MacJams.com - Song: The Bitter Withy w/ DWL by Rebsie

The Bitter Withy w/ DWL
by Rebsie

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Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial

Guest views: 489
Member views: 1
Song comments: 24
Tokens: 0
Plays: 79
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Downloads: 21
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Submitted on: Nov 08, 2008 - 01:27:41 PM
Last Updated: Nov 09 2008 - 09:31:23 AM

Keywords English (25), withy (1), spanking (1), unusual carol (1)

Description Well I did promise a while back that I would do an old English spanking carol. So here it is.

It's a fairly unpleasant story featuring Jesus that "explains" why the willow (withy) tree dies from the inside out. We have to imagine that whoever wrote it had some other agenda. It's been banned in British schools btw. :)

When A. L. Lloyd recorded this song in the 1950s he wrote some interesting sleeve notes about it, which you can read here: http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~zierke/lloyd/songs/thebitterwithy.html
(Apologies, it doesn't seem possible to make clickable links to external sites in song descriptions.)

The song is traditional but its setting here certainly isn't. For that I have to thank Dick who did ALL the instrumentation, arrangement and mixing. He has a very special talent and as always I feel blessed to be on the receiving end of it.

THANK YOU Dick.

Lyrics And here are the lyrics - look away now if you're easily offended and remember we don't even have a date for when this was written.

As it fell out on a bright holiday
Small hail from the sky did fall,
Our Saviour asked his mother dear
If he might play at ball.

“At ball, at ball my own dear son
It's time that you were gone
And don't let me hear of any misdoing
At night when you come home."

So it's up the hill and down the hill
To play with the ball ran he,
And there he asked three rich young lords,
“Come play at ball with me”

Oh, we are lords and ladies sons
Born in a bower and hall
And you are nothing but a poor maid's child
Born in an ox's stall.

“If you're all lords and ladies sons
Born in your bower and hall
I'll make you believe in your latter end,
For I'm an angel above you all”

So he made him a bridge of the beams of the sun
And over the water crossed he,
These rich young lords followed after him
Drowned they were all three.

So it's up the hill and down the hill
These rich lords' mothers run,
“Oh Mary mild, fetch home your child,
For ours he's drowned each one."

So Mary mild fetched home her child,
And laid him across her knee,
With a handful of green withy twigs
She gave him slashes three.

Oh withy, oh withy, oh bitter withy,
You've caused me to smart,
And the withy shall be the very first tree
That shall perish at the heart.

Hardware Rebsie: Rode mic
Dick: Fender Strat through a Boss GT8, Ibanez bass through a Liquid Bass patch in GB, Apple drum loops and some synth stuff

Software: GB3 and 4

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	Vic Holman said 62 days ago
	spanking cool great job Rebsie & Dick! for a holiday song it sure has a cool african beat bordering on reggae. brilliant. boy, this sure is cool.

	Rebsie said 61 days ago
	Thanks Vic. Yes, not many people would think of using African rhythms on an old English folk tune ... that's what Dick is so good at. He did something very clever on this, assigning choral voices to drum parts. It's subtle, but very effective.

saymme said 62 days ago

The Bitter Withy : )
LOVE IT !(!!)
Great-great song WOW - exellent voice Rebsie it's so Beautiful.. !! Whats this!?? "It's been banned in British schools btw.." many things are unbelievable I don't get it !! This is a real treat an interesting mix of DWLs Music & Your vox - alot of flavour in it : ) Is it all DWLs Music or You too..? All these different sounds make it so rich - drums&churchbells&guitar add a special touch indeed (!)& it works so well... Amazing I find it !!! APB & Alannah put new songs today & they're imo topsongs too -like this- It's just Perfect : )
Courtseys too You Both - the lyrics here & also in other songs of Yours Rebsie always make me curious- wanting to know more! Great pic too it made me smile : )!!(remembering getting spankedfor not shutting up) LOL - thats the way it was -now physical abuse is not aloud in sweden, sometimes it makes me/us wonder..as mental abuse can attimes be alot worse. I'm against all kinds of abuse its just that attimes the discussion about it is too much ! I'm getting a bit off topic here - THX Very much enjoyed listened to it alot tonite ! DL : )

	LunaTrick said 62 days ago
	fantastic! The drums are perfectly situated - and the vocals (as usual) are divine! Really really like this one a lot!!!

