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> Steeleye Span > Songs > Two Constant Lovers

The Lovers’s Lament for Her Sailor / The Constant Lovers / The Drowned Lovers / The Forsaken Mermaid

[ Roud 466 ; Master title: The Lovers’s Lament for Her Sailor ; Laws K17 ; G/D 6:1244 ; Ballad Index LK17 ; VWML AW/4/186 ; Bodleian Roud 466 ; GlosTrad Roud 466 ; Wiltshire 636 , 894 ; trad.]

Sabine Baring-Gould, H. Fleetwood Sheppard: Songs of the West Copper Family: Copper Family Song Book Frank Purslow: The Wanton Seed

The Carter Family recorded I Never Will Marry in 1933, which was included in 2015 on the Nehi anthology of British Songs in the USA, My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.

Texas Gladden sang I’m Never to Marry in a 1946 recording made my Moe Ash that was included in 2001 on her Rounder anthology Ballad Legacy and in 2018 on the documentary The Ballad of Shirley Collins.

This beautiful lament from Sussex is printed with the title The Forsaken Mermaid in the Copper Family Song Book. Bob Copper sang it with the title My Love Has Gone on their 1971 Leader 4-LP box A Song for Every Season.

Peggy Seeger sang The Lady of Carlisle on her 1957 Topic album Eleven American Ballads and Songs, which was reissued in 1996 as part of her Fellside CD Classic Peggy Seeger, Alan Lomax commented in the original album’s sleeve notes:

Peggy here sings a charming Carter family adaption of a much older American (possibly British) lyric song. In text and tune, the song is a sort of distant relative of the Little Mohee. Like most American lyric songs, it pictures love as tragedy and a sorrow and in one verse it strikes a rich and ancient poetic vein…

The shells in the Ocean shall be my deathbed,
The fish in deep water swim over my head.

Pete Seeger sang I Never Will Marry at a Ballads and Blues concert at St. Pancras Town Hall Theatre on 4 October 1959 that was published in 1963 on his album Pete Seeger in Concert. It was reissued in 2016 on his Fellside CD Pete Seeger in England.

The Woods sang I Never Will Marry in 1969 on their Traditional Sound album Early Morning Rain.

Constant Lovers also seems to be a the signature song of Ron Spicer (1929-1996; son of George Spicer) as nearly everybody mentioned below refers to him. He sang it on the 1995 Veteran anthology When the May Is All in Bloom.

Martyn Wyndham-Read sang The Constant Lovers in a recording on 15 August 1991 in Workington by Paul Adams on the Fellside anthology of English traditional songs, Voices. Paul Adams commented in the liner notes:

A favourite with Broadside printers in England, Ireland and Scotland. Frank Purslow maintains that it is probably Irish in origin. Despite being often collected in England and North America it is rarely to be found in the repertoire of revival singers. The tune is a little intricate, but Martyn is more than a match for it and tackles it with great relish. Martyn is one of the great lyrical singers of his generation with a lot of emotional intensity in his singing. He learned this from Gordon Hall, a singer from Horsham in Sussex.

A year later, Martyn Wyndham-Read recorded The Constant Lovers again for his Fellside CD Beyond the Red Horizon. He commented in his liner notes:

Constant Lovers, or The Drowned Lovers, is a song from my native Sussex, and I learned this version from the great singer, Gordon Hall of Horsham. Gordon tells me that the events that happened in this song may have occurred at Fairlight Cove near Hastings on the Sussex coast, where there is a “Lover’s Leap”. My mother used to take my sister and myself on holiday there when we were young, and in my childish innocence I never saw any lovers leaping—at least not in that direction. The great, late Sussex singer, Ron Spicer, used to sing this song as well.

[To confuse the matters and the last comment a bit, there is also an unrelated balled called The Drowned Lovers a.k.a. Clyde’s Water as sung by e.g. Martin Carthy or Nic Jones.]

Mary Lozier sang I Never Will Marry to Mark Wilson and Roger Cooper in South Portsmouth, Ohio, on 14 October 1997. This recording was included in 2007 on the Musical Traditions anthology of folk songs of Upper South, Meeting’s a Pleasure Volume 1. Mark Wilson commented in the accompanying booklet:

A British prototype can be found as The Drowned Lover in Baring-Gould’s Songs of the West. ‘Dungbeetle’ (ie, Steve Gardham) provides an excellent brisk discussion of its tangled broadside derivation in his entry on Stow Brow on the Musical Traditions webside. In America, most traditional texts have been influenced by the Carter Family’s celebrated recording and that may be true of Mary’s truncated text (although I think not). The fuller version that Granny Riddle recorded for me as The Seashell Song on [More Ballads and Hymns From the Ozarks (Rounder 0083)] is plainly independent of the Carters’.

