Some Important Observations On Steeleye Span, Experiments In Folk Rock And Cows

Maddy Prior (right) sings with the English folk-rock band Steeleye Span. (Stephen Cooke)

(via wbur) by Chris Braiotta

I want to talk to you about what it means to experiment. Let’s begin with the following sentence: “We did try a reggae ‘Spotted Cow’ and we weren’t terribly convinced by it, so we stopped doing it.”

You’ll be needing a little context for that. “Spotted Cow” is a song from around 1740. It’s about a woman who’s lost her cow. She complains about it to this guy she runs into. He’s like, “Lady, I am game to help you find your cow. Let us do this.” They go off to a field to find it. Obvious place to start, right? Before long … well, you know how fields are. Sexiest thing in nature. So they decide to do what comes naturally to a man and a woman in a field, which isn’t really looking for cows. From then on, whenever the lady’s looking for a bit of you-know-what, she finds some guy and tells him about her cow.

The speaker of that sentence was Maddy Prior, singer of the great English folk-rock band Steeleye Span. This is a band that she’s led since 1969.

So, to sum up: ‘70s English folk-rock band, cow used as cover story for Georgian booty call. And then: reggae.

“When you’re experimenting with things they can’t all be winners,” she says. “I’m pleased that we tried things.”

I don’t care how “out there” you think your favorite band is. This is what it means to be fearless. This is what experimenting is.

Now “experiments” aren’t something we think of when it comes to folk music. Learning the ancient craft of candle making? Sure. Experimenting? That’s the sort of thing that gets you booed at Newport.

Maddy Prior isn’t moved by any of that.

“The minute you bring guitar into it it’s not English anyways,” she told me. “I think as far as we were concerned the song itself was there and what you did with it was what you did with it. In my world we were never bothered by the way it should be. We took all these songs and made them our own, and then you pass them on and someone else makes them their own. You can mimic other people singing the songs but that’s what you’re doing and why would you do that?”

Every Moment Has A Song