	Peter Bauckham said 62 days ago
	High quality is always guaranteed when you two work together! Very interesting arrangement and song. Great stuff! Peter

	Feter said 62 days ago
	The Bitter Withy OMG !!! I never heard this song before as you mentioned this as a trad! one ...sure for me its Rebsie/Dick 's song ..perfect perfect job ..the percussions pattern .. the powerful passionate singing ..the work Dick did here just so HUGE ...kudos to both of you ...thnx alot for sharin such gem !!!!

	Jim Bouchard said 62 days ago
	Sick! Sick, it's so good! Love it! The music is perfect; Dick did such a good job, I am speechless.

	Relic67 said 62 days ago
	cool wonderful singing. great twisted old ballad. for a similar theme, check out: http://www.macjams.com/song/31328

	Rocha Malhada said 61 days ago
	e's a bad little good lad... Well, I doubt it could have been put to better song - great work Dick, and Rebsie, your vocals are as always superb. I had never seen this prose before. . - Harold

	magnatone said 61 days ago
	Great Job!! this is GREAT! Your vocals are just superb - and this instrumentation is so WAY cool! When the guitar comes in there it's so surprising in the best possible way. Excellent work all!

	lavalamp said 61 days ago
	Rebsie! Your vocals are spectacular on this. I'm really impressed. I would buy something like this. It reminded me of a Dido thing. Excellent production. too. Amazing guitar, Dick. I tip my hat. OUTSTANDING. Dave

	caroline said 61 days ago
	well, well, well... ... you always manage to turn up unusual material but this one is fascinating and the unexpected presentation is superb - thank you both xox

	damiengh said 61 days ago
	nice mixture The Brewmiesters of MacJams bringing us wonderment again. A Wickedly Wonderful Grog -blended from a specially selected song, the soothing Rebsian vocals, spiced with Dicke's Doings. You two always make for wonderful brew.

Epileptic Gibbon said 61 days ago

Spanks very much!
It's interesting that the vision most people have of Jesus today is a relatively recent construction and a key part of the early Christian Church's activities involved them trying to distinguish between different stories of his life. There were tons of gospels and even more stories and myths floating around but the early Christian church wanted to create a consistent theological and philosophical image and so only selected some stories for the New Testament. Some stories were rejected on grounds of them coming from questionable sources and others because they were inconsistent with Church teachings. I wasn't familiar with this one until you brought it to my attention but it's by no means the only story of this type. Anyway, I love the Jah Wobble/Dead Can Dance-style backing and I was blown away by every aspect of this on the first hearing. Well done to you both!

	cchaplin said 61 days ago
	It's perverse, but I would have probably paid a lot more attention, and been a lot more interested in what they were teaching at Sunday school, had they made us sing this kind of song. What wonderfully dark, and intriguing lyrics ! The music, and rendition fits them to a T. The production is faultless. It's inspiriting !

	DWL said 61 days ago
	A big thanks to you all for your very kind comments. And of course thanks to Rebsie for letting me loose on this. It was great fun to do and good to get back into the collab thing. More to come ;) Cheers Dick

	kassia said 61 days ago
	spanks This is FANTASTIC and wow, would I love to take this home at Christmas and play it for all my German Catholic relatives. So...I LOVE the percussion on this and the low bass/synth sounds. They totally carry this along and then that guitar comes in. WOW. Brilliant. Rebsie, gorgeous vocals. This is just so incredibly creative. Thank you!

	jiguma said 61 days ago
	Top post! Rodes rule! What clear sounds - vocals and instrumentation. You make a great team. Drums and wah add that special touch, but I imagine this would be fantastic without and instruments at all. Amazing production and performances! Neil

