#TradSongTues 2nd September - Fair Songs

This is a series of posts about the #TradSongTues project, run by various people at the University of Sheffield. Every week I've been recording a song for the theme, sharing it and talking about it. Come and play on Twitter!

For this, I chose Bartholomew Fair:

I learned this song through membership of the Sheffield Folk Chorale. Graham's arrangement is starts in G, and goes up a semitone at the end of each verse, ending in Bb. In concert for some reason, that ends up being a semitone-and-a-bit, meaning we usually end up somewhere closer to C. The tenor part is hard work at that point.

I also heard Lester Simpson singing a hunting song for the Radio Ballads (with Martin Simpson accompanying) which has the same tune as this. Personally, I prefer the fair version, mainly because it feels really nice on the tongue to say "Bowyers and sawyers" and if that's not a good enough reason to like a song then what is?