Who said folk songs had to be quiet, anyway?

This is a song I wrote a couple of years ago, which, now that the Telecaster has been dusted off, I thought I’d revisit with guitars turned up to 11. I normally play this song on concertina, but this version is just electric guitars, a drum loop, and plenty of reverb to make it sound like it was recorded in a cave. I was trying to get it to sound a bit like “Anorak City” by Another Sunny Day. You can take the boy out of 1986, but you can’t take 1986 out of the boy…

But, even though it’s loud, it’s still a folk song. A murder ballad in fact, albeit a very compressed one. There’s a shotgun wedding in the offing, and our none-too-heroic narrator decides he’s having none of it.

My source for some of the lyrics was actually a poem by A.E. Housman, from the collection “A Shropshire Lad” - in particular that’s where the line about “my bloody hands and I” comes from.

Download Head For The Country (about 3.5 MB)

HEAD FOR THE COUNTRY

I have to run
Even after all we planned
Best head for the country
I took her love
But I would not take her hand
Best head for the country
Where the air is clean
And I can wash the stains
From my soul

I took her love
But I would not take a bride
But her father he insisted
And he would not be denied

I must be gone
I have said a sad goodbye
We’ll do no more harm
My bloody hands and I