I Wish I Wish- Walter Pardon (Nor) 1978 Yates
[From numerous recordings including two by Mike Yates-- Topic 12TS 392 (`A Country Life') and three recordings made by Jim Carroll & Pat Mackenzie Collection; Pardon tapes dated 1980 (23 Aug), 1981 (31 Aug) and 1984 (14 Oct). The Topic notes follow.
R. Matteson 2017]
Walter Pardon (1914 – 1996) was one of the best singers of traditional folk-song in England, yet, outside his family, no one knew of his singing until he was 59 years old. Born in Knapton, near North Walsham in Norfolk, in a cottage where he lived for the rest of his life, Pardon finally came to national prominence in the folk-song world in the 1970s through a cassette tape passed to Peter Bellamy. The folklorist Mike Yates began a project to record and document Walter’s repertoire of over 150 songs. These recordings from the late 1970s capture a beautiful, gentle singer at the height of his powers.
I Wish, I Wish- sung by Walter Pardon of Knapton, Norfolk. Collected by Mike Yates, 1978.
I wish, I wish, but ‘tis in vain.
I wish I were a maid again.
A maid again I’ll never be
‘Till the apple grow on the orange tree.
Oh when my apron strings tied low
He’d follow me through frost and snow.
But now my apron’s to my chin
He passes by and says nothing.
Oh grief, oh grief, I’ll tell you why,
That girl has got more gold than I.
More gold than I and wealth and fame
But she’ll become like me again.
I wish, I wish, my child were born,
And seated on her father’s knee;
And I was in the churchyard laid
With a green, green grass growing over me.