Waterson:Carthy with Eliza Carthy in lead sang this song with the Copper Family’s title The Forsaken Mermaid in 1999 on their third album Broken Ground. Martin Carthy commented in the album sleeve notes:

Liza first heard the late lamented Ron Spicer sing his lovely The Forsaken Mermaid in Sussex which was his stamping ground, and both she and her Mam always nursed it close to their hearts. Him too.

This song is also the title song of Dave Webber and Anni Fentiman’s album Constant Lovers. This track was included in 2001 on the Fellside anthology Voices in Harmony: English Traditional Songs.

Gordon Hall sang The Constant Lovers on his 2001 Country Branch CD Good Things Enough. The liner notes commented:

The touching and romantic version one might expect under this title but with an alternative ending, written by Gordon Hall. This version known as ‘the other one’.

Magpie Lane sang The Constant Lovers in 2002 on their CD Six for Gold. Their singer Andy Turner sang it with the title My Love Is Gone as the 27 September 2014 entry of his project A Folk Song a Week. Their album notes commented:

From the singing of the Copper Family of Rottingdean, Sussex. A tragic tale of suicide, unless you choose to believe the Copper’s title The Forsaken Mermaid in which case it’s not suicide as the protagonist will swim as soon as she hits the water. A likely story. Incidentally, we think this is the only tragic love song in the English tradition to feature shrimps!

Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman sang The Drowned Lovers in 2002 on their first duo CD, aptly called 1..

Steve Tilston sang The Constant Lovers in 2003 om his album Such & Such. This track was also included in 2007 on his Free Reed 4 CD anthology Reaching Back.

Barry Dransfield also learned The Constant Lovers from the singing of Ron Spicer, and sang it in 2005 on his CD Unruly. He commented:

I would like to dedicate this one to Ron Spicer who was a lovely, subtle man and a class act. It was his singing of it that made me learn it. I reckon this is a professionally written piece, probably from an early 19^th century London show which made its way back to country people and the oral tradition.

Kevin Dempsey sang Two Constant Lovers in 2006 on Swarb’s Lazarus’ live CD Live and Kicking.

James Keelaghan sang The Constant Lovers in 2006 on his Fellside CD A Few Simple Verses.

Steeleye Span recorded Two Constant Lovers, with Peter Knight in lead, on their 2009 CD Cogs Wheels and Lovers. A live recording from their spring tour 2011 was released in the same year on their album Now We Are Six Again. Peter Knight also sang it in 2010 on Gigspanner’s live album Doors at Eight.

Bob Lewis sang The Drowned Lovers at the Fife Traditional Singing Festival, Collessie, Fife in May 2009. This recording was released a year later both on the festival CD There’s Bound to Be a Row (Old Songs & Bothy Ballads Vol. 6) and on his festival album Drive Sorrows Away.

Craig Morgan Robson sang The Drowned Lovers on their 2009 CD Hummingbird’s Feather. They noted:

George Gardiner collected this song (often known as The Constant Lovers) from James Lake of Dummer near Basingstoke. There are many other versions, one made justly popular by the much lamented Sussex singer Ron Spicer. The song also became a bit of a music hall favourite, with some of the words being altered for comic effect. Frank Purslow made an editorial decision to remove the few %lsquo;comic amendments” from this version before including it in The Wanton Seed (EFDSS Publications).

Jon Boden sang The Constant Lovers as the 9 October 2010 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day.

Corncrow sang The Constant Lovers in 2010 on their EP Sweet Nightingale.

Bryony Griffith sang The Constant Lovers in 2011 on her and Will Hampson’s CD Lady Diamond. They learned it “from singarounds with additional lyrics from the singing of Martyn Wyndham-Read”.

Maz O’Connor sang Constant Lovers on her 2012 CD Upon a Stranger Shore.

Rosie Hood recorded Constant Lovers as a bonus track for the Kickstarter supporters of her 2017 RootBeat CD, The Beautiful & the Actual. Her version is from Mrs Phillips as collected by Alfred Williams [VWML AW/4/186] .

