The Family Project
I don’t consider my music to be ‘folk’, but it is certainly influenced by the English folk tradition, in the sense that folk music tells the stories of ordinary people’s lives, and affirms that these stories need to be told.
The ‘Family’ series of songs is an ongoing project with my band Fear of the Forest, inspired by the real-life stories of some of my own ancestors. Every family has its tales, myths, rumours and half-remembered events passed down the generations; sometimes these turn out to be based on more than a grain of truth!
One branch of the family, carpet weavers in Victorian Kidderminster, was apparently struck by a series of macabre tragedies. On the other side of the family tree, three brothers were instrumental in the Captain Swing Riots of 1830 and were transported as convicts to Australia. These and other incidents are related in the songs, with only a tiny bit of artistic licence… I even used some direct quotes from the incredibly detailed newspaper reports of the time; the words were so striking.
It may seem like a lot of drama for one family, but when we really look into it we realise that such things are what we might expect, considering the historical background and social conditions of the time. We are reminded that life, along with the thin veneers of civilisation and progress, is fragile, but that some things hardly change – like the relative fates of those with power and wealth, and those without.
Listen to the Family songs below or on Bandcamp.
Family I (La Folia)
Elizabeth has fallen down the stairs
They must have caught her unawares
The carpet weavers’ houses have no banisters
And so she lands in a peculiar position
Someone calls for the physician
But too late
And she is buried in the family tradition
The year is 1897
With the dawn on Monday morning
Nine years later
In a most determined manner
Alfred in his nightshirt quits this sorry earth
It is for want of work and want of wife
He’s taken up a kitchen knife
To bleed his throat dry
And they find him lying face down on the hearth
But at least he didn’t linger
Like his brother when he fell from off the cart
In the disaster that occurred
On the way to Foggy Furze
An incident unfortunate with poison
Happens to poor Alfred’s cousin
Whose wife’s position means she must allay suspicion
He was the victim of a dark turn of events
With an unhappy consequence
Involving strychine
But there’s not a single shred of evidence
Despite her dubious defence
After I had gone they used to say
That I was always rather strange
And they were never sure
They said I disappeared before the war
And my own family thought I’d died
But I just led a different life
If you look close enough
You’ll see me in the photograph
Family II (Captain Swing)
In the beginning it was the sign of civilisation
The greatest thing since the invention of the wheel
But it’s their purpose to procure their profits’ prediction
It is the desert of the real
That day it started at the sign of the Leathern Bottle
The paper makers gathered hundreds on the heath
Against the wheels, against the engines and the metal
Against the progress that they preach
You can choose your battles but you cannot choose your weapon
You may have the sledgehammers but they have got the guns
And all your anger is just giving them a reason
But you’ve got to fight although you know
They’ve already won
Another shot and I thought I saw someone falling
But it was just an old man who was getting in the way
The reverend’s read the Riot Act but no one’s listening
He’s on the side of the machine anyway
At Mr Spicer’s Glory Mill it’s the final showdown
All the king’s horses and the Grenadier Guards
‘We will have no more stories, we will have them all down!’
Until the killing starts
Last time I saw you it was at Portsmouth harbour
When the prison ship was taking you away
They say Van Diemen’s Land is hard, but it will be harder
For those who fight another day
