{"id":6932,"date":"1999-10-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1999-10-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-05-09T16:32:04","modified_gmt":"2009-05-09T20:32:04","slug":"fair-nottamun-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden-wp\/?p=6932","title":{"rendered":"Fair Nottamun Town"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden\/php\/images\/Nottingham.jpg\" height=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<div class=\"audio\">\n<div class=\"alignright caption\"><a href=\"?page_id=6069\">How do I download this Mp3?<\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"audio_link\">Mp3: <a href=\"http:\/\/ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden\/php\/music\/Nott.mp3\">Fair Nottamun Town<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"about\">This is one of those enigmatic songs with a lovely haunting melody. I first heard &#039;Fair Nottamun Town&#039; performed in 1957,  by Jean Ritchie on an Elektra Records Folk Sampler. The name of the town was originally Nottingham, and the lyrics got &#039;distilled&#039; in the Appalachian Mountains. This is a great example of the folk process.<\/p>\n<p>The lyrics are quite surreal, and  may have originally been inspired by a battle of The English Civil Wars of 1642-51.  The tension between Charles and Parliament was still great, since none of the issues raised by the Short<br \/>\nParliament had been resolved. This tension was brought to a head on January 4th, 1642 when Charles attempted to arrest five members of parliament. This attempt failed, since they were spirited away before the king&#039;s troops arrived. Charles left London and both he and parliament began to stockpile military resources and recruit troops.<\/p>\n<p>Charles officially began the war by raising his standard at Nottingham in August, 1642. This song may have been the bizarre observations of one of King Charles&#039; mounted soldiers.<\/p>\n<p>Jean Ritchie writes:<\/p>\n<p>Dear Roger McGuinn,<\/p>\n<p>This is Jean Ritchie here;  I loved listening to your music on the web, and<br \/>\nappreciate your interest in folk music.  Your singing of &#039;Fair Nottamun Town&#039;<br \/>\nwas especially fine and I felt I must write to give you my history with the<br \/>\nsong.  The version you perform is the Ritchie Family (Kentucky) version.  I<br \/>\nhave never heard JJ Niles sing it, nor has anyone else I know-  I knew him<br \/>\nquite well;  he visited and got songs from the family in his early days, and<br \/>\nit was there he saw his first dulcimer, but to my knowledge he never<br \/>\nperformed, &#039;Nottamun Town.&#039;  The time you heard him must have been the only<br \/>\none, and he certainly learned it from the Ritchies.<\/p>\n<p>The song has been in our family back many generations, and was collected at<br \/>\nthe Hindman Settlement School in Knott County, KY by Cecil Sharp around 1917<br \/>\nfrom the singing of my sister Una who was a student there (Una was 4th in our<br \/>\nfamily of 14;  I&#039;m &#039;the baby one,&#039; and am 77 now).  Our family ancestors came<br \/>\nover from England, Scotland, Ireland, the earliest ones we know of arrived in<br \/>\n1768.  Our family still cherishes and sings the songs they brought with them.<\/p>\n<p>If you will check in Sharp&#039;s book of Appalachian songs he collected, you will<br \/>\nfind the Ritchie version- the one you sing- as notated from the singing of<br \/>\nUna and Sabrina Ritchie (Sabrina was our cousin).   I added the &#039;mule roany<br \/>\nmare&#039; phrase, instead of  &#039;that was called a grey mare.&#039;  Also, it always<br \/>\nbothered me that one-half of one of the verses was missing- just filled in<br \/>\nwith dots&#8230;.  then the last two lines are the ones beginning,  &#039;I bought me<br \/>\na quart&#8230;&#039;  For years, I sang, &#039;la,la,la,&#039; for those missing lines, but<br \/>\nfinally just put in two of my own, &#039;They laughed and they smiled, not a soul<br \/>\ndid look gay; they talked all the while, not a word did they say&#8230;&#039;<\/p>\n<p>In the sixties, when the Kingston Trio and others began performing and<br \/>\ncopywriting (as writers) our family songs, I applied for several copyrights<br \/>\nfor the family.  A copyright for &#039;Fair Nottamun Town&#039; was approved in 1964,<br \/>\nbased on the changes I had made in the lyrics.  I have contributed much of<br \/>\nthe royalties (from Bob Dylan and others) to Kentucky charities over the<br \/>\nyears.<\/p>\n<p>Your suggestion that the song may have been inspired by the English Civil<br \/>\nWars of  1642-51 is most interesting.  I had heard another suggestion of it&#039;s<br \/>\npossible origins, years ago,  saying that it may have been composed during<br \/>\nthe Great Plague!   