Our Song of the Day comes from Piers Faccini & Jenny Lysander as part of Piers’ ongoing Songs I Love series in which he records and shares songs with different friends and artists he’s collaborated with. We featured Jenny last year as a Song of the Day with a track from her debut EP ‘Lighthouse’ which Piers produced (he also produced her album Northern Folk).
Piers Faccini on Nottamun Town
Nottamun Town is an old English folk song that I first discovered on Fairport Convention’s 1969 album ‘What we did on our holidays‘, their version was sung by the great Sandy Denny. Between takes recording Jenny’s album, we’d spend a lot of the down time listening to music. I love playing records for friends and seeing the excitement on their faces as they discover new music. I played Jenny some of my favorite singers like Anne Briggs, June Tabor or Joni Mitchell.
Listening to Nottamun Town, some of you may be reminded of Bob Dylan and he used the same melody for his song Masters of War. There’s a trance like cadence to the strange and original lyrics in Nottamun Town and Dylan used this relentless and hypnotic rhythm to great effect in his timeless anti-war anthem. According to various sources the original song dates back to medieval times and there’s a theory that the surreal nature of the text relates to the traditional day The Feast of Fools, during which time which power was briefly conferred on those in a subordinate position. On this day, the fool took his revenge, the servant beat his master and the cat chased the hounds! So for the full sensory experience as you listen to this song, picture a Hieronymous Bosch painting in your mind and enjoy!
Songs I love is available as an exclusive 17-track CD contained in a hardback book, clothbound containing 92 pages with text & illustrations by Piers Faccini.
Order book/cd ‘Songs I Love’ vol.1: shop.beatingdrumrecords.com/
