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Good Man's Wife

from battleplan by Bella Hardy

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    Winner: Best Singer BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2014 Bella Hardy's new studio album battleplan, the brooding follow-up to the award winning Songs Lost & Stolen. On battleplan, traditional ballads are re-imagined from a female perspective, and personal experiences are reflected against fairy tales and folklore. Allowing the old and the new to mingle more than on previous albums, Bella has chosen to record some of her favourite traditional songs; songs which would be familiar to many had they not undergone a fair amount of repurposing, amalgamating and, in some cases, entire tune transplants – as is essential to the folk process. In Hardy's hands, songs some hundreds of years old could've been written yesterday, while those from her own pen have the echoes of history behind them. Of her own songs, Bella says: "I've always snuck bits of my own life into songs - that's just the way I write. But in the past I've altered it enough so it's no longer about me. I don't feel the need to turn songwriting into my therapy, although I enjoy it in others. But on this album I've been more honest, which I don't regret." Produced by Mattie Foulds (responsible for recordings by Karine Polwart, Alasdair Roberts, Lau and many more), Bella is backed on battleplan by her band The Midnight Watch, featuring the top drawer talents of Mattie himself on drums, Anna Massie on guitar & banjo, Angus Lyon on keys & accordion, and James Lindsay on bass.

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about

Raggle Taggle Gypsies, Seven Yellow Gipsies, The Gypsy Laddie, Johnny Faa, (Roud 1, Child 200)... This is my take on a well known, and well loved ballad story.

lyrics

I've been loving you
Like a soldier in the peacetime waiting for the war
With my heart on the horizon and one eye on the door

I'd swallowed up my pride
And the tears that made my throat raw, conceded my defeat
When that sound came to my window so neat and so complete
Gypsy voices, singing
Dum...

Bought by a man with gold and silver and shoes, and a promise Thought I'd be a good man's wife and life would be complete
But the nights turned cold and the moon changed her face and my temper
And you looked right through me, like you never knew me

I've been loving you
Like the frosted trees of winter, waiting for the spring
But my heart was sweetly melted when first I heard him sing
Oh my dark eyed gypsy
Dum...

I kicked off my heels and I dressed in leather
And I straight ran down the stairs to my true love
He said “Will you go with me my darling one, my dearie?
And I swear Lord Cassilis will ne'er come near thee”

What care I for feather beds?
'll be sleeping in the fields for such a love as this
Let Lord Cassilis keep his money, I'll keep my gypsy's kiss
And his soft voice singing
Dum...

credits

from battleplan, released April 22, 2013
Written by Bella Hardy

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Bella Hardy UK

“Brit folk's finest” Mojo Magazine • “Enduringly seductive” The Telegraph • “A fine, no-nonsense interpreter of traditional music and an excellent songwriter” The Guardian • “An aura of sophisti-cation that will win over listeners who never set foot in a folk club” The Sunday Times • “…a shining star in the folk scene’s firmament” fRoots Magazine • “A triumph of folk art-pop” Songlines Magazine ... more

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