From the recording Far Hills
Richard Thompson’s Beeswing captures a bittersweet snapshot of young lovers who burn too bright for each other, then fade away during the “Summer of Love”. The ballad, which has been broadly adopted by the folk community, resonated with us deeply during the summer of 2021, when the first lockdowns finally began to cease. It was a period of creative swell – musicians and artists could once again gather to share, build, love, break, and weep – all the while, we heard Beeswing echoing in our ears. We aimed to create a rendition of this piece that captured the urgency and vibrancy of young love, along with the solemnity of regret, that enraptured us so deeply in the original.
Nathan Bishop: violin, trombone
Connor Brogan: vocals, octave mandolin, harmonium, string bass, timpani
Rob Helsel: 5-string banjo, spanish guitar
Lyrics
I was nineteen when I came to town
They called it the Summer of Love
They were burning babies, burning flags
There were hawks against the doves
I took a job in a steamie,
down on Cauldron street
And I fell in love with a laundry girl who was working next to me
She was a rare thing, fine as a beeswing
So fine a breath of wind might blow her away
She was a lost child, she was running wild
She said “as long as there’s no price on love, I’d stay,
And you wouldn’t want me any other way”
Brown hair zig-zagged around her face
Like a look of half-surprise,
Like a fox caught in the headlights
There was animal in her eyes
She said “Oh man, oh can’t you see,
I’m not the factory kind
If you don’t take me away from here
I’ll surely lose my mind”
She was a rare thing, fine as a beeswing
So fine that I might crush her where she lay
She was a lost child, she was running wild
She said “as long as there’s no price on love, I’d stay
And you wouldn’t want me any other way”
We busked around the market town
And picked fruit down in Kent
And we could tinker knives and pots and kettles wherever we went
And I said that we should get settled down,
Have a few acres dug,
Fire burning in the hearth and
babies on the rug
She said “oh man, you foolish man,
That surely sounds like hell
You might be lord of half the world,
You won’t own me as well”
We was camping down the gower one time,
The work was pretty good
She said we shouldn’t wait for the frost
And I thought maybe we should
We was drinking more in those days
Tempers reached a pitch
Like a fool, I let her run
With her rambling itch
Well the last I heard, she’s sleeping rough
Back on the derby beat
A white horse in her hip pocket
And a wolfhound at her feet
And they say she even married once,
A man named Romany Brown,
But even a roving caravan
Was too much settling down
And they say her flower’s faded now
Hard weather and hard booze,
But maybe that’s just the price you pay
For the chains that you refuse
She is a rare thing, fine as a beeswing
And I miss her more than ever words can say
If I could just taste all of her wildness now,
If I could hold her in my arms today,
Well I wouldn’t want her any other way