Non-Renaissance Songs That Would Make Great Faire Songs

[Poldugarian Warrior]

I was thinking maybe some songs from Deep Purple the early years, but there are too many to list. Iron Butterfly, and I'm not talking stuff, just from the Ina Gadda Da Vida albut, but from the others, which I can't remember the titles, but the material is good enough to be converted.

[uncletimcobleigh]

I've been forgetting an obvious one: Fairport Convention/Sandy Denny "Fotheringay" about Mary, Queen of Scot's imprisonment. Thinking on it, a lot of Fairport's stuff could easily be used.

How often she has gazed
From castle windows tall
And watched the daylight passing
Within her captive walls
And no one to heed her call

The evening hour is fading
Within the dwindling sun
And in a lonely moment
Those embers will be gone
And the last of all the young birds flown

Her days of precious freedom
Forfeited long before
To live such fruitless years
Behind a guarded door
But those days last no more

Tomorrow
At this hour
She will be far away
Much farther than these islands
Or the lonely Fotheringay

[Anna Iram]

O ladybird
I have heard you wish to walk me through your garden
I crave your pardon if I woke you with my thinking
Ladybird

O ladybird
I have heard you wish to walk me through your meadow
You'll spread no wings to fly in fright if I'm beside you
Ladybird

All through the winter time
When wood was warm and splintered
Time seemed longer than a goods train
Now that spring is back again I'll ask your name
Your name

O ladybird
I have heard you wish to walk across my pillow
No weeping willow was ever as beautiful, sad as you are
Ladybird

And as you're walking past
I'm laying on the grass and making chains of thought
To snare you with my wit
But bit by bit you fade to gone
Gone

All through the iron season
Love was hanged and treason became
Something of a parlour game
Now sun is back in power I'll ask your name
Your name

O ladybird
I have heard you have to run to tend your children
No flood can drown nor fire blacken purest longing
For ladybird
Ladybird


LadyBird
XTC

[Capt Gabriela Fullpepper]

I always thought Nights in White Satin would be a nice soneg. Funny how as a kid I thought it was Knights i n White Satin :

Nights in white satin, never reaching the end,
Letters I've written, never meaning to send.
Beauty I'd always missed with these eyes before.
Just what the truth is, I can't say anymore.

'Cos I love you, yes I love you, oh how I love you.

Gazing at people, some hand in hand,
Just what I'm going through they can't understand.
Some try to tell me, thoughts they cannot defend,
Just what you want to be, you will be in the end.

And I love you, yes I love you,
Oh how I love you, oh how I love you.

Nights in white satin, never reaching the end,
Letters I've written, never meaning to send.
Beauty I've always missed, with these eyes before.
Just what the truth is, I can't say anymore.

'Cos I love you, yes I love you,
Oh how I love you, oh how I love you.
'Cos I love you, yes I love you,
Oh how I love you, oh how I love you.

Breath deep
The gathering gloom
Watch lights fade
From every room
Bedsitter people
Look back and lament
Another day's useless
Energy spent

Impassioned lovers
Wrestle as one
Lonely man cries for love
And has none
New mother picks up
And suckles her son
Senior citizens
Wish they were young

Cold hearted orb
That rules the night
Removes the colours
From our sight
Red is gray and
Yellow white
But we decide
Which is right
And
Which is an Illusion

[Capt Gabriela Fullpepper]

The Trees by Rush. Many older Rush songs would fit in.

There is unrest in the forest,
There is trouble with the trees,
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas.

The trouble with the maples,
(And they're quite convinced they're right)
They say the oaks are just too lofty
And they grab up all the light.
But the oaks can't help their feelings
If they like the way they're made.
And they wonder why the maples
Can't be happy in their shade.

There is trouble in the forest,
And the creatures all have fled,
As the maples scream "Oppression!"
And the oaks just shake their heads

So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights.
"The oaks are just too greedy;
We will make them give us light."
Now there's no more oak oppression,
For they passed a noble law,
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe, and saw.

[Capt Gabriela Fullpepper]

Was surprised, I didn't see this one

Scarborough Fair

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine

Tell her to make me a cambric shirt
   (On the side of a hill in the deep forest green)
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
   (Tracing a sparrow on snow-crested ground)
Without no seams nor needlework
   (Blankets and bedclothes the child of the mountain)
Then she'll be a true love of mine
   (Sleeps unaware of the clarion call)

Tell her to find me an acre of land
   (On the side of a hill, a sprinkling of leaves)
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
   (Washes the ground with so many tears)
Between the salt water and the sea strand
   (A soldier cleans and polishes a gun)
Then she'll be a true love of mine

Tell her to reap it in a sickle of leather
   (War bellows, blazing in scarlet battalions)
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
   (Generals order their soldiers to kill)
And to gather it all in a bunch of heather
   (And to fight for a cause they've long ago forgotten)
Then she'll be a true love of mine

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine

[metalcelt]

A band called Running Wild does a ton of Pirate songs and a lot of them would sound great at Faire

their best

Under Jolly Roger

[Poldugarian Warrior]

What if the musicians took the context/lyrics of southern rock tunes changed them up a bit, and played those on acoustic/medieval renaissance instruments, such as The Marshall Tucker Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Black Oak Arkansas, George Thorogood,. Because most songs talk about loves won and lost, and drinking and partying or gettin in fights and what not. So perfect.

[Welsh Wench]

Actually, Porter and Stout do Freebird.

Stout, who is on this board, once asked if there was anything we wanted to hear. So I posted the standard line, 'FREEBIRD'!

When I saw them in Sarasota, we talked to them and then they played Freebird for me.

Fast forward to TNRF later in the year. Porter told me to come back for the last set.
And they did a Renaissance version of it.
They have now incorporated it into the repertoire.

Last year in TN, I went up to the woman who was with them and said, "Hi. Sometimes Porter and Stout will do Freebird for me....'

She broke out in a big smile and said, 'So....YOU are Freebird!'

And there you have it! 

[Athena]

If I leave here tomorrow, whilst thou still remember me? 

[Welsh Wench]

*sigh*

It was great, wasn't it? 

[Athena]

Yep. Now we need a lighter...or a candle, since we're in the Renaissance. 

[Poldugarian Warrior]

That's cool. I figured someone would do that at some point. Too bad I can't get to those fest, but maybe someday.

[Morgan Dreadlocke]

OT but similar-
Anyone near Tucson want to garb up and hit some of the open mics with great non renaissance faire songs?

[Lady_Lily]

If you get a chance, youtube this one. It's beautiful

The Islander by Nightwish
An old man by a seashore
At the end of day
Gazes the horizon
With seawinds in his face
Tempest-tossed island
Seasons all the same
Anchorage unpainted
And a ship without a name

Sea without a shore for the banished one unheard
He lightens the beacon, light at the end of world
Showing the way lighting hope in their hearts
The ones on their travels homeward from afar

This is for long-forgotten
Light at the end of the world
Horizon crying
The tears he left behind long ago

The albatross is flying
Making him daydream
The time before he became
One of the world`s unseen
Princess in the tower
Children in the fields
Life gave him it all:
An island of the universe

Now his love`s a memory
A ghost in the fog
He sets the sails one last time
Saying farewell to the world
Anchor to the water
Seabed far below
Grass still in his feet
And a smile beneath his brow

This is for long-forgotten
Light at the end of the world
Horizon crying
The tears he left behind long ago

So long ago
So long ago

This is for long-forgotten
Light at the end of the world
Horizon crying
The tears he left behind so long ago

So long ago