Banter sang The Forsaken Mermaid in 2021 on their Mrs Casey album Three. They noted:

A second one drawn from The Copper Family with a new tune by Nina [Zella]. Also known as The Constant (or Drowned) Lovers. Jim Copper only knew the first verse and the rest was reconstructed by them from other sources. A haunting old song about unrequited love and maritime myths. The sea has a strong draw and magic.

Mishra sang I Never Will Marry on their 2021 CD Reclaim. They noted:

Lyrics and melody based on a traditional song found in Alan Lomax’s Folk Songs of North America.

The Magpies sang I Never Will Marry on a 2021 download single and on their 2022 CD Undertow.

Lyrics

The Copperfamily sing The Forsaken Mermaid

As I was a-walking down by the sea-shore
Where the wind and the waves and the billows do roar,
There I heard a strange voice make a terrible sound.
’Twas the wind and the waves and the echoes all round.

Chorus (after each verse):
Crying, “O-oh my love has gone
He’s a youth I adore
He’s gone and I never shall see him no more.”

She’d a voice like a nightingale, skin like a dove
And the song that she sung it was all about love.
I asked her to marry me, marry me, please,
But the answer she gave, “My love’s drowned in the sea.”

I told her I’d gold and I’d silver beside
In a coach and six horses with me she could ride.
“No I never will marry nor yet make a wife;
I’ll stay constant and true all the time I’ve got life.”

She threw out her arms and she took a great leap
From the cliffs that were high to the billows so deep,
Crying, “The rocks of the ocean shall make me a bed
And the shrimps of the sea shall swim over my head.”

And now every night at six bells they appear
When the moon it is shining, the sky it is clear,
These two constant lovers with all their young charms
Rolling over and over in each other’s arms.

Ron Spicer sings Constant Lovers

As I was a-walking down by the sea shore
Where the wind and the waves and the billows do roar,
There I heard a strange voice make a terrible sound,
’Twas the wind and the waves and the echoes all around,

Chorus (after each verse):
Crying, “Oh-oh-oh, my love is gone,
He’s the youth I adore,
He’s gone and I never shall see him no more.”

She’s a voice like a nightingale, skin like a dove
And the song that she sang it was all about love.
I asked her to marry me, marry me please
But the answer she gave, “My love’s drowned in the sea.”

I told her I’d gold and I’d silver beside,
In a coach and six horses with me she could ride.
“No, I never shall marry, nor yet make a wife.
Constant and true-hearted all the time I have life.”

So she threw out her arms and she gave a great leap
From the cliffs that were high to the billows so deep,
Crying, “Rocks of the ocean shall make me a bed
And the shrimps of the sea shall swim over my head.”

And now every night at six bells they appear
When the moon it is shining and the sky it is clear,
These two constant lovers with all their young charms
Rolling over and over in each other’s arms.

Martyn Wyndham-Read sings The Constant Lovers

Now as I was a-walking down by the sea shore
Where the wind it did whistle and the waves they did roar,
There I heard a fair maid make a terrible sound
Like the wind and the waves that did echo around.

Chorus (after each verse):
Crying, “Oh-oh-oh, my love is gone, he’s the youth I adore,
He’s gone and I never shall see him no more.”

She’d a voice like a nightingale, skin like a dove,
And the song that she sang it was all about love.
When I asked her to marry me, marry me please,
And the answer she gave: “My love’s drowned in the seas.”

I said I had gold and I’d silver beside,
On a coach and six horses with me she could ride.
She said: “I’ll not marry nor yet prove a wife,
I’ll be constant and true all the days I have life.”

Then she flung her arms wide and she took a great leap
From the cliffs that were high to the billows so deep,
Crying, “The rocks of the ocean shall be my death bed
And the shrimps in the seas shall swim over my head.”

And now every night at six bells they appear
When the moon it is shining and the stars they appear,
Both two constant lovers in each other’s charms
Rolling over and over in each other’s arms.

Mary Lozier sings I Never Will Marry

One night as I wandered, down by the seashore,
The wind it did whistle and the waters did roar.
I heard a fair maiden make a pitiful sound,
It sounded so lonesome on the waters around.

“I never will marry, I’ll be no man’s wife,
I intend to live single all the days of my life.”

She plunged her fair body in the waters so deep,
She closed her blue eyes in the waters to sleep.
The sands of the ocean will be her death bed
While the fish of the waters swim over her head.

