Watch the new video for Frankie Archer’s single ‘Lucy Wan’, on which she delivers a twist on this dark murder ballad, giving Lucy power and a voice with a haunting soundscape and piercing words.
I’ve always found Lucy Wan to be one of the more chilling murder ballads. It appears in Scottish and English folk song collections as early as 1776 and is well-known on both sides of the Atlantic (also as Lizie Wan, Fair Lizzie, and Rosie Anne), and there have been some interesting takes over the years. I think Angeline Morrison, who included it in The Brown Girl and Other Folk Songs, nailed it when she said, “This ballad makes no attempt to paint over the human potential for darkness and destruction.”
Jim Moray, well-known for his fresh interpretations, placed the ballad in the limelight with his highly original take on his 2008 Low Culture album featuring British-Ghanian rapper Bubbz. Interestingly, it is Jim Moray who said of Frankie Archer that she was “The most refreshing and interesting treatment of traditional music that I’ve heard in ages”. That sentiment was furthered by BBC Folk Show host Mark Radcliffe who called her “fascinating and intoxicating”.
We’ll let the music do the talking, for Frankie Archer’s minimalistic arrangements are deeply perceptive…a case of less is more as she cleverly weaves this dark tale into a life all of its own and delivers a much-needed turn of events.
She shared the following:
As a female folk musician, it is irritating and boring when, in song after song, women are murdered, raped, deceived, burned – you name it – by men. Lucy Wan is a perfect example of this. Man impregnates woman, man murders woman, lies about it to his mother, runs away and ultimately gets away with it. What is the moral of the story?
Folk songs don’t need to have morals of course, but this story is a harmfully overused archetype. I wanted to give a voice to Lucy in my version of the song, because in most renditions, Lucy cries and tells her brother he has made her pregnant, and that’s all we hear from her before he swiftly kills her. I gave Lucy Wan power and a voice in the song, just as she and endless other women in endless other folk songs deserve.
The single was released last year and is available on streaming services and can be downloaded on Bandcamp.
Lucy Wan Lyrics
Lucy she sits in her father’s door
Weeping and making moan
By in comes her brother dear
What ails thee Lucy Wan
I ail I ail dear brother she cries
I’ll tell you the reason why
There is a child between my sides
Between you dear brother and I
Hast thou told our mother of this
And hast thou told of me
It’s your fine form I cannot resist
I must spoil your pretty body
Lucy she saw him draw the knife
That’s hung down by his knee
And he he has took fair Lucy’s life
And left her there to bleed
He has run down to the dock
To board some ship to flee
His face all white and ill with shock
When he his mother did see
What is the blood that stains your knife
That runs so fresh and raw
That is the blood of my good greyhound
For she would run no more
The greyhound’s blood is never so red
Son come tell yo me
Then it is the blood of my good grey mare
She would not ride for me
Oh the grey mare’s blood is never so red
Son you lie to me
It is not the blood of my good grey mare
But the blood of our Lucy
By night he laid down his head
Upon the cold dark sea
A spirit drew up by his bed
Vengeance for to seek
Lucy she appeared so fine
Her body cut in three
Brother I will haunt thy mind
For what you did to me
By he is possessed with shame
He ails with guilt and dread
He’s pushed the knife in his own heart
And now he’s laid there dead.
Frankie started out surrounded by Northumbrian folk music, and draws deeply on this in her own fiddle playing, singing and writing. She also combines this with electronics in live performances. She’s definitely a name to watch for.
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