Green Grow the Rushes, Ho
I hit what in the folk genre might be considered paydirt when I found numerous piano books with folk tunes while packing to move (naturally, I had to take a break at that point). Not only is there one huge book and one book old enough to cost 60c, there's also a book with Chinese and Malay/Indonesian songs. I'm excited at the prospect of being able to get the non-Newfoundland side of my heritage represented on the blog; hopefully, I can get a few up this month.
"Green Grow the Rushes, Ho" is an English folk song that I've been taking an interest in for a while. The song I've been playing on the accordion lately, 'Dancing with Mrs. White' by Great Big Sea (starts at 2:32 in this video, is supposed to be based on this song and several Mi'kmaq ones. For the life of me I can't tell how it relates to this song, though. Not even the version FolkTuneFinder turns up in all cases but one seems similar to me. I'd be less puzzled if I hadn't spent time painstakingly transcribing 'Dancing with Mrs White' for the 7-button accordion (works out perfectly; I may post it, though I dunno if there's interest).
So the aforementioned 'but one' above is much like my version, but I really enjoyed the arrangement I tried out and thought I might share it. One thing about this song: "Green Grow the Rushes, Ho" is a cumulative folk song, and I only take us up to verse 5. 6 and 7 sound like 4 and 5, and 8 through 12 sound like 5 as well. From what I can tell, anyway. There's a lot more to say about this song, but I'd thought I'd save it til after the transcription. No need to delay your gratification, ha.
So "Green Grow the Rushes, Ho [or O]" is a cumulative folk song, along the lines of "The Twelve Days of Christmas". In fact,it's a bit of a precursor to the latter. The aforementioned Great Big Sea, who sent me on this search in the first place, did a version called "Come and I Will Sing You (The Twelve Apostles)". For a song that made it into the top 200 of the Roud index, it's rather hard to find online. I mean, Sesame Street has the easiest-to-find version! This (impromptu rendition)[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sge_G7J4O3o] was also helpful. I suspect this song has been obscured by "Green Grow the Rashes" over time, at least on Youtube. There's a fascinating line-by-line analysis of the words on Wikipedia, though if anything it only makes the song more mysterious.
