A little song for water.

Written by Will Parsons.

Water Flows - by Will Parsons (WillWalking)

A traditional shore song of the British Isles. A sailor and his love saying goodbye. 

Sung by Will and Ed, in a cave in Wookey.

Pleasant and Delightful (live in secret Wookey caves) - Will & Ed

A song written in 1853 about the loss of 37 hop-pickers, who drowned while crossing Hartlake bridge in West Kent, UK.

The song was written to honour their memory, and to express protest against the injustice of their death - to remember that while the rich thrived, the poor died, and responsibility for this tragic loss of life was never met by those who were supposed to maintain the bridges over the River Medway.

The Hartlake Bridge Tragedy (sung at their grave) - Will

A song written by a man called Mick who I met along the Medway.

The Song of Pudge the Barge by Mick of Maidstone

A wedding song I wrote for a couple getting married in Avebury. Sung with Ed.

Would you like a song written for your wedding? Happy to provide...

New Traditional Wedding Song (one verse)- Will & Ed

Sung in the cellar where Athelstan 'might' be buried, beneath Malmesbury Abbey.

The Colour Of Amber - Ed and Will - in Malmesbury Abbey Cellar

Sung at Kenardington St Mary's, near to one of the Kentish sources of this song.

The Moon Shines Bright - traditional English song (at Kenardington church)

Sung in the woods in winter. A song of unsuccessful piracy.

High Barbary - Ed and Will

A May love song - sung beside a nightingale who was also singing to attract his May love. We took turns. He was a far better singer than me, but he kindly tolerated my part.

Searching For Lambs - with a Nightingale on May Day Morn

Singing the May classic with a nightingale, on May Day morn...

Hal An Tow with a Nightingale - May Day morn

The sea, recorded on the Isle of Portland in Dorset after midnight, on full moon, Sept 2023.

Full Moon waves at Portland

Davy Goodchild at the Harrow Inn in Steep, singing a classic he learned as a nipper from local auctioneer George Money. 

www.awalkaroundbritain.com

I Don't Work For A Living - Davy Goodchild (the Harrow Inn, Steep)

A 7ft robber with a bagful of gold gets greedy, and takes on a sailor lad on his way home. In his eagerness to steal the sailor's wages, he forgets how tough a warlike British seaman can be, and so loses everything. 
The moral? Don't rob sailors when you're already loaded...

Sung by William Parsons and Ed Stevens.

The Jolly Bold Robber (live in Malmesbury)

A 3 day pilgrimage from the Magna Carta exhibition at the British Museum, to St George's Windsor via Runnymede and the Ankerwycke Yew, where Magna Carta was sealed 800 years ago. 

Will and Guy make pilgrimage in honour of the dream of British Liberty. Their quest is to deliver a song older than Magna Carta to a Yew tree older than both combined ...

by William Parsons 
and Guy Hayward.

A Magna Carta Pilgrimage - a Podcast

In Glasto, end of walk. Sung by William Parsons and Ed Stevens.

Ryb an Avon (live in Somerset)

A song for holy wells written by Will Parsons. Sung here with Elsa Field, including the unison and harmony part.

Water Flows - Will Parsons and Elsa Field

The first song collected by Cecil Sharp, the Seeds of Love began the English folksong revival of the 20th Century. Sung here in unison for ease of learning!

The Seeds of Love (unison) - Will Parsons and Elsa Field

The first traditional song collected by Cecil Sharp - sung a mile from the village where it was found, Hambridge Somerset, by Elsa Field and William Parsons - in harmony arrangement. 

The Seeds of Love (in harmony) - Will Parsons and Elsa Field

Saint Godric was a merchant turned hermit, and Saxon saint born in Norman England. He was phenomenally strong, a physical hero as well as ascetic, and his renown spread throughout the kingdom. Notables such as St Thomas of Canterbury sought Godric's advice on practical matters of the spirit. 

As well as being wise in many ways, Godric wrote songs. This one he channelled through a dream, when the Virgin Mary taught it to him promising than whenever he faced trouble or temptation he was to sing it, and she would send angels to assist him.   

This is also the oldest written and notated English song in English. Allegedly. The language is Old English, and the words mean:

Sainted Virgin Mary,
Mother of Jesus Christ the Nazarene,
Recieve, shield, help your Godric 
Recieved, bring holy with you into God's land.

Sainted Mary, Christ's bower, 
Maidenhead's example, motherhood's flower,
Annul my sins, reign in my mind, bring me to heaven, 
Through you into God.  

Sung by William Parsons and Guy Hayward.

Saint Godric's Sante Maria - the oldest written Mary song (live in Ashburnham gardens)

Thomas Tallis canon: God Grant We Grace.

Sung live in St Allege Church, where Thomas Tallis is buried. 

Song 3 as part of a Song Pilgrimage - a journey on foot to holy places in Greenwich, to connect with the places and honour them through fitting song. 

As part of Trinity Laban CoLab 2016.

God Grant We Grace - Thomas Tallis (Live at St Alfege Church, Greenwich)

The Death of Nelson - a traditional British folk song, believed to have been written very close to the time of Nelson's death.  

