Song of the Day: "She Moved Through the Fair"

The wee classic in versions by Van the Man, Fairport, Led Zep, John McCormack, Sinead, and Anne Briggs.

Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books and now writer/director of award-winning films. He was also a longtime editor of the legendary Crawdaddy.

It’s one of the greatest songs of the century—whichever century you want to choose. The lyrics are pretty much from 1909 but versions of the melody date back decades before that, perhaps to “antiquity” as one expert puts it. (Sometimes it is sung as “She Moves Through the Fair.”) It is usually considered “Irish”—indeed, my first belated exposure to it was via a Van Morrison album with the Chieftains about 30 years ago—but has also been traced to Scotland. There are dozens of versions of it by well-known performers, including those who have “adapted” it and changed the title, such as unlikely candidates Led Zeppelin and the Yardbirds.

A sampling below, plus the usual political cartooning. Enjoy, then subscribe, it’s still free. If you already subscribe—and you want this newsletter to continue—a word to the wise: You really ought to share or recommend it to others widely to promote those free subscriptions….

So let’s start with Van the Man’s version, as mentioned.

To my mind, the finest “modern” version is from (no surprise) Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson back in Fairport Convention days. No less an “authority” than Charles P. Pierce once told me he agreed.

But allegedly the first recorded version by an Irishman was back in 1941 by the legendary Irish singer John McCormack.

The Yardbirds changed the name to “White Summer” for their instrumental version, courtesy of Sir James Page, who carried it over to Led Zep.

The incredible Brit folklorist Annie Briggs.

Sinead O’Connor got a lot of attention for her take when it was part of the soundtrack for the film Michael Collins.

Cartoon of the Day

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Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books, including the bestseller The Tunnels (on escapes under the Berlin Wall), the current The Beginning or the End (on MGM’s wild atomic bomb movie), and The Campaign of the Century (on Upton Sinclair’s left-wing race for governor of California), which was recently picked by the Wall St. Journal as one of five greatest books ever about an election. His new film, Atomic Cover-up, just had its world premiere and is drawing extraordinary acclaim. For nearly all of the 1970s he was the #2 editor at the legendary Crawdaddy. Later he served as longtime editor of Editor & Publisher magazine. He recently co-produced a film about Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.