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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 38, Number 17. July 16, 1973
Commoners Crown: Steeleye Span — (Chrysalis)
Commoners Crown: Steeleye Span
(Chrysalis)
'She laid him on a dressing board and
stabbed him like a sheep'
'What have you to keep me with
If I with you should go
If I broke my husband dear
And my young son also'
Feel like trying your hand - it has taken a long time to organise but if you feel like writing about music, please leave name - phone and or address at saliet office and you will be contacted. Things coming up include records, concerts and interviews with Leo Sayer etc., so let's hope she's not she is koff. Also a message for Phillip Hay at Salient to be picked up.
Pat
It is with highly commendable dexterity that Steeleye Span has moulded the lives of the Common People into the golden Crown, depicted, on the cover of this album and a golden crown modelled intricately from hundreds of people.
On the more technical side of the record (pun?) there is little to be criticised. The instruments seem to create and blend in with the life of the music complementing the song's verses. The continual use and emphasis of the mandolin is satisfying and is extremely clear in the recording. But as always it is extremely hard to discern what Maddy Prior is singing about - not to despair though for the back of the record cover has lyrics which anyone with the ability to read will soon understand.
A Bach purist would soon become distraught listening to 'Bach goes to Limerick' (straight into Irish strife). 'Weary Cutters' is a song that would be a technical impossibility on stage, concerned with the blacklegs in the days of conscription, it is sung and harmonised completely by Maddy Prior without instrumental help thus producing an eerie wailing sound; uniquely picturing the evils of conscription.
Immediately following this is an Uncle Sam type number, featuring Peter Sellers on acoustic ukelele. The good ol' goon but not gone Bluebottle joins Steeleye Span for their last number in a song of mocking humour showing the groups delight in clowning around which was evident at last year's Wellington concert. Adding Bluebottle to their humour, they scorn the very serious subject of a poor innocent king robbed of everything so that he had to wear 'a flour barrel for a suit of clothes' The group suggests in this song that perhaps he is not as innocent as the song tells; one must consider the motive of the action as well
Steeleye Span whose lyrics appear to be suggestively corrupt to our modern youth are mostly singing songs that were originally composed for children; even Jack and Jill had their origins in a tale of scandal and adultery. Are we really corrupting the babes or are they corrupting us? If you feel in a corruptible mood anyway, this is the record for you.
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