"Jedwater" by David Kilpatrick

Jedwater

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This is a late Victorian parlour-song by the Rev. Thomas Davidson and Mr T S Smail of Jedburgh, found in the British Students' Song Book circa 1900

singer songwriter acoustic folk british guitarist song celtic traditional fingerstyle scottish scotland guitar kelso

David Kilpatrick

Solo singer-songwriter and tunesmith playing British fingerstyle steel and nylon string guitar, and historic instruments. Scots and Irish influences.

I've been writing and playing songs and tunes since teenage years in folk clubs and pubs. I co-organise the Kelso Friday night live music sessions at the Cross Keys (hosted singaround 7.45-10pm) and Cobbles Inn (10-12pm open mic with The Cobbles Band) with the help of many friends. All welcome! Visit us at kelsofolkandlive co uk. It is worth clicking on the tab because the sound quality of my tracks is far higher than the auto player on this page. Many can be streamed or downloaded at 320KBps and the enhancement for solo guitar/voice far exceeds the benefit you get for highly compressed band recordings. My recordings are full dynamic, not compressed. Just select Hi-Fi for the first song, and an MP3 high bitrate window will open - you will still get a sequence of songs. Most of my downloads are free, but some 320KBps tracks are paid-for. These are selected because they make up my main instrumental album. I now have a YouTube page and have started doing some video recordings for fun: @daviddkilpatrick I have mainly played Lowden guitars since 1999. I current play a 1985 S5FN (nylon string), 1986 S22 (jumbo O-size mahogany/cedar), and 1995 S32 (small body rosewood/spruce). I also play my own 1997-built Martin 'kit' Grand Auditorium rosewood/spruce, a Sigma OM-T, Furch Little Jane, Tacoma Papoose, Guild 8-string baritone, Vintage V880 parlour guitar and Gordon Giltrap signature model, a Troubadour mahogany/spruce classical and an Adam Black 12-string. And that's just the guitars... also viola, mandolin, mandola, waldzither, bouzouki, Appalachian dulcimer, low D whistle, keyboards.

Song Info

Genre

World • Traditional Celtic

Charts

Peak #27

Peak in subgenre #3

Author

David Kilpatrick

Rights

David Kilpatrick 2005

Uploaded

May 22, 2005

Track Files

MP3

MP3 4.8 MB • 192 kbps • 3:29

Story behind the song

'Jedwater' is not a folk song, nor really a Scottish song. It is a song in the Victorian romantic tradition, intended for performance at the drawing-room piano, with just a hint of Scots in the words - 'aye' for ever (pronounced like 'eye'), 'ae' for the singular (pronounced like 'hay'), 'doun' for down, 'gaed' for went, 'mune', 'bluid', and the opening word 'Yestreen' meaning 'last night' which was archaic even at the time. It is rarely performed today and very few Jedburgh folk would even know it existed. I have been accurate in singing the first verse and a little more free with the second verse as far as the melody and phrasing goes. Sticking rigidly to the printed dots on a song like this makes it too starched at the collar. I have also dropped the song a full three semitones in pitch from Eb to C.

Our daughter Ailsa met her Colin (a guitar-playing student not too much like the old songbook cover!) beside Jedwater, and my niece Lucy and her Scots husband Brian in Oxford have called their new daughter Eilidh, which is pronounced 'Ailie', so this recording is really dedicated to both of them.

The song is recorded in one take with a single AKG C3000B microphone, my Lowden S35C ziricote/cedar guitar, and Roland VS800-EX recorder.

Lyrics

Yestreen I roamed by Jedwater,
When the sun was set, an' the dew was doun,
An' there was a sang in Jedwater,
An' my Ailie's name was its tune.
It sang o' her een, it sang o' her hair,
An' it sang o' her neck o' the lily fine;
But aye the sweetest is sang o' her heart,
My Ailie's heart that is mine!

It's up an' doun by Jedwater
I gaed an' listed to that ae sweet tune,
O it's up an' doun by Jedwater,
Till it glentit under the mune.
O her deep, deep een! O her dark, dark hair!
An' her lip that is red as the bluid red wine!
But sing, sweet River, sing aye o' her heart -
My Ailie's heart that is mine!

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