Every Moment Has A Song

Steeleye Span: “Marigold/Harvest Home” (1980)

My two favorite songs of the Autumn season happen to fall (yes, fall) at numbers 100 and 200 in this series of posts. And in fact, they are two of my favorite songs, period. British folk rock legends Steeleye Span and the great Maddy Prior evoked the melancholy of the season beautifully in this medley from their 1980 reunion album, Sails of Silver.

If you want the mood to last, listen to it along with #100 “Autumn” by Strawbs:

You’ll be ready to go outside and…harvest something. Or just cozy up with some warm cider by the fire and watch the Yankees get knocked out of the playoffs. God our maker doth provide indeed.

When the marigold no longer blooms
When summer sun is turned to gloom
See the forecast winter snow
See the evergreen that lonely grows
Move close to the fire place
Neglect the garden
See the ground harden
At a ghostly pace

The golden summer sun is silver now
The fruit has fallen from the bough
The season moves to chestnut time
Toffee apples, treacle and mulled wine
Quilts and furs and woolens gay
You wrap around you
But the cold confounds you
On an autumn day

Stout and strong the walls of home and hearth
The curtains drawn against the draft
The rake has reaped, the blade has mown
Nights draw in to call the harvest home
The quiet of a heart at rest
In peace abounded
By love surrounded
Here the home is blessed

Come, ye thankful people, come
Raise the song of harvest home
All be safely gathered in
‘Ere the winter storms begin
God, our maker doth provide
For our wants to be supplied
Come, ye thankful people, come
Raise the song of harvest home
Raise the song of harvest home

See also: https://edcyphers.com/2013/05/08/recommended-albums-47/