	HenriROGERsoloandbands said 60 days ago
	Great Bravo ! Both of you .

	guitapick said 60 days ago
	Nice blend... ...of old and new...classic folk song and Dick rippin' it up over the African drumbeat... Love the bells...nice surprise... Cool...

	lengold said 59 days ago
	A truly inspired piece of music and impeccable vocals. Great listen. Cheers Len

	moorlandt said 56 days ago
	I have you on my album. And I'm so very proud of it:-) Most splendid fusion of musical styles, and great singing and harmonies as per usual. Oh withy, oh withy, oh bitter withy,I did enjoy this song until the very end. -Walt

	Bob Rodgers said 51 days ago
	Yes I love this, a great collab Dick and Rebsie! Always good to hear you two work together, superb vocals, a great arrangement and a wonderful piece of music. The guitar sounds great when it comes in, very much enjoyed! Excellent work! Bob

	bud said 9 days ago
	Excellent collab as usual your voice is in top form ad Dick's backing is perfectly eccentric and fitting. Really a wonderful track. Thanks for posting. Hope you're enjoying the holidays.

MacFerret said 9 days ago

I was so struck by this
that I rushed off to research the original material. It turns out that this was not in its time taken as being irreligious, but rather a morality tale that happened to feature the infant Jesus. The moral was about egalitarian values, and for some reason the image of baby Jesus having his bottom thoroughly spanked did not seem remarkable at the time: maybe it's a recent conceit that Jesus was incapable of being naughty (unlike Brian of Python fame, who was of course not the Messiah and "a very naughty boy").
In time, though, the Bitter Withy fell out of favour with the establishment and it became widely banned in Britain.
This rendition I find exceptional: Rebsie delivers a perfect English folk vocal, while Dick conjurs the song into a new dimension with African percussion. Really clever stuff.
Sorry, I didn't mean to write an entire sleeve note (especially as no-one's paying me), but this is an outstanding collaboration and great lateral musical thinking. I'll stop now.
MacFerret
PS Where did the image come from? I harp on about getting the right image to go with a song, but this one is perfect and extraordinarily precise.

	Rebsie said 61 days ago
	Thanks Daniel, very pleased you like it. It was one of those that just came together very smoothly in a few days. I wish all songs were like that.

	Rebsie said 61 days ago
	Thanks Peter! We try to take an unusual angle on everything we do!

	Rebsie said 61 days ago
	Thanks Feter. This is one of the less well known traditional songs. Most folk songs have many different versions collected from different parts of the world, but this one is unusual in that it appears to be unique to England.

	Rebsie said 61 days ago
	Thank you Jim, glad it appeals! I'm very proud of Dick, he's done inspired work on this.

	Rebsie said 61 days ago
	Twisted old ballads r us. :) Thanks for the link, I will go and have a lookie ...

	Rebsie said 61 days ago
	Thank you Harold, your support is always appreciated. 'Tis an unusual narrative for sure, with the idea that even those with divine power have to learn the hard way how to use it responsibly. Thanks for dropping by!

	Rebsie said 61 days ago
	Thanks very much Karen, we appreciate that. Funny thing is, the vocal is just a rough guide vocal which I threw together very quickly to give Dick something to work with. But when I heard what he'd done with it we decided to leave it in!

	Rebsie said 61 days ago
	blush Thanks so much Dave. We were initially only doing this one for fun but now that it's finished we're thinking of including it on our album. You never know how a song is going to turn out until you do it!

	lavalamp said 61 days ago
	Great job Album worthy?..............YES! Dave

	Rebsie said 59 days ago
	Thank you Caroline. We're always looking for ways to surprise you. ;)

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	Rebsie said 59 days ago
	Actually "Bitter Withy" would be a good name for a homebrew beer. It would go well with my "Old Guano" stout and "Chateau D'Isaster" wine.

	Rebsie said 59 days ago
	Indeed I can remember being so bored in Sunday school I just wanted to bang my head against the desk. A song like this would have livened up the proceedings no end. Thanks very much for stopping by Chris, it's appreciated.