A Country Life: A Song History

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"A Country Life" is a traditional British song in praise of rural living: its verses work through the farming year season by season, and each one returns to a chorus about getting up with the sun.[1][2] It is number 6297 in Steve Roud's index of folk songs.[1] Mainly Norfolk treats it as a separate song from "Eggs for Your Breakfast" (Roud 1752), a Victorian music-hall piece that has some phrases in common with it, and notes that it is the Watersons' song that marks the passing of the seasons.[3]

Etching of a shepherd letting a flock of sheep out of a fold at dawn, with hills and a bright sky beyond

Samuel Palmer, Opening the Fold, or Early Morning, etching, 1880. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Shown for its subject; it has no connection to the song.

The Watersons learned the song from Mick Taylor, a sheepdog trainer from Hawes in Wensleydale, and made it the opening track of their 1975 Topic album For Pence and Spicy Ale.[1][4] A. L. Lloyd's sleeve note links pastoral songs like this one to an older countryside, observing that they "mostly belong to a time before the agricultural revolution".[1] When Jon Boden featured the song in his 2010 A Folk Song a Day series, he suggested that, for group singing, it was probably Mike Waterson's biggest hit.[1]

Later recordings include those by Eliza Carthy with Oysterband (2004), Ian Bruce and Victor Besch (2012), The Teacups (2013) and Dave Burland and the Awkward Squad (2017).[1] The Traditional Ballad Index lists a single recording, by the Connecticut singer Guy Wolff, but its annotator doubts that the song is found in American tradition.[2] Aubrey Atwater and Elwood Donnelly recorded it with Atwater on mountain dulcimer for their album The Boat You Row.[5] The album came out in 2022, as did Atwater's songbook Song By Song, Volume II,[6] which includes the song alongside chapters on mountain dulcimer technique.[7]

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Sources

  1. Mainly Norfolk: "Country Life".
  2. The Traditional Ballad Index: "Country Life (I), The".
  3. Mainly Norfolk: "Eggs for Your Breakfast".
  4. Mainly Norfolk: "The Watersons: For Pence and Spicy Ale".
  5. Atwater-Donnelly: "Lyrics & Notes for The Boat You Row".
  6. Atwater-Donnelly: "Shop: Recordings and Songbooks".
  7. Atwater-Donnelly: "Song By Song, Volume II: Table of Contents".