then released on the album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, which had even more drama beyond just this.

Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest,     so is my beloved among young men.

To sit in his shadow is my delight,     and his fruit is sweet to my taste.

Song 2: 3

I picked up Canticle after searching the web for books on nuns, and I had finally finished Catherine of Siena, which unfortunately was a tad of a drag. However, I enjoyed Victoria Mackenzie’s For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain about both Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe, one an anchoress and the other a woman with a wild faith.  There’s a hunger as Aleys seeks after God. It’s a…