Performed live by a statue of Nelson outside the Trafalgar Tavern, which was a public house serving watermen at the time of the Battle of Trafalgar. The current building was built not long after the battle of Trafalgar, and represents the splendour of post-Trafalgar Britain.

The Death of Nelson - Anon. (Live outside Trafalgar Tavern, Greenwich)

The oldest song written in Britain with words and music both on the same page. From St Godric of 1150-ish. He heard it in a dream, woke and remembered it, and so the lineage began. And so today it continues.

We sang this in a tiny church just outside Oxford where we slept for a couple of nights while taking part in a conference in New College. Outside the church is the ancient Holy Well, from which we filtered and drank, and sang to, and which legend says first sprang when St Frideswide (pronounced Frithuswither) had her head cut off by a frustrated suitor. Typical Anglo-Saxon princess-saint stuff. It was really good to carry this water back to the shrine in Oxford's Christchurch cathedral, where her shrine is. Frideswide is, after all, the patron saint of Oxford and the entire county. 

We struggled in this little church to decide if this was too masculine a song - being dedicated to St Nicholas, when the church is to Margaret of Antioch and Frideswide - but we figured Nicholas' symbol is three golden balls, to symbolise the gifts he threw anonymously through the window of three maidens without a dowry and therefore unable to marry, and who would have been forced to become prostitutes go survive without husbands. So Nicholas was an active proto-feminist, we figure. 

Sung by William Parsons and Guy Hayward

Saint Nicholas (live in Binsey Church)

Recorded for the Rhythms of Labour 'Worksongs' CD Project, and until now, forgotten. Recently played on Roderick Williams Radio 4 show.

Sung & Arranged by Ed, Will & Ginger.

A Collier For My Sweetheart (English Traditional Song)

From the 'Rhythms of Labour' Work Songs Project 2010.
Collected by Sabine Baring Gould.

Cornish Ox Drovers Song - Traditional Song (Will Ed and Ginger)

In Spring 2017 I had a plan - to walk to the ancient Druidic mountain of Holyhead, in search of a melody to fit with Britain's oldest lullaby.

Accompanied by Alice Albinia (the writer) and Guy Hayward, we delved the old holy places and sought the song on the winds and in the waters of this ancient Welsh holy isle. 

The lyrics were found in the margins of a 7th Century Welsh battle poem.

We hope this may prove a lullaby to balm the tensions of ancient conflict, which emerges even today - Europe vs Britain...?

The song is in Old Welsh. Please do not expect to understand much. It tells of a brutal hunt for survival, and how the promise of its rewards are sung to balm a hungry child. (as in 'bye baby bunting, daddy's gone a hunting').

Pais Dinogad - Britain's Oldest Lullaby

This is the only song on album 'Songs' that I wrote. It is a funny number, but they happen.

Sung by William Parsons and Ed Stevens and Ginger Stevens. Instruments by Ed and Ginj.

Topsoil - Ed, Will & Ginger

A WW1 marching song that the top brass tried to suppress - but the troops kept on singing.

The Old Barbed Wire - a WW1 marching song

A 2 day journey to re-wild a Sussex folk song at its human and natural sources. With Will Parsons and Sam Lee.

BBC Radio 4: Turtle Dove Pilgrimage (Sam Lee & Will Parsons)

Sung into a 300 ft hand-dug well in a pub in Hampshire, this is an Easter carol kept alive by the Traveller song tradition. Accompanied by Ayla.

Sung by William Parsons and Ed Stevens.

The Leaves of Life (live over a 300ft well in Hampshire)

An album out-take. 

We like singing this song, always an energy bonus.

Sung by William Parsons and Ed Stevens and Ginger Stevens

Country Life excerpt - Ed Will and Ginger

Sung in Devizes, while walking to Cornwall, by Will and Ed. 

In the flat of a man who wouldn't tell us his name, eating a skip food feast.

Hal an Tow - a Cornish/Padstow Mayday Song - Will and Ed

The sea shanty that everyone in Britain knows. Sung by the fire, after a few light whiskeys, by me and Ed.

The Drunken Sailor (fireside with Ed)

Walked to London for a show, at a pub called the Banker, singing to ourselves. A listening whistler thrills us.

Sung by William Parsons and Ed Stevens.

Ryb an Avon (Live at the London bankers pub)

Sam in Wales sings a banger about Scottish piracy.

www.awalkaroundbritain.com
www.samleesong.co.uk

Henry Martin (live in a Welsh field) - Sam Lee

Little interview in the woods near Monmouth for BBC Radio Kent 2009

www.awalkaroundbritain.com

BBC Radio Kent Interview

All over the town. 

The last verse is the best, the last note the worst.

Sung by William Parsons and Ed Stevens.

Gower Wassail (live at Ed's house)

Leaving Kent is best along the Royal Military Canal, following the old Saxon shoreline. Little churches dot the pathway, and sit empty and ready for song. 

Sung by me and Ed.

The Good Old Way (St Rumwolds church on Romney Marsh) - Will and Ed.

Songs of Wayfaring, Wandering Minstrelsy and Pilgrimge.  

Song and journey, tune and land, in sweet hope each goes hand in hand...

See you on the path. Bring a song. It is not getting dark. 

Walk well!

Will Walking

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