In the annals of pop and folk music, there are few sagas stranger than that of Anne Briggs. An awesomely talented singer of traditional English folk music, possessing of as pure and breathtakingly beautiful a voice as one could hope to have, she was the single most important influence on a group of female British folk singers that includes Sandy Denny, Maddy Prior, June Tabor, and Linda Thompson.
Anne Briggs – Blackwaterside
One morning fair to take the air
Down by Blackwater side.
‘Twas in gazing all, all around me
‘Twas the Irish lad I spied.
All through the first part of the night
Well, we lay in sport and play,
Then this young man he arose and he gathered his clothes,
He said, “Fare thee well today.”
Well, that’s not the promise that you gave to me
When first you lay on my bed,
You could make me believe with your lying tongue
That the sun rose in the west.
Then go home, go home, to your father’s garden,
You go home and weep your fill.
And you think of your own misfortune
That you brought with your wanton will.
For there’s not a girl in this whole wide world
As easily led as I,
Sure it’s fishes they’ll fly and the seas run dry,
‘Tis then you’ll marry I.
