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April 2024: a fairly wretched season for Sunderland is almost done. I don’t remember the thought process that led me to juxtapose football and murder balladry but mots of fans feel the season has been murder to watch …
May 2022 update: on Saturday May 21, I was among 46,000 Sunderland supporters who witnessed a rather important win at Wembley (there were also 26,000 people there who did not support Sunderland and even that left lots of empty seats we could easily have filled had tickets been available). It was important because it ended four years of turgid hell in what the football authorities laughingly call League One (it’s actually the third division).
At full time, we all belted out the single verse that was played of our unofficial anthem, Elvis’s Can’t Help Falling in Love With You, and I have added a clip of that. But for now, I shall keep my musical celebration to the wholly irrelevant tale of double murder and double execution that happens to be my favourite piece of music by one of my very favourite bands, Steeleye Span …
What a joy to come once again across Loudon Wainwright III‘s daughters Martha – her mum was the excellent but, sadly, departed Kate McGarrigle – and Lucy, whose mother is Suzzy Roche, one of the Irish-American Roche sisters whose music gave me such pleasure decades ago.
I may have seen one or both of them as kids playing in a park in Hounslow 30+ years ago when dad was appearing at a small festival beneath an oppressive stream of one-every-13-seconds planes landing at Heathrow.
The joy was all to do with the discovery of their version of Long Lankin, a darkly enchanting ballad of murder and retribution I have always associated with Steeleye Span.
It is the subject of the fourth article in the new Salut! Live series, Cover Story, a brief look at differing versions of same songs.
The Wainwright women add the verses that provide important detail (well important to me, since I covered crime and court cases a lot as a reporter) to the story of absent head of household, vulnerable wife and baby, false and complicit nurse and vile killer.
And those harmonies! In a context other than gruesome murder, I might have to say they are to die for.
Steeleye Span, meanwhile, captured the sheer blood-curdling drama of the song in their own, English folk-rock way, Maddy Prior‘s soaring vocals and the band at their best with driving, dynamic instrumentation and arrangement.
Among many admiring comments at YouTube, I have never forgotten this, from one Anna Nunn:
This song is one of the most beautiful I have heard in a while, her voice is so different and eerie. I orginally came here thanks to a book i recently read based on the song – Long Lankin ~ Lindsey Barraclough – i probably wouldn’t of heard the song otherwise (I’m 15!) Now i just can’t stop visiting the song, its always in my head.
The Wainwrights challenged my belief that no one other than Maddy and the lads could ever do the song the justice it deserves. I even wondered briefly whether their version might just have the edge.
But excellent as the sisters’ treatment of Long Lankin is, I need only to watch the clip again to see this as Steeleye at their finest …
There is another version, recommended by the musician and former fRoots editor Ian Anderson, by Alasdair Roberts and I shall give that another listen. It appears at https://youtu.be/cjRwzEolrCc?si=_Nxlf-9JDMiIpqkh
in a comment at Facebook, Ian also mentioned Hedy West and I shall certainly look for that.
*** And now for my moment of self-indulgence. The sound of 46,000 ecstatic fans at the final whistle…
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