This song is actually part of a loose cycle of anonymous songs from Elizabethan/Jacobean England, based on songs sung by actual homeless lunatics while begging for food, about a madman named Tom O' Bedlam (see references in "King Lear," "The Fisher King," and the comic series "The Invisibles," to name a few) who's been confined to an asylum after losing his mind after being rejected by his girl Maudlin, and is now wandering around the countryside looking for her. She's also looking for him, having regretted her treatment of him. So this is Maudlin's song, and it's a bit scarier than Tom's, but no less amazing.
This song is actually part of a loose cycle of anonymous songs from Elizabethan/Jacobean England, based on songs sung by actual homeless lunatics while begging for food, about a madman named Tom O' Bedlam (see references in "King Lear," "The Fisher King," and the comic series "The Invisibles," to name a few) who's been confined to an asylum after losing his mind after being rejected by his girl Maudlin, and is now wandering around the countryside looking for her. She's also looking for him, having regretted her treatment of him. So this is Maudlin's song, and it's a bit scarier than Tom's, but no less amazing.
And this cover? Rocks.