Video Premiere: Jon Boden & The Remnant Kings - Seven Bonnie Gypsies

Taken from his new album Rose in June, we have the pleasure of sharing the video for Jon Boden‘s Seven Bonnie Gypsies. The beautiful animation is by the hand Marry Waterson whose work we have featured many times on Folk Radio UK yet I always see something new and inspiring in her creations, the work of a true artist. Here, the images really draw out the tenderness of Jon’s version of the song.

A glance through the liner notes reveals that Jon borrowed a chorus for this one from Sheath and Knife which he “first heard at a formative stage from a recording of Eliza Carthy accompanied by Dan Plews, both of whom subsequently became good friends and colleagues/employers.”

The tune is Jon’s own although he mentions there are different ways of interpreting the song, something Thomas Blake touched on in his recent album review here where he noted it was “a well-known and often rambunctious folk song about infidelity” but Jon’s version was a “tender makeover, focussing on the sad and poignant aspects of the song”. Jon shared the following with us:

There are bawdy versions but there are also a lot of very tender versions that really home in on the sadness of the situation – an unhappy arranged marriage where her only means of escape is to abandon her baby and elope. Also, the romance of the freedom of the Gypsy life is very compelling in this song.