When I did my Fulbright year, searching for sources of<br \/>\nour family songs,in 1952, I spent time researching in Nottingham, and could<br \/>\nfind not a mention of it in the libraries, nor could any scholar tell me<br \/>\nanything.  Douglas Kennedy said that it was most likely the  &#039;magic song&#039;<br \/>\nused in an early Nottingham mummrs&#039; play.  This could not be confirmed,<br \/>\nbecause I couldn&#039;t find in any historical account any news of mummers&#039; plays<br \/>\nin that city.  Douglas said that even though it was not now remembered, that<br \/>\nof course there HAD been a mummers&#039; play, as every city had one&#8230;   This<br \/>\nseemed to me to be the most likely explanation,  as the words do go along<br \/>\nwith the &#039;topsy-turvy&#039; nature of the plays (clothing exchanged &amp; turned<br \/>\ninside out to hide identities, etc).  One old mummer in Marshfield, when I<br \/>\nasked him what the song might mean,<br \/>\nsaid, &#039;&#8230;why, lass, if the meaning&#039;s found out- the magic is lost!&#039;<\/p>\n<p>Another interesting thing is that there is not another similar variant of<br \/>\n&#039;Nottamun Town&#039; in this country, or in England.  An English group recorded it<br \/>\nyears ago, but they had learned it from me, at Newport I think.  Can&#039;t<br \/>\nremember the group&#039;s name, but it had Martin Carthy in it, and maybe Peter<br \/>\nBellamy.  Many folk scholars have noticed and commended our family on our<br \/>\nunique preservation of several old and rare ballads-  one is our, &#039;Fair Annie<br \/>\nof the Lochroyan,&#039;  a mixing-up of the words, &#039;The Lass of Roch Royal.&#039;<\/p>\n<p>All the best,<\/p>\n<p>Jean Ritchie<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"lyrics-header\">Lyrics:<\/div>\n<div class=\"lyrics\">\n[Em]In Fair Nottamun Town, not a soul would look [G] up<\/p>\n<p>Not a soul would look [Em] up, not a [D] soul would look [Em]down<\/p>\n<p>Not a soul would look [Em] up, not a [D] soul would look [Em] down<\/p>\n<p>To [Am] show me the [Em] way to fair [D] Nottamun [Em]town<\/p>\n<p>I rode a grey horse, a mule roany mare<br \/>\nGrey mane and grey tail, a green stripe down her back<br \/>\nGrey mane and grey tail, a green stripe down her back<br \/>\nThere wa&#039;nt a hair on her be-what was coal black<\/p>\n<p>She stood so still, she threw me to the dirt<br \/>\nShe tore my hide and she bruised my shirt<br \/>\nFrom saddle to stirrup I mounted again<br \/>\nAnd on my ten toes I rode over the plain<\/p>\n<p>Met the King and the Queen and a company more<br \/>\nA-riding behind and a-marching before<br \/>\nCame a stark naked drummer a-beating a drum<br \/>\nWith his heels in his bosom come a marching along<\/p>\n<p>They laughed and they smiled, not a soul did look gay<br \/>\nThey talked for a while, not a word did they say<br \/>\nI bought me a quart to drive gladness away<br \/>\nAnd to stifle the dust, for it rained the whole day<\/p>\n<p>Sat down on a hard, hot cold frozen stone<br \/>\nTen thousand stood round me and yet I&#039;s alone<br \/>\nTook my hat in my hand for to keep my head warm<br \/>\nTen thousand got drownded that never was born<\/p>\n<p>Repeat first verse.<\/p>\n<p>(copyright notice here) Jean  Ritchie  1964, 1971  Geordie Music Publishing Co.  ASCAP\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How do I download this Mp3? Mp3: Fair Nottamun Town This is one of those enigmatic songs with a lovely haunting melody. I first heard &#039;Fair Nottamun Town&#039; performed in 1957, by Jean Ritchie on an Elektra Records Folk Sampler. The name of the town was originally Nottingham, and the lyrics got &#039;distilled&#039; in the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden-wp\/?p=6932\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Fair Nottamun Town&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humorgameschildren","category-mountainsouthernus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden-wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden-wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden-wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden-wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden-wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6932"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden-wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8452,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden-wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6932\/revisions\/8452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden-wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden-wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden-wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}