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The Seventh Girl

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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    Get all 15 Bella Hardy releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Love Songs, Among These Stars (Black Lives Matter) (Single), Postcards & Pocketbooks: The Best of Bella Hardy, Colorado (single), The Same Mistakes (single), Hey Sammy, Eternal Spring, With The Dawn, and 7 more. , and , .

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about

My version of Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight, or The Outlandish Knight (Child 4, Roud 21).

lyrics

An outlandish knight came from the north lands
And he scarcely could leave me alone
And he promised he take me the wide world to see
Oh fly home lost ladies, fly home
He said “Come fetch to me some of your father's bright gold
Fetch me some of your mother's own fee
And come fetch me the best nags from out of your yard
Where they stand full thirty and three
Where they stand full thirty and three”

She's mounted onto her silver-white horse
And he's mounted her father's strong grey
And they've rode till they've come to the rocky sea shore
Three dark hours before it was day
“Oh light off, light off your silver-white horse
And deliver yourself unto me
For six pretty girls have I drowned right here
And the seventh girl you now shall be
Oh the seventh girl you now shall be”

“Pull off, pull off your soft silken gown
And deliver it here unto me
For the fabric's too fine and too costly by far
To let rot in the cold briny sea
And pull off, pull off your good holland smock
And deliver it here unto me
For it seems like a waste to let such clothes be lost
While the fishes they nibble at thee
While the fishes they nibble at thee”

“Well if I must strip down full naked and bare
Cut the thorn that grows there by the brim
Or else it might catch in my curly gold hair
And tear my glittering skin”
Well he's taken his knife and he's turned to the thorn
That grows by the salt water's brim
But so speedy she's run and she's pushed him so hard
That she's thrown this false young man in
To the foam she's fast thrown him in

He's tumbled up high and he's tumbled down low
Till he's come to the rocky sea side, crying
“Catch hold of my hand, my pretty fair lady
And I will make you my bride”
“Oh lie there, lie there, you false hearted man
Make your bed in the deep briny blue
For six pretty girls have you drowned right here
But the seventh girl has drowned you
Oh the seventh girl has drowned you”

credits

from battleplan, released April 22, 2013
Words Trad/Bella Hardy
Tune by Bella Hardy

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about

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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