This is the first of four in-depth blog posts for Folk Radio UK about songs from my new album “Esteesee”, an album inspired by the life and work of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834).
Esteesee (Track 12)
I’m writing these blog posts from my kitchen table, the place where most of my songs are written. It seemed fitting to start with the title track of the album “Esteesee”.
Coleridge disliked his name. By the age of 16 he had started referring to himself using his initials, S.T.C, and he would often write them phonetically as ‘Esteesee’ hence the name of this album and the name of this song.
This song includes an old childhood prayer called ‘Matthew, Mark, Luke and John’ (or ‘The Black Paternoster’). It goes like this:
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,
Bless the bed that I lie on.
Four corners to my bed,
Four angels round my head;
One to watch and one to pray
And two to bear my soul away.
Poor health and drug addiction where a recurring theme in Coleridge’s life and in a letter to Thomas Poole in 1797 Coleridge wrote:
“This prayer I said nightly, and most firmly believed the truth of it. Frequently have I (half-awake and half-asleep, my body diseased and fevered by my imagination), seen armies of ugly things bursting in upon me, and these four angels keeping them off.”
In that same letter Coleridge recounts a story of himself at the age of 6:
“During my fever I asked why Lady Northcote (our neighbour) did not come & see me. My mother said, She was afraid of catching the fever. I was piqued & answered “Ah Mamma! the four Angels round my bed an’t afraid of catching it”.
This was a poem and prayer that evidently had a life-long impact on Coleridge. I really wanted to bind them into this album in a way that captured the half-awake and half-asleep vision of a fevered imagination.
It was only after this song was finished that I discovered that ‘Matthew, Mark, Luke and John’ is actually catalogued as Roud Folk Song number 1704! I’m still not entirely sure whether this song counts as an original composition or a traditional folk song… hopefully it’s both? I love that about folk music: the way that sometimes these different elements all meet in one wonderful place.
I originally wrong this song on the harp and it was really quite epic in that original acoustic form. That’s largely how it’s performed live: it’s a combination of harp playing and live vocal looping.
However for the album version I had to have a slightly sheepish conversation with Rob (my husband and the executive producer for this project) in which I said: “… and this is where the orchestral string section starts to swell and the drum kit kicks in.”
I think at that point Rob was still expecting a slightly more stripped back album. Some of the songs on the album are still very folky and sparse… but a lot of this album was always going to sound “bigger” than the songs on Bare Foot Folk or The Lament of The Black Sheep.
It wasn’t really a choice that I got to make, it’s just the instrumentation that the song needed to have when it came into existence. I wrote Esteesee on the harp, but I always heard the strings. It’s hard to explain, but that’s what I do in the studio: I work on getting the recordings to match the way they already sounded in my head.
It was around this time that I got in touch with Patsy Reid, the person I think is undoubtedly the greatest fiddle player in the country. Once she’d said she’d love to be involved in the project (and I’d finished dancing around the kitchen with joy!) I started to get really, really excited that we’d actually be able to record Esteesee the way that I’d always heard it.
Patsy Reid was only in the studio for 2 days of a 47 day project and yet she ended up on 11 of the 14 tracks. That’s the mark of a truly phenomenal musician. I still feel so privileged that I got to spend time with Patsy to record this album.
That’s not to undersell the rest of the musicians though. Jonny Dyer absolutely nailed the feeling of this piano piece, Andrew’s drum kit was every bit as delicate as I’d hoped they could be, and Lukas Drinkwater – as always – played the bass lines like he’d always known them.
So, that’s Track 12. Esteesee. I love this song, and to me it fits with the flow of the album brilliantly – that was something that we only really achieved on the final day of mixing. It was hard to get the balance just right: so that it sounded right alongside the other songs but still stood up to being listened to at full volume.
Lyrics
Four angels are here for my keeping
Stand Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
How I pray for a weak Esteesee
God bless the bed I lie on.All in awe as the floor falls beneath me
Stand demons and ghosts at my door
How I pray for God’s angels to keep me
God bless the bed I lie on.I am bound for my horrors and weeping
For my servitude barren and poor
How I pray God have mercy for grieving
God bless the bed I lie on.Four corners to my bed,
Four angels round my head;
One to watch and one to pray
Two to bear my soul away.Four corners to my bed,
Four angels round my head;
One to watch and one to pray
Two to bear my soul away.Four angels are here for my keeping
Stand Matthew Mark Luke and John
How I pray for a weak Esteesee
God bless the bed I lie on.
By: Ange Hardy
Esteesee is released on 24th September 2015 via Story Records (pre-order it here)
‘Esteeesee’ Album Tour & Launch
Along The Coleridge Way
OCTOBER
3rd: Nether Stowey
4th: Halsway Manor – ALBUM LAUNCH!
6th: Holford & District
7th: Bicknoller
8th: East Quantoxhead
9th: Sampford Brett
10th: Stogumber
11th: Wheddon Cross
12th: Roadwater
14th: Luxborough
15th: Luccombe
16th: Porlock
17th: Brendon & Countisbury
18th: Lynmouth Pavilion Project
For details of all of Ange Hardy’s upcoming gig dates please click here.
Read all of Ange’s Posts here.