Waterson:Carthy sing The Forsaken Mermaid

As I was a walking down by the sea shore,
Where the wind and the waves and the billows did roar,
There I heard a strange voice make a sorrowful sound,
’Twas the wind and the waves and the echoes all round.

Chorus (after each verse):
Crying, “Oh, my lover’s gone,
He’s a youth I adore,
He’s gone and I never shall see him no more.”

She’d a voice like a nightingale, skin like a dove,
And the song that she sung it was all about love.
I asked her to marry me, marry me, please,
But the answer she gave, “My love’s drowned in the sea.”

I told her I’d gold and I’d silver beside,
In a coach and six horses with me she could ride.
“No I never will marry nor yet make a wife,
I’ll stay constant and true all the time I’ve got life,”

She threw out her arms and she took a great leap
From the cliffs that were high to the billows so deep,
Crying, “The rocks of the ocean shall make me a bed
And the shrimps of the sea shall swim over my head.”

And now every night at six bells they appear
When the moon it is shining, the sky it is clear,
These two constant lovers with all their young charms,
Rolling over and over in each other’s arms.

Gordon Hall sings The Constant Lovers

Legend gives us a happy ending to this lovely old song
I pray you pay attention, I shan’t keep you long.
When Phoebe leapt from the clifftops to the wild billows roar
There a bloody big bramble snarèd up in her drawers
And she cried o-o-o-oh, my love is gone
That sweet youth I adore
And I’m left a-swinging, by my calico drawers.

A young naval lieutenant, so salt and so true
Was patrolling inshore for King George’s Revenue
When he spied that young damsel through his open glass
He said: I knows that’s my Phoebe by the size of her —
Ah-ah-ah-ah, my lover’s saved
That sweet girl I adore
She’s been saved by the bramble and her calico drawers.

Well he lowered a boat and he rode for the shore
And he brought that fair damsel to safety once more
Straight away to the church, where they married in speed
Now in a cot by the seaside they live happy indeed
Crying o-o-o-oh, my lover’s saved
That sweet love I adore
She’s been saved by a lawyer, and her calico drawers.

And so now every morn when the sun shines so clear
Especially when tourists and trippers are near
This constant young couple earn a fortune in gold
By exhibiting the scars where the brambles took hold
Crying o-o-o-oh, my lover’s saved
We’ve got bright gold in store
And it all came through wearing those calico drawers.

Barry Dransfield sings Constant Lovers

As I was a-walking down by the sea shore
Where the wind and the waves and the billows do roar,
There I heard a strange voice make a terrible sound
Was the wind and the waves and the echos all around.

Chorus (after each verse):
Crying, “Oh-oh-oh, my love is gone, he’s the youth I adore,
He’s gone and I never shall see him no more.”

She’d a voice like a nightingale, skin like a dove,
And the song that she sang it was all about love.
I asked her to marry me, marry me please,
The answer she gave me, “My love’s drowned in the seas.”

I told her I’d gold and silver besides,
In a coach and six horses with me she could ride.
“I never will marry nor yet be a wife,
Constant and true-hearted as long as I have life.”

She threw out her arms and gave a great leap
From the cliffs that were high to the billows so deep,
Crying, “Rocks of the ocean shall make me a bed
And the shrimps of the sea shall swim over my head.”

And now every night at six bells they appear
When the moon it shines bright and the sky it is clear,
Those two constant lovers with all of their charms,
Rolling over and over in each other’s arms.

Bryony Griffith sings The Constant Lovers

As I was a-walking down by the sea shore
Where the wind it does whistle and the waves they do roar,
There I heard a fair maid make a terrible sound
Like the wind and the waves that echoed around.

Chorus (after each verse):
Crying, “Oh-oh-oh, my love is gone, he is the youth I adore,
He is gone and I never shall see him no more.”

She’d a voice like a nightingale, skin like a dove,
And the song that she sang it was all about love.
And when I asked her to marry me, marry me please
She said: “My own true love was drowned in the sea.”

Well I said I had gold and I’d silver beside,
In a coach and six horses with me she could ride.
But she said: “I’ll ne’er marry nor yet prove a wife.
I’ll be constant and true all the days I have life.”

Then she spread her arms wide and she took a great leap
From the cliffs so very up to the billows so deep,
Shouting, “The rocks of the ocean shall be my death bed
And the shrimps of the seas shall dance over my head.”

So now every night at six bells they appear
When the moon it is bright and the stars they are clear,
Lay two constant lovers with each other’s charms
Rolling over and over in each other’s arms.