One of the pleasures of curating CMLE Play has been friends and strangers getting in touch and offering their help and ideas. Anne Garrison contacted me and kindly sent me several May songs from a book of Buckinghamshire songs called "Pass The Music On" (collected and edited by Ken Piper).
Anne is a Maypole Dance organiser/leader - not a profession I have ever come across before. This year has obviously put paid to Maypole activities, but we wish her success for 2021. Please visit her Facebook page "Maypole Anne" for some joyful photos and to wish her well.
Reading the Buckingham May song lyrics made me think about the similarities between May songs from around the country (and even France - see Voici Venir Le Joli Mai). But first, the lyrics to my traditional Bedfordshire May song:
https://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=14049913
Good morning lords and ladies - it is the first of May
We hope you'll view our garland - it is so bright and gay
Chorus:
For it is the first of May, oh it is the first of May
Remember lords and ladies - it is the first of May
We gathered them this morning all in the early dew
And now we bring their beauty and fragrance all for you
The cuckoo comes in April. It sings it's song in May
In June it changes tune. In July it flies away
And now you've seen our garland, we must be on our way
So remember lords and ladies - it is the first of May
Ken Piper describes Mayday in Wolverton: "prior to the First World Way, carol singers still used to go round early on Mayday morning. Small groups of children carried a May garland and a collecting box. The garland was often a small hoop covered with coloured tissue paper and flowers, but sometimes a decorated wooden pushchair was pushed around by the carol singers. Even the baby in it would be covered in daisy chains.
"The flowers used were cowslips. daisies and bluebells. The bunch of May was a token, normally only in bud, as the cold clay soil of the area meant that it was hardly ever in flower by the first of May."
There were variations in the tradition and in the songs from village to village, but a lot of the surviving lyrics follow a similar pattern. Many begin with:
A bunch of May I have brought to you
And at your door it stand
It is but a sprout but it's well spread about
By the work of our fair hands.
Often the words were religious, reflecting the beliefs and fears of more God-fearing times:
It is but a sprout but it's well spread about
By the works of our Lord's hands.
Now take the bible in your hand
And read the chaper through
And when the day of judgement comes
God will remember you. (Lillingstones and Akeley Mayday Song)
A man, a man his life's but a span
He flourishes like a flower
He is here today and gone tomorrow
And cut down in an hour. (Leckhampstead Mayday Song)
And even more grim:
Death when he strikes, he strikes so sharp
He strikes us to the ground
There is not a surgeon in all England
Can heal the dreadful wound. (Tingewick Mayday Song)
There are some lighter religious verses though:
The hedges and trees they are so green
As green as any leek
Our Heavenly Father, He watered them
With His Heavenly dew so sweet
The Heavenly gates are open wide
Our paths are beaten plain
And if a man be not too far gone
He may return again. (Westbury Mayday Song)
In many of the songs the Mayers ask for a few pence, some cream or some beer. I particularly like this one:
The may, the may, the very first of May
The springtime of the year
And I'll come round unto your door
To taste of your strong beer
And if you have no very strong beer
I'll be content with small
And take the goodness of your house
And thank the Lord for all. (Amersham, Chesham and Tring Mayday Song)
I'll drink to that. Cheers!
