The Bold Grenadier - the finest English folk song ever.

🎖️ The Bold Grenadier — Traditional Folk Ballad (New Arrangement)
#Englishfolk #traditionalballad #aeolianmode #farfromthemaddingcrowd

This haunting and suggestive folk song, often titled The Bold Grenadier or One Morning in May, has long captivated me. Beneath its gentle surface lies a tale of courtship, deceit, and the transience of passion—a pastoral veil draped over a cautionary ballad.

In the wistful Aeolian mode (A–G, no sharps or flats), this version traces back to early 18th-century English broadsides. It travelled through oral tradition into Appalachia, morphing along the way. Though some renderings are sweet, this is no innocent romance—it’s a riverbank seduction wrapped in birdsong and flowers.

The lyrics follow a young woman’s encounter with a soldier one May morning. The “tuning of the string” is both literal and symbolic. When she asks for marriage, he reveals a wife and children far away. Her request for “one tune more” becomes the song’s emotional pivot—a moment layered with longing and naivety.

🎙️ My version features male voice, harp, fiddle, guitar, concertina, flute, and small pipes. The dramatic build grows through the final verses, where vulnerability deepens.

🎞️ Far from the Madding Crowd (1967) used this ballad to underscore Bathsheba’s tragic innocence. Rightly so—it still sings its warning.

[If this song touches you be sure to check out my latest: 'If I was a Blackbird'.]
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📜 Lyrics appear below
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#folksong #grenadier #maysong

Here are the lyrics I use:

As I was a-walking one morning in May,
I espied a young couple a-making of hay.
And the one was a fair maid and her beauty shone clear,
and the other was a soldier and a bold grenadier.

A-walking and a-talking and a-walking together.
A-walking so far about that they did not know wither.
So they set themselves down by a clear crystal stream,
all for to watch the flowers grow and hear the nightingales sing.

With kisses and with compliments, he took her round, the middle,
and from out of his knapsack he drew forth his fiddle.
And he played her such a merry tune as made the hills and valleys ring,
and they both sat down together and they heard the nightingales sing.

‘Oh now’, said the soldier it is time to give o'er.’
‘Oh no, said the fair maid let us play one tune more.
For I do, so like your music and the tuning of your string,
and I do like to watch the flowers grow, and hear the nightingales sing.’

‘Oh now,’ said the fair maid will you marry me?
‘Oh no,’ said the soldier, ‘that never can be.
For I have a wife in my own count’ry.
And so fair a woman as you ever did see.’

‘Oh no,’ said the soldier, ‘that never can now be,
for, I have a wife and child-er-en three.
But if ever I return again it will be in the Spring.
And we'll both, go and watch the flowers grow, and hear the nightingales sing.’

If you like this treatment, check out my 'All Things Were Quite Silent':
   • All Things Were Quite Silent - young man s...