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She Moved Through The Fair Lyrics
My love said to me
My Mother won't mind
And me Father won't slight you
For your lack of kind
Then she stepped away from me
And this she did say
It will not be long love
'Til our wedding day.
She stepped away from me
And she moved through the Fair
And fondly I watched her
Move here and move there
And she went her way homeward
With one star awake
As the swans in the evening
Move over the lake
The people were saying
No two e'er were wed
But one has a sorrow
That never was said
And she smiled as she passed me
With her goods and her gear
And that was the last
That I saw of my dear.
I dreamed it last night
That my true love came in
So softly she entered
Her feet made no din
She came close beside me
And this she did say
It will not be long love
Till our wedding day.
My Mother won't mind
And me Father won't slight you
For your lack of kind
Then she stepped away from me
And this she did say
It will not be long love
'Til our wedding day.
And she moved through the Fair
And fondly I watched her
Move here and move there
And she went her way homeward
With one star awake
As the swans in the evening
Move over the lake
No two e'er were wed
But one has a sorrow
That never was said
And she smiled as she passed me
With her goods and her gear
And that was the last
That I saw of my dear.
That my true love came in
So softly she entered
Her feet made no din
She came close beside me
And this she did say
It will not be long love
Till our wedding day.
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I adore this song, especially the way Mckennitt sings it. Such sweet melancholy. It's so mysterious. I never really understood most of what she was saying until I read the lyrics, and it just gave me chills.
"It will not be long my love, till our wedding day..."
So is it saying the couple were to be married but one died then came back as a ghost?
So is it saying the couple were to be married but one died then came back as a ghost?
I think it's implied (in various versions) that they never do get married.
I think it's implied (in various versions) that they never do get married.
I couldn't help but see a reference to "Scarborough Fair". The Fair in combination with the lost true love. Even the rhythm and melody seem a bit familiar. I can't find the words to make it any clearer. Anyone else understanding what I mean?
@frozen, the rhythm and melody seem familiar and similar because both "Scarborough Fair" and "She Moved Through the Fair" are ancient. 500 years old, at least, and both probably originated in Scotland. One wandering minstrel would learn the melody and words from another, and they typically modify the words for the next locale he wandered into, sometimes even changing the language.
Padraic Colum gave us the modern words to She Moved Through the Fair just over 100 years ago. It's a very traditional, tragic "lost love" ballad.
Scarborough Fair is a traditional "impossible task" ballad. It would be sung with the name of whatever town the minstrels wandered through. The current words are also pretty new. Ewan MacColl put it to paper as "Scarborough" somewhere around 1940.
@Micala, no, sorry, it's not at all about the Enniskillen bombing. Simple Minds wanted to whip up a sad song about that bombing, so they took the melody of She Moved Through the Fair, a song that was thoroughly in the public domain and had a proven track record of making people sad for five centuries, and stuck a new set of words on it, calling it "Belfast Child". Total hack job, none of the phrases are the right length. The weird places where Kerr tries to sing two or three syllables in a beat meant for just one are especially crazy.
This song is in memory of Enniskillen bombing took place on 8 November 1987
McKennit's version is on an album recorded two years before that, so I doubt it. It's a ttaditional folk song, first version I heard is Alain Stivell's from 1973. It's a ghost story - the narrator's fiancee dies just before they are married then appears by his bed and scares the living daylights out of him by saying it won;t be long ... In Stivell's version she touches him: once at the fair whle she's alive and then once more as a ghost.
McKennit's version is on an album recorded two years before that, so I doubt it. It's a ttaditional folk song, first version I heard is Alain Stivell's from 1973. It's a ghost story - the narrator's fiancee dies just before they are married then appears by his bed and scares the living daylights out of him by saying it won;t be long ... In Stivell's version she touches him: once at the fair whle she's alive and then once more as a ghost.