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The Fat Lady Sings

from OPHELIA album by Angeline Morrison

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about

Frances Cornford's 1910 poem, 'To a Fat Lady Seen From a Train', lodged itself firmly in my head as a child. I had a big golden book of poetry for children which brimmed over with sparkly poetic treasures. But this one was like an invisible thorn in a favourite jumper... I couldn't stop thinking about it; it wouldn't stop scratching and poking me. I just couldn't get past the cruel treatment of the woman. Why would the poet be so very unkind? If the woman is seen from a train, surely the poet only got the merest, blurriest glimpse of her? What had the poor woman done to deserve such a public belittling? How could the poet be so mean about the lady, but yet handle nature so very lovingly? What upset me most was the poet's assumption that the lady is someone "whom nobody loves".

Maybe there was a hidden meaning that I just wasn't getting. Either way, it bothered me and I always wanted to give the 'Fat Lady' a voice. I'm not the only one moved to re-story the poem in such a way - GK Chesterton famously wrote 'The Fat Lady Answers' in 1927, and other writers have also stepped in on her behalf. That's just what I am doing here - singing a voice for her. In my version, the 'Fat Lady' is having quite a sensual experience alone in nature. It's private and luscious. She has beautiful clothes which she quite likes to keep immaculate, and so she drinks in all of nature's resplendent beauty with her eyes...

"To a Fat Lady Seen From a Train" by Frances Cornford (1910)

O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
Missing so much and so much?
O fat white woman whom nobody loves,
Why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
When the grass is soft as the breast of doves
And shivering-sweet to the touch?
O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
Missing so much and so much?

lyrics

Sometimes I walk through fields in gloves
Because I like to use my eyes.
All this has naught to do with loves,
And has much less to do with size.
Emeralds below, sapphires above...
Sometimes I walk through fields in gloves.

And as I walk, beneath my tread
Sings all of nature, wild and green.
Rays of bright sun surround my head,
And I could be an ancient Queen,
Tended by flocks of silver doves...
Sometimes I walk through fields in gloves.

credits

from OPHELIA album, track released March 5, 2021
Music, lyrics, arrangement: Angeline Morrison
Vocals, mountain dulcimer: Angeline Morrison
Recorded, mixed & produced by Angeline.

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Angeline Morrison and The Ambassadors of Sorrow image

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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