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Angeline Morrison & Nick Duffy - The Brown Girl

from The Brown Girl and Other Folk Songs by Angeline Morrison

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about

THE BROWN GIRL (Roud 180)
This song always strikes me as more of a revenge fantasy than an attempted homicide. The brown girl in this version feels slightly less hot and angry than she does in others - but she still knows her worth. As a teenage folkie I used to dream and wonder about whether the girl in the song might be my sort of brown (ie, someone of colour). So this song was a sort of talisman to me, leaving a small space of possibility that I might find people like me in these songs. This song contains elements of ballads such as Barbara Allen, Lord Thomas & Fair Eleanor/Ellender…

lyrics

I am as brown as brown can be,
I have eyes as black as sloe.
I am as brisk as the nightingale,
And as wild as the forest doe.

My love he was so high and proud,
And his fortune too so high,
He for another fair pretty maid
Left me, and passed me by.

He sent to me a love letter,
And he sent it from the town,
Saying no longer that he loved me,
Because I was so brown.

I sent his letter back again,
Saying his love I valued not,
Whether he would fancy me,
Or whether he would not.

When that six months was gone and past,
Was over, gone and past,
O then did my love, once so bold,
Grow sick with love at last.

When that six months was past and gone,
Was over, past and gone,
O then did my love, once so bold,
Lie on his bed and moan.

O first he sent for the doctor man,
Saying you doctor must me cure,
For the pains that now do torture me,
I cannot long endure.

O never a whit could the doctor man
His sufferings relieve,
O never a one but the brown, brown girl
Who could his life reprieve.

O then did he send from out the town,
O then did he send for me!
He sent for me, the brown, brown girl
Who once his wife should be.

O you shall hear the love she had
For this poor, lovesick man;
'Twas all on a day, on a long summer day,
She would walk, she never ran.

O I'll do as much for my true love
As any a young girl may,
I'll dance upon his grave and sing,
For a twelvemonth and a day.

credits

from The Brown Girl and Other Folk Songs, released May 1, 2022
Trad. Arr: Angeline Morrison & Nick Duffy
Vocals: Angeline Morrison
Guitar: Nick Duffy

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Angeline Morrison and The Ambassadors of Sorrow

"Bewitching and otherworldly... Morrison's voice is eerily confiding, strangely present, insistent even at its quietest" Folk Radio UK.

Believing in the beauty of sad songs, weaving folk, soul and beat sounds of the '60s into a tapestry of the human heart. Homespun sounds that reside in a nostalgic universe.

"Dark, unsettling folk that verges on the hymnal" BBC Introducing. ... more

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